Quotes about Inspiration

If a man is called to be a streetsweep-er, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great streetsweeper who did his job well.

It is only when men begin to worship that they begin to grow.

I conceive that the right way to write a story for boys is to write so that it will not only interest boys but strongly interest any man who has ever been a boy. That immensely enlarges the audience.

I've put my genius into my life; I've only put my talent into my works.

It is the function of art to renew our perception. What we are familiar with we cease to see. The writer shakes up the familiar scene, and, as if by magic, we see a new meaning in it.

As for my next book, I am going to hold myself from writing it till I have it impending in me: grown heavy in my mind like a ripe pear, pendant, gravid, asking to be cut or it will fall.

O may I join the choir invisible Of those immortal dead who live again...

The person who sees the difficulties so clearly that he does not discern the possibilities cannot inspire a vision in others.

Leaders must draw the best out of people, and friendship does that far better than prolonged argument or mere logic.

A natural leader by any measure, Paul became a great spiritual leader when his heart and mind were captured by Jesus Christ.

Unimaginable perhaps; but the unimaginable is there to be imagined.

True greatness, true leadership, is achieved not by reducing men to one's service but in giving oneself in selfless service to them.