Inspiring Quotes for Musicians and All Creative Thinkers

Here is a small sample of some of my favorite quotes.  These little word gems both inspire and challenge me as both an artist, musician and human being. 

"You miss 100 percent of the shots you never take."
—Wayne Gretzky

"We are what we repeatedly do; excellence, then, is not an act but a habit."
—Aristotle

"A wise man gets more use from his enemies than a fool from his friends."
—Baltasar Gracian (Spanish Baroque author)

"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the men of old; seek what they sought."
—Basho (master of the Haiku)

"People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing - that’s why we recommend it daily."
—Zig Ziglar

"Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self."
—Cyril Connolly

"Normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work and driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for - in order to get to the job you need to pay for the clothes and the car, and the house you leave vacant all day so you can afford to live in it."
—Ellen Goodman

"People cannot discover new lands until they have the courage to lose sight of the shore."
-André Gide

"What lies in our power to do, lies in our power not to do."
-Aristotle

"When the student is ready the teacher will appear."
-Buddhist Proverb

"Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves."
-Carl Jung

"He who asks is a fool for five minutes, but he who does not ask remains a fool forever."
- Chinese Proverb

"Inspiration is for amateurs. I just get to work."
-Chuck Close

"And when the journey is done right, without shortcuts and without ulterior motives, it is most successful."
- Sam Smith

"We should be taught not to wait for inspiration to start a thing. Action always generates inspiration. Inspiration seldom generates action."
-Frank Tibolt

"You must be the change you wish to see in the world."
-Gandhi

"Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new."
-Henry David Thoreau

"It is in self-limitation that a master first shows himself."
-Johann Goethe

"The 20 million who buy Britney Spears albums are not music fans they're popular culture fans."
-Unkown

"If we don't discipline ourselves, the world will do it for us."
-William Feather

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