What inspires? What sparks creation?

There are as many answers to this as there are ideas. Leading clients through the ideation process is one of the several services we provide at Dawn. Often we use quotes to spark a discussion. We seek out quotes where the writer skillfully uses words to express and illuminate an idea in a powerful or provocative way. You’ll find some of our favorites here, including ones that have the power to alter a mindset. If you’re looking for a favorite author or a particular subject, use our search function to find these quotes from the illuminating nuggets we’ve collected.

The optimist sees the rose and not its thorns; the pessimist stares at the thorns, oblivious of the rose.

– Kahlil Gibran

Be ready at any moment to sacrifice what you are for what you could become.

– Charles Dickens

Choice, not chance, determines your destiny.

– Aristotle

Mighty rivers can easily be leaped at their source.

– Publilius Syrus

He who lives in harmony with himself lives in harmony with the world.

– Marcus Aurelius

Don’t ever take a fence down until you know why it was put up.

– Robert Frost

Real generosity is doing something nice for someone who will never find out.

– Frank A. Clark

Life isn’t about making your day, it’s about making someone else’s.

– Sarah Marshall

Almost every wise saying has an opposite one, no less wise, to balance it.

– George Santayana

As long as you make an identity for yourself out of pain, you cannot be free of it.

– Eckhart Tolle

You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.

– Winston Churchill

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Life isn’t about making your day, it’s about making someone else’s.

– Sarah Marshall

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What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.

– Pericles

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Through judging, we separate. Through understanding, we grow.

— Doe Zantamata

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Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us, or we find it not.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Everything is either an opportunity to grow or an obstacle to keep you from growing. You get to choose.

– Wayne Dyer

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Always listen to experts. They’ll tell you what can’t be done, and why. Then do it.

– Robert A. Heinlein

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A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving.

– Lao Tzu

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The artist is nothing without the gift, but the gift is nothing without work.

– Émile Zola

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Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.

– Soren Kierkegaard

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