To help jump start your creative engines, we thought we would present to you a compilation of inspiring quotes, some humorous, some profound, some instructive. Hopefully one or two of them will resonate with you, give you some food for thought and help you positively approach your blog.

The following list is divided by themes that we thought were pivotal to achieving success online. Enjoy.

On Blogging

“A well-executed blog campaign is not rocket science. It is, however, an act of love. That’s what gets in the way for some people. Love is scary stuff.” Hugh McLeod.

“Where the Internet is about availability of information, blogging is about making information creation available to anyone.” George Siemens.

“Blogs are whatever we make them. Defining ‘blog’ is a fool’s errand.” Michael Conniff.

On Genius and Creativity

“A moment’s insight is sometimes worth a life’s experience.” Thomas Fuller.

“Character is higher than intellect. A great soul will be strong to live as well as think.” Ralph Waldo Emerson.

“Everyone is a genius at least once a year. The real geniuses simply have their bright ideas closer together.” George C. Lichtenberg.

“Genius is more often found in a cracked pot than in a whole one.” E. B. White.

“It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.” Albert Einstein.

“My brain: it’s my second favorite organ.” Woody Allen.

“The difference between intelligence and education is this: intelligence will make you a good living.” Charles F. Kettering.

On Innovation

“To achieve great things, two things are needed: a plan, and not quite enough time.” Leonard Bernstein.

“The difficulty lies not in the new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones, which ramify, for those brought up as most of us have been, into every corner of our minds.” John Maynard Keynes.

On Computers and the Internet

“The World Wide Web is the only thing I know of whose shortened form — www — takes three times longer to say than what it’s short for.” Douglas Adams.

“Twenty years ago no one could have imagined the effects the Internet would have: entire relationships flourish, friendships prosper…there’s a vast new intimacy and accidental poetry, not to mention the weirdest porn. The entire human experience seems to unveil itself like the surface of a new planet.” J. G. Ballard.

“On the Internet, nobody can hear you fart.” Jonas Whitespore.

“The NET is a waste of time, and that’s exactly what’s right about it.” William Gibson.

“The computer allows you to make mistakes faster than any other invention, with the possible exception of handguns and tequila.” Mitch Ratcliffe.

“Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.” Pablo Picasso.

On Writing

“You get ideas from daydreaming. You get ideas from being bored. You get ideas all the time. The only difference between writers and other people is we notice when we’re doing it.” Neil Gaiman.

“When something can be read without effort, great effort has gone into its writing.” Enrique Jardiel Poncela.

“Inspiration is wonderful when it happens, but the writer must develop an approach for the rest of the time… The wait is simply too long.” Leonard Bernstein.

“About the most originality that any writer can hope to achieve honestly is to steal with good judgment.” Josh Billings.

“Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self.” Cyril Connoll.

“A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.” Thomas Mann.

“If you steal from one author, it’s plagiarism; if you steal from many, it’s research.” Wilson Mizner

“How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.” Henry David Thoreau.

On Risk Taking

“Challenge is the space between what is and what can be.” Joshua L. Hilley.

“Never measure the height of a mountain, until you have reached the top. Then you will see how low it was.” Dag Hammarskjold.

“Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.” Robert F. Kennedy.

“Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.” T.S. Eliot.

On Learning

“First, master your instrument. Then forget all that #*$&%& and play!” Charlie Parker.

“If you don’t crack the shell, you can’t eat the nut.” Persian Proverb.

“To be surprised, to wonder, is to begin to understand.” José Ortega y Gasset.

“When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge.” Albert Einstein.

“Education that consists in learning things and not the meaning of them is feeding upon the husks and not the corn.” Mark Twain.

On Marketing

“Life’s too short to sell things you don’t believe in.” Patrick Dixon.

“In Marketing there are those who satisfy needs and those who create wants.” Juan Carlos Castillo.

“We just ask ourselves: Is it different? Is it distinctive? Is it good?” Chris Albrecht, President, HBO.

“Brands are built around stories.” Bill Dauphinais, PricewaterhouseCoopers.

“Advertisements contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper.” Thomas Jefferson.

On Opportunity

“Opportunity is missed by most people because it’s dressed in overalls and looks like work.”

Thomas Edison.

“Learn to listen. Opportunity sometimes knocks very softly.” H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

“The Chinese use two brush strokes to write the word ‘crisis’. One brush stroke stands for danger; the other for opportunity. In a crisis, be aware of the danger-but recognize the opportunity” John F. Kennedy.

“Opportunity knocked. My doorman threw him out.” Adrienne Gusoff.

“Opportunity is like a bald-headed man with only a patch of hair right in front. You have to grab that hair, grasp the opportunity while it’s confronting you, else you’ll be grasping a slick bald head.” Booker T. Washington.

On Progress

“Look up and not down; look forward and not back; look out and not in; and lend a hand.” E.E. Hale.

“An original sentence, a step forward, is worth more than all the centuries.” Emerson.

“A fresh mind keeps the body fresh. Take in the ideas of the day, drain off those of yesterday.” Lytton.

On Success

“Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.” H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

“Don’t bother to just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself.” William Faulkner.

Do you have any inspiring words of wisdom or favourite quotes? Leave us a comment and share your inspirations!