These lofty quotes will inspire you. Lofty, of imposing height, or (of wool and other textiles) thick and resilient.
A collection of motivating, happy, and encouraging lofty quotes, lofty sayings, and lofty proverbs.
Best Lofty Quotes
- “Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so you shall become. Your vision is the promise of what you shall one day be; your ideal is the prophecy of what you shall at last unveil.” ~ James Lane Allen
- “Seek the lofty by reading, hearing and seeing great work at some moment every day.” ~ Thornton Wilder
- “Men of lofty genius when they are doing the least work are most active.” ~ Leonardo da Vinci
- “Do you wish to be great? Then begin by being. Do you desire to construct a vast and lofty fabric? Think first about the foundations of humility. The higher your structure is to be, the deeper must be its foundation.” ~ Saint Augustine
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“Be strong in body, clean in mind, lofty in ideals.” ~ James Naismith
- “Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so shall you become.” ~ John Ruskin , Lofty quotes dream
- “Great men are like eagles, and build their nest on some lofty solitude.” ~ Arthur Schopenhauer
- “Every daring attempt to make a great change in existing conditions, every lofty vision of new possibilities for the human race, has been labeled Utopian.” ~ Emma Goldman
- “Fame is the inheritance not of the dead, but of the living. It is we who look back with lofty pride to the great names of antiquity.” ~ William Hazlitt
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“If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.” ~ Henry David Thoreau
- “Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius.” ~ Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
- “To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.” ~ Anatole France
- “You may have a beautiful philosophy, you may have lofty ideals, but what you will do with your philosophy and ideals is dependent entirely upon what you are inside yourself” ~ Ervin Seale
- “Do you wish to be great? Then begin by being little. Do you desire to construct a vast and lofty fabric? Think first about the foundations of humility. The higher your structure is to be, the deeper must be its foundation. Modest humility is beauty’s crown.” ~ Saint Augustine
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“Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius.” ~ Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
- “Every great dream begins with a dreamer.” ~ Harriet Tubman
- “I devote myself to what I love the most, and for this very reason I hesitate to designate it with lofty words: I do not want to risk believing that it is a sublime compulsion, a law, which I obey: I love what I love the most too much to wish to appear to it as one compelled.” ~ Friedrich Nietzsche
- “Lofty souls are always inclined to make a virtue of misfortune.” ~ Honore de Balzac
- “Being the beloved is our identity, the core of our existence. It is not merely a lofty thought, an inspiring idea, or one name among many. It is the name by which God knows us and the way He relates to us” ~ Brennan Manning
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“The highest and most lofty trees have the most reason to dread the thunder.” ~ Charles Rollin
- “In the polling booth narrow self interest wins out over lofty principles.” ~ James Cook
- “Our words must be judged by our deeds; and in striving for a lofty ideal we must use practical methods; and if we cannot attain all at one leap, we must advance towards it step by step, reasonably content so long as we do actually make some progress in the right direction.” ~ Theodore Roosevelt
- “Cows in India occupy the same position in society as women did in England before they got the vote. Woman was revered but not encouraged. Her life was one long obstacle race owing to the anxiety of man to put pedestals at her feet. While she was falling over the pedestals she was soothingly told that she must occupy a Place Apart – and indeed, so far Apart did her place prove to be that it was practically out of earshot. The cow in India finds her position equally lofty and tiresome. You practically never see a happy cow in India.” ~ Stella Benson
- “Holiness is not some lofty experience, unattainable except to those who can leap the stars, but it is rather a lowly experience, which lowly people in the lowly walks of life can share with Jesus, by letting His mind be in them.” ~ Samuel Logan Brengle
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“Recall that whatever lofty things you might accomplish today, you will do them only because you first ate something that grew out of the dirt.” ~ Barbara Kingsolver
- “He who prohibited the making of a graven image would never himself have made an image in the likeness of holy things [i.e., by creating an image of them here on earth]. Nor is there at all any composite thing or creature endowed with sensation [made by God here on earth] like those in heaven. But the face is a symbol of the rational soul, the wings are the lofty ministers and energies of powers right and left, and the voice is delightful glory in endless contemplation.” ~ Clement of Alexandria
- “Nearly all the Gauls are of a lofty stature, white, and of ruddy complexion; terrible from the sternness of their eyes, very quarrelsome, and of great pride and insolence. A whole troop of foreigners would not be able to withstand a single Gaul if he called his wife to his assistance, who is usually very strong, and with blue eyes” ~ Ammianus Marcellinus
- “But I cannot recite, even thus rudely, laws of the intellect, without remembering that lofty and sequestered class of men who have been its prophets and oracles, the high-priesthood of the pure reason, the Trismegisti, the expounders of the principles of thought from age to age.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
- “Humor implies a sure conception of the beautiful, the majestic and he true, by whose light it surveys and shape s their opposites. It is a humane influence, softening with mirth the ragged inequities of existence, prompting tolerant views of life, bridging over the space which separates the lofty from the lowly, the great from the humble.” ~ Edwin Percy Whipple
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“When greatness descends from its lofty pedestal, it assumes human dimensions.” ~ Louise Colet
- “There are people so blind and self-absorbed in all matters that they always believe that, whatever they desire or think, they can impose their will on other people. Whatever bad reason they use to persuade others, these self-centered people are so caught up in the process that it seems to them all they have to do is to speak their wishes in a lofty and commanding tone of voice in order to convince everybody.” ~ Madeleine de Souvre, marquise de Sable
- “Like all living things, love, too, struggles against hardship, and in the process sheds its fatuous skin to expose one composed of more than just a storm of emotion-one of loyalty and divine friendship. And though it may be temporarily blinded by adversity, it never gives in or up, holding tight to lofty ideals that transcend this earth and time- while its counterfeit simply concludes it was mistaken and quickly runs off to find the next real thing.” ~ Richard Paul Evans
- “Mountains are cathedrals: grand and pure, the houses of my religion. I go to them as humans go to worship…From their lofty summits, I view my past, dream of the future, and with unusual acuity I am allowed to experience the present moment. My strength renewed, my vision cleared, in the mountains I celebrate creation. On each journey I am reborn.” ~ Anatoli Boukreev
- “Morality was not relative, they claimed, nor even existing solely in the realm of human condition. No, they proclaimed morality was an imperative of all life, a natural law that was neither the brutal acts of beasts nor the lofty ambitions of humanity, but something other, something unassailable” ~ Steven Erikson
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“Aphorisms should be peaks – and those who are addressed, tall and lofty. The air thin and pure, danger near, and the spirit full of gay sarcasm: these go well together.” ~ Friedrich Nietzsche
- “To do justice to modern technology’s rigid linear structure, to the lofty gridwork of cranes and bridges, to the dynamism of machines operating at one thousand horsepower – only photography is capable of that. What those who are attached to the painterly style regard as photography’s defect, the mechanical reproduction of form – is just what makes it superior to all other means of expression.” ~ Albert Renger-Patzsch
- “That’s what they want: two women. Fellas, I think that’s a bit lofty. Because, come on, think about it – if you can’t satisfy that one woman, why do you want to piss off another one? Why have two angry women in the bed with you at the same time? And think about it – you know how much you hate to talk after sex, imagine having two women just nagging you to death.” ~ Wanda Sykes
- “Your novels show only the tiniest fraction of detective work, the brilliant crime, the tantalizing clues, the dramatic chase, the final battle atop a lofty peak with ocean waves crashing down below, and then… justice served! If they wrote about the real world, four-fifths of the story would consist of the hero sitting in a library for months and following false leads.” ~ Stefan Petrucha
- “I want to burn with the spirit of the times. I want all servants of the stage to recognize their lofty destiny. I am disturbed at my comrades’ failure to rise above narrow caste interests which are alien to the interests of society at large. Yes, the theatre can play an enormous part in the transformation of the whole of existence.” ~ Vsevolod Meyerhold
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“The lark that shuns on lofty boughs to build, Her humble nest, lies silent in the field.” ~ Edmund Waller
- “Photography today is accomplishing a lofty mission in which every German should collaborate by buying a camera. The German people is ahead of every other in the technical domain and, thanks to its exceptional qualities, the small camera has conquered the whole world… Much is at stake here from the point of view of popular consumer goods and, furthermore, photography has a particularly important political role to play. (Addressing the Berlin Photography Fair, 1933)” ~ Joseph Goebbels
- “I do not try, Lord, to attain Your lofty heights, because my understanding is in no way equal to it. But I do desire to understand Your truth a little, that truth that my heart believes and loves. I do not seek to understand that I may believe; but I believe so that I may understand. For I believe this also, that unless I believe, I shall not understand.” ~ Anselm of Canterbury
- “Friedrich Engels once said: “Bourgeois society stands at the crossroads, either transition to socialism or regression into barbarism.” What does “regression into barbarism” mean to our lofty European civilization? Until now, we have all probably read and repeated these words thoughtlessly, without suspecting their fearsome seriousness. A look around us at this moment shows what the regression of bourgeois society into barbarism means. This world war is a regression into barbarism. The triumph of imperialism leads to the annihilation of civilization.” ~ Rosa Luxemburg
- “Dare to conceive of greater things for yourself. Dare to see yourself as strong, confident, successful, and possessed of the patience and stability to keep on moving in the direction of your dreams.”Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream you shall become.
Your vision is the promise of what you shall one day be.
Your idea is the prophecy of what you shall at last unveil.”” ~ Eric Butterworth - “Students often have such a lofty idea of what a poem is, and I want them to realize that their own lives are where the poetry comes from. The most important things are to respect the language; to know the classical rules, even if only to break them; and to be prepared to edit, to revise, to shape.” ~ Yusef Komunyakaa
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“There is no self-delusion more fatal than that which makes the conscience dreamy with the anodyne of lofty sentiments, while the life is groveling and sensual” ~ James Russell Lowell
- “Let man then contemplate nature in full and lofty majesty, and turn his eyes away from the mean objects which surround him. Let him look at the dazzling light hung aloft as an eternal lamp to lighten the universe; let him behold the earth, a mere dot compared with the vast circuit which that orb describes, and stand amazed to find that the vast circuit itself is but a very fine point compared with the orbit traced by the starts as they roll their course on high.” ~ Blaise Pascal
- “The constant exercise of our faith by lofty thinking, prayer, devotion, and acts of righteousness is just as essential to spiritual health as physical exercise is to the health of the body. Like all priceless things, faith, if lost, is hard to regain. Eternal vigilance is the price of our faith. In order to retain our faith we must keep ourselves in tune with our Heavenly Father by living in accordance with the principles and ordinances of the gospel.” ~ O. Leslie Stone
- “I won a noble fame;
But with a sudden frown,
The people snatched my crown,
And, in the mire, trod down
My lofty name.” ~ Theodore Tilton -
“Profan’d the God-given strength, and marr’d the lofty line.” ~ Walter Scott
- “I now bid farewell to the country of my birth – of my passions – of my death; a country whose misfortunes have invoked my sympathies – whose factions I sought to quell – whose intelligence I prompted to a lofty aim – whose freedom has been my fatal dream.” ~ Thomas Francis Meagher
- “An art of expression should begin with childhood, and the lucid use of one’s mother tongue should be typical of that art.
The sense of reality should be strengthened from the beginning, yet by no means at the cost of those lofty illusions we call patriotism, veneration, love.” ~ Louis Sullivan - “Why do we so mindlessly abuse our planet, our only home? The answer to that lies in each of us. Therefore, we will strive to bring about understanding that we are–each one of us–responsible for more than just ourselves, our family, our football team, our country, or our own kind; that there is more to life than just these things. That each one of us must also bring the natural world back into its proper place in our lives, and realize that doing so is not some lofty ideal but a vital part of our personal survival.” ~ Lawrence Anthony
- “Make sure that your ambitions are really lofty – not just seem to be. Sometimes instead of engaging in those so called “mountaintop employments of great value,” we spend our time in digging a pit and then falling therein, so that our temporary joy may become a permanent and bitter loss.” ~ Sterling W Sill
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“True happiness is not made in getting something. True happiness is becoming something. This can be done by being committed to lofty goals. We cannot become something without commitment.” ~ Marvin J. Ashton
- “No serious sociologist any longer believes that the voice of the people expresses any divine or specially wise and lofty idea. The voice of the people expresses the mind of the people, and that mind is made up for it by the group leaders in whom it believes and by those persons who understand the manipulation of public opinion. It is composed of inherited prejudices and symbols and clichés and verbal formulas supplied to them by the leaders.” ~ Edward Bernays , Lofty quotes wiseman
- “It was not that the jagged precipices were lofty, that the encircling woods were the dimmest shade, or that the waters were profoundly deep; but that over all, rocks, wood, and water, brooded the spirit of repose, and the silent energy of nature stirred the soul to its inmost depths.” ~ Thomas Cole
- “What you admire in others will develop in yourself. Therefore, to love the ordinary in any one is to become ordinary, while to love the noble and the lofty in all minds is to grow into the likeness of that which is noble and lofty.” ~ Christian D. Larson
- “To a naturalist nothing is indifferent; the humble moss that creeps upon the stone is equally interesting as the lofty pine which so beautifully adorns the valley or the mountain: but to a naturalist who is reading in the face of the rocks the annals of a former world, the mossy covering which obstructs his view, and renders indistinguishable the different species of stone, is no less than a serious subject of regret.” ~ James Hutton
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“He is a fool who looks at the fruit of lofty trees, but does not measure their height.” ~ Quintus Curtius Rufus
- “It is a juvenile notion that a society needs a lofty purpose and a shining vision to achieve much. Both in the market place and on the battlefield men who set their hearts on toys have often displayed unequal initiative and drive. And one must be ignorant of the creative process to look for a close correspondence between motive and achievement in the world of thought and imagination.” ~ Eric Hoffer
- “Let the Bible be the Bible. It’s not about science. It’s not accurate history. It is a grab bag of religious fantasies written by many authors. Some of its myths, like the Star of Bethlehem, are very beautiful. Others are dull and ugly. Some express lofty ideals, such as the parables of Jesus. Others are morally disgusting.” ~ Martin Gardner
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“Mountains appear more lofty the nearer they are approached, but great men resemble them not in this particular.” ~ Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington
- “The aim of poetry, it appears, is to fill the mind with lofty thoughts–not to give it joy, but to give it a grand and somewhat gaudy sense of virtue. The essay is a weapon against the degenerate tendencies of the age. The novel, properly conceived, is a means of uplifting the spirit; its aim is to inspire, not merely to satisfy the low curiosity of man in man.” ~ H. L. Mencken
- “A lofty mind always thinks nobly, it easily creates vivid, agreeable, and natural fancies, places them in their best light, clothes them with all appropriate adornments, studies others’ tastes, and clears away from its own thoughts all that is useless and disagreeable.” ~ Francois de La Rochefoucauld
