160 Short Meaningful Quotes That Speak Volumes in Few Words
Sometimes the smallest quotes leave the biggest impact, so we have put together a list of all the best short meaningful quotes to inspire reflection and emotion.
And if you’re looking for quick and thoughtful sayings for Instagram, we also have you covered.
Now go ahead and browse through to find your favorite.
Short Meaningful Quotes for Instagram

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.” — Oscar Wilde
“Happiness depends upon ourselves.” — Aristotle
“Less is more.” — Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
“Dream big. Start small.” — Simon Sinek
“You are enough.”
“Change is the only constant.” — Heraclitus
“Do what you can, with what you have.” — Theodore Roosevelt
“This too shall pass.”
“Progress, not perfection.”
“Stay hungry. Stay foolish.” — Steve Jobs
“Act, don’t react.”
“Kindness costs nothing.”
“Live and let live.”
“What you seek is seeking you.” — Rumi
“Let go or be dragged.” — Zen Proverb
“Courage is grace under pressure.” — Ernest Hemingway
“The best way out is always through.” — Robert Frost
“Every moment matters.”
“Rise by lifting others.” — Robert Ingersoll
“Believe you can and you’re halfway there.” — Theodore Roosevelt
“Wherever you go, go with all your heart.” — Confucius
“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” — Leonardo da Vinci
“To live is the rarest thing in the world.” — Oscar Wilde
“Every day is a second chance.”
“The only way out is through.” — Robert Frost
“What we think, we become.” — Buddha
“Peace begins with a smile.” — Mother Teresa
“You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” — Wayne Gretzky
“Life is short, and it is up to you to make it sweet.” — Sarah Louise Delany
“The journey is the reward.” — Steve Jobs
“In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.” — Albert Einstein
“Turn your wounds into wisdom.” — Oprah Winfrey
“Light tomorrow with today.” — Elizabeth Barrett Browning
“All limitations are self-imposed.” — Oliver Wendell Holmes
“The best revenge is massive success.” — Frank Sinatra
“Don’t count the days, make the days count.” — Muhammad Ali
“If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else.” — Booker T. Washington
“Be the change you wish to see in the world.” — Mahatma Gandhi
“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Keep your face always toward the sunshine—and shadows will fall behind you.” — Walt Whitman
“Success is not final, failure is not fatal.” — Winston Churchill
“The only limit to our realization of tomorrow is our doubts of today.” — Franklin D. Roosevelt
“To love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides.” — David Viscott
“Doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will.” — Suzy Kassem
“The mind is everything. What you think you become.” — Buddha
“You must do the things you think you cannot do.” — Eleanor Roosevelt
“Stars can’t shine without darkness.”
“Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.” — John Lennon
“What you do today can improve all your tomorrows.” — Ralph Marston
“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” — Lao Tzu
“Don’t watch the clock; do what it does. Keep going.” — Sam Levenson
“If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door.” — Milton Berle
“The best dreams happen when you’re awake.” — Cherie Gilderbloom
“Nothing will work unless you do.” — Maya Angelou
“You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.” — C.S. Lewis
“Difficult roads often lead to beautiful destinations.”
“The greatest wealth is to live content with little.” — Plato
“Fall seven times, stand up eight.” — Japanese Proverb
“The best way to predict the future is to create it.” — Peter Drucker
“Joy is not in things; it is in us.” — Richard Wagner
“The only journey is the one within.” — Rainer Maria Rilke
“Action is the foundational key to all success.” — Pablo Picasso
“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.” — Anaïs Nin
“We are what we repeatedly do.” — Aristotle
“To handle yourself, use your head; to handle others, use your heart.” — Eleanor Roosevelt
“Gratitude turns what we have into enough.” — Aesop
“Do small things with great love.” — Mother Teresa
“The quieter you become, the more you can hear.” — Ram Dass
“Don’t let yesterday take up too much of today.” — Will Rogers
“Success is a journey, not a destination.” — Ben Sweetland
“Every accomplishment starts with the decision to try.” — John F. Kennedy
“You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.” — Jon Kabat-Zinn
“Be fearless in the pursuit of what sets your soul on fire.” — Jennifer Lee
“The best view comes after the hardest climb.”
“It always seems impossible until it’s done.” — Nelson Mandela
“Let your faith be bigger than your fear.”
“Great things never came from comfort zones.”
“Everything you can imagine is real.” — Pablo Picasso
“Your life does not get better by chance, it gets better by change.” — Jim Rohn
“Dwell on the beauty of life.” — Marcus Aurelius
“You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.” — Mae West
“Do what you love, love what you do.” — Ray Bradbury
“Don’t be afraid to give up the good to go for the great.” — John D. Rockefeller
“The best way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.” — Walt Disney
“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.” — Helen Keller
“The purpose of our lives is to be happy.” — Dalai Lama
“Be the reason someone smiles today.”
“If you want to be happy, be.” — Leo Tolstoy
“Difficulties in life are intended to make us better, not bitter.” — Dan Reeves
“What you do makes a difference.” — Jane Goodall
“Success is loving life and daring to live it.” — Maya Angelou
“Sometimes you win, sometimes you learn.” — John C. Maxwell
“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” — Franklin D. Roosevelt
“Live life to the fullest.” — Robert Louis Stevenson
“Keep going. Everything you need will come to you.”
“There is no substitute for hard work.” — Thomas Edison
“Nothing is impossible. The word itself says ‘I’m possible!'” — Audrey Hepburn
“The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.” — Nelson Mandela
“Don’t dream your life, live your dream.”
“You become what you believe.” — Oprah Winfrey
“Be so good they can’t ignore you.” — Steve Martin
“The only way to do great work is to love what you do.” — Steve Jobs
“Success is not in what you have, but who you are.” — Bo Bennett
“A goal without a plan is just a wish.” — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
“Let your smile change the world.”
“The harder you work for something, the greater you’ll feel when you achieve it.”
“Don’t let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.” — John Wooden
“Opportunities don’t happen, you create them.” — Chris Grosser
“Your only limit is your mind.”
“If you’re going through hell, keep going.” — Winston Churchill
“The best preparation for tomorrow is doing your best today.” — H. Jackson Brown Jr.
“You are the artist of your own life.”
“It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.” — Confucius
“Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.” — Albert Einstein
“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” — Eleanor Roosevelt
“Don’t count the days, make the days count.” — Muhammad Ali
“Doubt is a killer. You just have to know who you are and what you stand for.” — Jennifer Lopez
“Don’t wait. The time will never be just right.” — Napoleon Hill
“You can if you think you can.” — George Reeves
“Make each day your masterpiece.” — John Wooden
“You cannot find peace by avoiding life.” — Virginia Woolf
“The strongest principle of growth lies in the human choice.” — George Eliot
“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.” — Oscar Wilde
“That it will never come again is what makes life so sweet.” — Emily Dickinson
“It is never too late to be what you might have been.” — George Eliot
“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.” — Haruki Murakami
“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” — William Shakespeare
“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” — Plato
“Unable are the loved to die for love is immortality.” — Emily Dickinson
“Let me live, love, and say it well in good sentences.” — Sylvia Plath
“Don’t let your happiness depend on something you may lose.” — C.S. Lewis
“We are all broken, that’s how the light gets in.” — Ernest Hemingway
“Appreciation is a wonderful thing. It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.” — Voltaire
“Life is tough my darling, but so are you.” — Stephanie Bennett Henry
“Self-awareness and self-love matter. Who we are is how we lead.” — Brené Brown
“Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.” — Stephen King
“Where there is love there is life.” — Mahatma Gandhi
“Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.” — Mahatma Gandhi
“An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.” — Mahatma Gandhi
“It is never too late to be wise.” — Daniel Defoe
“What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.” — Plutarch
“The best way to cheer yourself is to try to cheer someone else up.” — Mark Twain
“Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.” — William James
“Hope is the thing with feathers.” — Emily Dickinson
“The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts.” — Marcus Aurelius
“Be faithful to that which exists within yourself.” — André Gide
“The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing.” — Henry Ford
“He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.” — Friedrich Nietzsche
“Joy is not in things; it is in us.” — Richard Wagner
“The greatest pleasure of life is love.” — Euripides
“Whatever you are, be a good one.” — Abraham Lincoln
“To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.” — Oscar Wilde
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” — Edmund Burke
“You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” — Mahatma Gandhi
“Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.” — Dalai Lama
“Not all those who wander are lost.” — J.R.R. Tolkien
“We do not remember days, we remember moments.” — Cesare Pavese
“The most wasted of all days is one without laughter.” — Nicolas Chamfort
“Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.” — George Bernard Shaw
Short Meaningful Sayings
“Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.” — Dalai Lama
“The only way to do great work is to love what you do.” — Steve Jobs
“The best way to predict your future is to create it.” — Peter Drucker
“Don’t watch the clock; do what it does. Keep going.” — Sam Levenson
“Believe you can and you’re halfway there.” — Theodore Roosevelt
“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” — Eleanor Roosevelt
“Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.” — William James
“Hope is the thing with feathers.” — Emily Dickinson
“The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts.” — Marcus Aurelius
“Be faithful to that which exists within yourself.” — André Gide
“The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing.” — Henry Ford
“He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.” — Friedrich Nietzsche
“Joy is not in things; it is in us.” — Richard Wagner
“The greatest pleasure of life is love.” — Euripides
“Whatever you are, be a good one.” — Abraham Lincoln
“To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.” — Oscar Wilde
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” — Edmund Burke
“Not all those who wander are lost.” — J.R.R. Tolkien
“We do not remember days, we remember moments.” — Cesare Pavese
“The most wasted of all days is one without laughter.” — Nicolas Chamfort