The post is developed in partnership with BetterHelp.
Many people turn to a motivational quote for inspiration when they feel like giving up. It’s hard to know what it is about the words of famous people—or anyone else, for that matter—that has such a lasting impact on the minds of the people who hear them.
There appears to be a combination of good wordsmithing, motivational psychology, and a certain degree of self in the appeal of the material. To be clear, motivational quotes resonate more strongly with those who find them inspirational than with those who don’t find them inspiring at all. Those who like inspirational quotes are drawn to them because of a subconscious process. In addition, the knowledge that someone else has faith in your ability to succeed can serve as a powerful motivator to work even harder.
Also, the words themselves have a lot of power. These truisms are often the result of careful thought distilled into a succinct phrase. In other words, they are small successes in rhetoric. However, it can also be boiled down to the fact that humans look to other humans for inspiration. Because of the simple fact that they are human, we are able to see ourselves in them. Because of the assumption that people in public positions must be accomplished, wise, or otherwise exceptional in order to have achieved those positions, words from recognized leaders in business, politics, and the arts may have more merit. Because of these ideas, the words of leaders like this can have a bigger impact.
What Can Psychologists Tell Us About Life?
Psychology is the scientific study of personality and behavior, and it only became a separate discipline of scientific study in the 1870s when it was recognized as such. The implications of psychological studies are more important and accepted today than they have ever been, and leading psychologists are always coming up new findings and ways to use psychology.
Fundamentally, psychology is beneficial to individuals in large part because it can explain why people behave in certain ways. When a psychologist has this kind of professional insight, he or she may assist people in improving their decision-making, stress management, and behavioral patterns by studying past behavior in order to better predict future conduct. All of these can help people learn how to live a more successful professional life, have healthier relationships, have more self-confidence, and have better communication skills overall. See for yourself, at BetterHelp.
Without further ado, let’s take a look at the following inspirational quotes from renowned psychologists who know a thing or two about how our feelings translate into our life experiences:
- “The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind.” — William James
- “Action may not always bring happiness, but there is no happiness without action.” – William James
- “The pendulum of the mind oscillates between sense and nonsense, not between right and wrong.” – Carl G. Jung
- “Happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue.” – Viktor Frankl
- “Life doesn’t make any sense without interdependence. We need each other, and the sooner we learn that, the better for us all.” – Erik Erikson
- “Once you start making the effort to ‘wake yourself up’—that is, be more mindful in your activities—you suddenly start appreciating life a lot more.” – Robert Biswas-Diener
- “We are what we are because we have been what we have been, and what is needed for solving the problems of human life and motives is not moral estimates but more knowledge.” – Sigmund Freud
- “If you want to be creative, stay in part a child, with the creativity and invention that characterizes children before they are deformed by adult society.” – Jean Piaget
- “If you deliberately plan on being less than you are capable of being, then I warn you that you’ll be unhappy for the rest of your life.” – Abraham Maslow
- “Everything can be taken from a man, but the last of the human freedoms: to choose one’s attitudes in any given set of circumstances.” – Viktor Frankl
- “Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.” – Carl G. Jung
- “Every criticism, judgment, diagnosis, and expression of anger is the tragic expression of an unmet need.” – Marshall Rosenberg
- “Vulnerability is not knowing victory of defeat, it’s understanding the necessity of both; it’s engaging. It’s being all in.” – Brene Brown
