130 Graduation Quotes to Inspire and Motivate the Class of 2024
10 Of History's Most Misinterpreted Quotes
It's not uncommon for famous phrases to be slightly misquoted, but often these mistakes don't really change the sense of the saying. There isn't a huge difference, for instance, between "Houston, we have a problem" and the words that were actually said aboard Apollo 13: "Houston, we've had a problem."
But there are some quotes that have been entirely misinterpreted, sometimes even being used to express the exact opposite of their intended meaning. Below are 10 popular quotes that have suffered such a fate.
Nowadays, telling someone that to "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" means they should work hard to achieve success without help. Although often intended to be motivational, the words can sound insensitive to people who are trapped by circumstances beyond their control. That insensitivity is actually baked into the phrase itself (when used in this way!) because pulling yourself up by your bootstraps is physically impossible—which is exactly what this idiom originally meant.
The phrase can be traced back to 1834, when Nimrod Murphree claimed to have invented perpetual motion. A writer for The Woodstock Mercury, and Windsor County Advertiser called out this blatant lie, sarcastically commenting, "Probably Mr. Murphree has succeeded in handing himself over the Cumberland river, or a barn yard fence, by the straps of his boots."
The poet Robert Frost. / Library of Congress/GettyImages
The last lines of Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken" (1915) are often understood as a celebration of striking out on your own, rather than simply following in the footsteps of others. But the rest of the poem muddies this interpretation, with both roads being described as essentially the same. It didn't really matter which path the person in the poem chose, but they tell themselves the decision held weight. "The poem isn't a salute to can-do individualism," writes David Orr, Professor of Poetry at Rutgers University, "it's a commentary on the self-deception we practice when constructing the story of our own lives."
This seemingly rebellious phrase can often be found printed on posters alongside pictures of famous women disrupters, such as Rosa Parks. Although sometimes misattributed to Marilyn Monroe, the words actually come from a 1976 journal article about Puritan women written by historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich [PDF].
Out of context, the quote certainly seems to be an encouragement for women to misbehave, but in Ulrich's article, the rest of the sentence reads, "against Antinomians and witches, these pious matrons have had little chance at all." Essentially, Ulrich is saying that well-behaved women are often forgotten by history, but that their stories deserve to be told, too.
The philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre. / brandstaetter images/GettyImages
This quotation from philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre's 1944 hell-set play No Exit may seem like a rallying call for misanthropes, but it wasn't intended to be as stark as it sounds. In 1964, Sartre commented on the misunderstanding, saying that he didn't mean that "relations with other people are always poisoned, that they are invariably hellish relations." The play is about other people's judgments of us impacting our sense of self, but that's only hellish, in Sartre's words, "if relations with someone else are twisted, vitiated."
The phrase one bad apple is often used to describe a single outlying bad person in a group, but this is a shortened—and consequently distorted—version of the saying. The full phrase is one bad apple spoils the barrel/bunch, meaning that the one bad person infects those around them in the same way as a piece of spoiled fruit causes nearby fruits to begin rotting.
A version of this proverb crops up as early as the 14th century. In "The Cook's Tale" from Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, apprentice chef Perkyn is fired because it's feared his debauched behavior will spread to the other workers: "Wel bet is roten appul out of hoord / Than that it rotie al the remenaunt" ("Well better is a rotten apple out of the store / Than that it rot all the remnant").
The playwright William Shakespeare. / Culture Club/GettyImages
Many modern ears have heard the word wherefore at the start of Juliet's famous speech in William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet and assumed that it's the early modern English version of where. But wherefore actually means "why." Juliet isn't wondering where her beloved is, but why he has to be called Romeo as it's their names that are keeping them apart. This is clarified by her very next line: "Deny thy father and refuse thy name."
Another commonly misinterpreted quote from Shakespeare comes from Richard III. The play opens with Richard, who isn't yet king, declaring, "Now is the winter of our discontent." This line is often used to describe trying times, but the full sentence is about the end of political turbulence: "Now is the winter of our discontent / Made glorious summer by this son of York." The use of winter here signifies an ending (in addition to evoking bleak weather), meaning that Richard's brother, now King Edward IV, has ended their family's discontentment by gaining the English throne (thus bringing about sunnier/happier days).
Money itself is not evil. / George Marks/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
This quotation from the Bible is often used to argue that money is inherently evil, but three important words have been axed from the start of the phrase, which in full is the love of money is the root of all evil (Timothy 6:10). It's not money itself that's the problem, but rather the desire for that sweet, sweet moolah that can lead to evil behavior.
This proverb—which provided The Rolling Stones band and Rolling Stone magazine with their names, as well as inspiring one of Bob Dylan's best-known songs—is commonly believed to be an ode to rootless and free-spirited lifestyles. But for hundreds of years it had the exact opposite meaning, with the moss signifying stability and success.
The phrase was popularized during the Renaissance by Erasmus's Adagia, which includes the proverb, Lapis obuolutus non obducitur musco ("The rowling ston neuer gathereth Mosse"). Erasmus doesn't provide an explanation, but John Ray's 18th-century collection of proverbs likens the stony saying to a phrase from Quintilian, a 1st-century Roman educator: "A plant often removed cannot thrive."
The writer Rudyard Kipling. / Edward Gooch Collection/GettyImages
The opening line from Rudyard Kipling's 1889 poem "The Ballad of East and West" is sometimes used to describe two cultures or ideologies being incompatible and has been held up as proof of Kipling's racism. The writer's personal views on race aside, the rest of the verse actually argues the opposite, declaring that people from different cultures can happily meet on equal terms: "But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth, / When two strong men stand face to face, though they come from the ends of the earth!"
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60 Comfort Zone Quotes To Inspire You To Push Past Fear And Embrace Change
It can be scary to get out of your comfort zone, but there's a reason people say it's important—it opens you up to new experiences and encourages personal growth. It doesn't mean you have to jump out of a plane or go scuba diving (unless you want to). You can start small by asking a new co-worker to lunch, trying a new food or going to that intimidating fitness class. If you need a little help, comfort zone quotes can nudge you in the right direction.
And remember that you're not alone—everyone is learning how to be more confident every day. Because of this, you might want to try doing new things with someone else, like a friend or a partner. Add some confidence quotes to your daily reads, then join that recreational sports league or take those dance classes with friends. And to help you take that leap of faith, check out these quotes that will have you stepping out of your comfort zone in no time.
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Step outside of your comfort zone quotes
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1. "Life begins at the end of your comfort zone." —Neale Donald Walsch
2. "Coming out of your comfort zone is tough in the beginning, chaotic in the middle and awesome in the end, because in the end, it shows you a whole new world!" —Manoj Arora
3. "Sometimes, it is good to be in uncomfortable situations because it is in finding our way out of such difficulties that we learn valuable lessons." —Idowu Koyenikan
4. "You have to get out of your comfort zone in order to grow." —Octavia Spencer
5. "Somebody once said, 'Everything you want in the world is just right outside your comfort zone.'" —Jennifer Aniston
6. "Fear and anxiety many times indicates that we are moving in a positive direction, out of the safe confines of our comfort zone, and in the direction of our true purpose." —Charles F. Glassman
7. "Before anything great is really achieved, your comfort zone must be disturbed." —Ray Lewis
8. "Life will only change when you become more committed to your dreams than you are to your comfort zone." —Billy Cox
9. "Don't be afraid to expand yourself, to step out of your comfort zone. That's where the joy and the adventure lie." —Herbie Hancock
10. "I don't want to stay in my comfort zone. I want to take risks and keep myself scared." —Michael Fassbender
11. "As you move outside of your comfort zone, what was once the unknown and frightening becomes your new normal." —Robin S. Sharma
12. "The comfort zone is always the most desirable place to be. But in settling for comfort, there is a price to pay, and it comes in the death of ambition, of hope, of youth and the death of self." —Simon Barnes
13. "It's only after you've stepped outside your comfort zone that you begin to change, grow and transform." —Roy T. Bennett
14. "I'd hate to feel in a comfort zone while I was working. That's not the way I like to do things. You want to be pressurized and you want to be challenged every day." —Daniel Craig
15. "Stretch your comfort zone just a bit today. Then tomorrow. Before you know it, you'll look up in awe at how far you've come!" —Josh Hinds
16. "If you put yourself in a position where you have to stretch outside your comfort zone, then you are forced to expand your consciousness." —Les Brown
17. "The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short, but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark." —Michelangelo
18. "I wonder all of the things we miss out on, all the wonder, all the blessings, when we stay in our comfort zones. When we stay safe. When we don't take that chance that could change everything." —Ashley Hetherington
If public speaking is way out of your comfort zone, you're not alone. Spend some time learning how to be a better public speaker and overcome your biggest fears of standing up in front of a crowd.
Quotes on trying something new
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19. "You miss 100% of the shots you don't take." —Wayne Gretzky
20. "Stop dreaming about your bucket list and start living it." —Annette White
21. "Do one thing every day that scares you." —Eleanor Roosevelt
22. "Never let the fear of striking out hold you back." —Babe Ruth
23. "Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow." —Ronald Osborn
24. "What would life be if we hadn't courage to attempt anything?" —Vincent Van Gogh
25. "You never know what you can do until you try, and very few try unless they have to." —C.S. Lewis
26. "Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go." —T.S. Eliot
27. "You can only grow if you're willing to feel awkward and uncomfortable when you try something new." —Brian Tracy
28. "Go, and make interesting mistakes, make amazing mistakes, make glorious and fantastic mistakes. Break rules. Leave the world more interesting for your being here." —Neil Gaiman
29. "There's no timeframe on trying new things. And we shouldn't limit ourselves by thinking there is." —Rita Wilson
30. "The hallmark of successful people is that they are always stretching themselves to learn new things." —Carol S. Dweck
31. "You will enrich your life immeasurably if you approach it with a sense of wonder and discovery, and always challenge yourself to try new things." —Nate Berkus
32. "You can learn new things at any time in your life if you're willing to be a beginner. If you actually learn to like being a beginner, the whole world opens up to you." —Barbara Sher
33. "Do not wait until the conditions are perfect to begin. Beginning makes the conditions perfect." —Alan Cohen
34. "The mind is just like a muscle. The more you exercise it, the stronger it gets and the more it can expand." —Idowu Koyenikan
Many people don't succeed on their first try—even the most successful people have famous failures. The key is self-awareness, learning from mistakes and not comparing yourself with others.
Quotes on personal progress
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35. "If you don't go after what you want, you could spend your entire life settling for what you can get." —Mo Stegall
36. "If there is no struggle, there is no progress." —Frederick Douglass
37. "We should not judge people by their peak of excellence, but by the distance they have traveled from the point where they started." —Henry Ward Beecher
38. "Be patient with yourself. Self-growth is tender; it's holy ground. There's no greater investment." —Stephen Covey
39. "There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self." —Ernest Hemingway
40. "And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom." —Anaïs Nin
41. "Improvement starts within you and is dependent on your own efforts. So make the effort." —Remez Sasson
42. "Courage is only an accumulation of small steps." —George Konrad
43. "Everything is either an opportunity to grow or an obstacle to keep you from growing. You get to choose." —Wayne Dyer
What are some ways to let go of insecurities—beyond comfort zone quotes? Create a playlist with your favorite songs about confidence, keep body positivity quotes on sticky notes and focus on eliminating self-criticizing from your daily routine.
Quotes on pushing past fear
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44. "The fact is, that to do anything in the world worth doing, we must not stand back shivering and thinking of the cold and danger but jump in and scramble through as well as we can." —Robert Cushing
45. "Each time you try something for the first time, you grow. A little piece of fear is replaced with empowerment." —Annette White
46. "Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom." —Bertrand Russell
47. "Each of us must confront our own fears, must come face to face with them. How we handle our fears will determine where we go with the rest of our lives. To experience adventure or to be limited by the fear of it." —Judy Blume
48. "Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy." —Dale Carnegie
49. "The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear." —Nelson Mandela
50. "He who is not every day conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life." —Ralph Waldo Emerson
51. "Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. The fearful are caught as often as the bold." —Helen Keller
52. "Thinking will not overcome fear, but action will." —W. Clement Stone
53. "Change can be scary, but you know what's scarier? Allowing fear to stop you from growing, evolving and progressing." —Mandy Hale
54. "Remember your dreams and fight for them. You must know what you want from life. There is just one thing that makes your dream become impossible: the fear of failure." —Paulo Coelho
55. "Don't let the fear of the time it will take to accomplish something stand in the way of your doing it. The time will pass anyway." —Earl Nightingale
56. "Often the difference between a successful man and a failure is not one's better abilities or ideas, but the courage that one has to bet on his ideas, to take a calculated risk—and to act." —Maxwell Maltz
57. "One can choose to go back toward safety or forward toward growth. Growth must be chosen again and again; fear must be overcome again and again." —Abraham Maslow
58. "Being aware of your fear is smart. Overcoming it is the mark of a successful person." —Seth Godin
59. "I've noticed when I fear something, if I just end up doing it, I'm grateful in the end." —Colleen Hoover
60. "To escape fear, you have to go through it, not around." —Richie Norton
Want more helpful quotes on getting over your fears? Try these inspirational quotes.
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rd.Com 50 Inspirational Barack Obama Quotes On Life, Hope And Change
In the chronicles of America, Barack Obama and Michelle Obama made history as the first African American president and first lady. As the 44th president, Obama served two terms, from 2009 to 2017, not only leaving a lasting mark on the political landscape, but also inspiring the nation with motivational quotes on life, hope, education and the power of change. So in light of Black History Month and Presidents Day, indulge in the many Barack Obama quotes below.
Barack Obama's quotes resonate with themes of unity, progress and inclusivity—and they can help you embody a spirit of resilience while offering a glimpse into the mind of a visionary leader and his historic presidency.
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Barack Obama quotes about life
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1. "I'm inspired by the people I meet in my travels—hearing their stories, seeing the hardships they overcome, their fundamental optimism and decency. I'm inspired by the love people have for their children. And I'm inspired by my own children, how full they make my heart. They make me want to work to make the world a little bit better. And they make me want to be a better man."
2. "If you're walking down the right path and you're willing to keep walking, eventually you'll make progress."
3. "I believe in evolution, scientific inquiry and global warming; I believe in free speech, whether politically correct or politically incorrect, and I am suspicious of using government to impose anybody's religious beliefs—including my own—on nonbelievers."
4. "What I've realized is that life doesn't count for much unless you're willing to do your small part to leave our children—all of our children—a better world. Any fool can have a child. That doesn't make you a father. It's the courage to raise a child that makes you a father."
5. "It's important to make sure that we're talking with each other in a way that heals, not in a way that wounds."
6. "Even when folks are hitting you over the head, you can't stop marching. Even when they're turning the hose on you, you can't stop."
7. "No, you can't deny women their basic rights and pretend it's about your 'religious freedom.' If you don't like birth control, don't use it. Religious freedom doesn't mean you can force others to live by your own beliefs."
8. "Making your mark on the world is hard. If it were easy, everybody would do it. But it's not. It takes patience, it takes commitment, and it comes with plenty of failure along the way. The real test is not whether you avoid this failure, because you won't. It's whether you let it harden or shame you into inaction, or whether you learn from it; whether you choose to persevere."
9. "The worst thing that colonialism did was to cloud our view of our past."
10. "Our stories may be singular, but our destination is shared."
11. "Enthusiasm makes up for a host of deficiencies."
12. "You can't let your failures define you. You have to let your failures teach you."
13. "I suspect that God's plan, whatever it is, works on a scale too large to admit our mortal tribulations; that in a single lifetime, accidents and happenstance determine more than we care to admit; and that the best we can do is to try to align ourselves with what we feel is right and construct some meaning out of our confusion, and with grace and nerve play at each moment the hand that we're dealt."
14. "Where you are right now doesn't have to determine where you'll end up."
15. "Fixing a broken immigration system. Protecting our kids from gun violence. Equal pay for equal work, paid leave, raising the minimum wage. All these things still matter to hardworking families; they are still the right thing to do; and I will not let up until they get done."
16. "Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends—honesty and hard work, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism—these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history."
Barack Obama quotes about hope
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17. "The best way to not feel hopeless is to get up and do something. Don't wait for good things to happen to you. If you go out and make some good things happen, you will fill the world with hope, you will fill yourself with hope."
18. "The absence of hope can rot a society from within."
19. "In the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope."
20. "Hope is not blind optimism. It's not ignoring the enormity of the task ahead or the roadblocks that stand in our path. It's not sitting on the sidelines or shirking from a fight. Hope is that thing inside us that insists, despite all evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us if we have the courage to reach for it, and to work for it, and to fight for it."
21. "Hope is the belief that destiny will not be written for us, but by us, by the men and women who are not content to settle for the world as it is, who have the courage to remake the world as it should be."
22. "America will rise again. And hope will rise again."
23. "While we breathe, we will hope."
24. "Hope—hope in the face of difficulty. Hope in the face of uncertainty. The audacity of hope! In the end, that is God's greatest gift to us … A belief in things not seen. A belief that there are better days ahead."
25. "It's only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential."
26. "But you don't choose the time. The time chooses you. Either you seize what may turn out to be the only chance you have, or you decide you're willing to live with the knowledge that the chance has passed you by."
27. "Have you ever noticed that if there's a hard way and an easy way, you choose the hard way every time? Why do you think that is?"
28. "We are a people of improbable hope."
29. "I've never been more hopeful about our future. I have never been more hopeful about America. And I ask you to sustain that hope."
30. "Beneath the layers of hurt, beneath the ragged laughter, I heard a willingness to endure. Endure—and make music that wasn't there before."
31. "You have the ability and gifts to do whatever you want. It is your turn now to change the world."
32. "Reading is important. If you know how to read then the whole world opens up to you."
Barack Obama quotes about change
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33. "Change will not come if we wait for some other person, or if we wait for some other time."
34. "A change is brought about because ordinary people do extraordinary things."
35. "We are the change we have been waiting for."
36. "In the face of impossible odds, people who love this country can change it."
37. "One voice can change a room, and if one voice can change a room, then it can change a city, and if it can change a city, it can change a state, and if it can change a state, it can change a nation, and if it can change a nation, it can change the world. Your voice can change the world."
38. "We don't ask you to believe in our ability to bring change, rather, we ask you to believe in yours."
39. "Nothing can stand in the way of the power of millions of voices calling for change."
40. "Change is never easy, but always possible."
41. "This victory alone is not the change we seek; it is only the chance for us to make that change."
42. "Building new roads and bridges creates jobs. Growing our exports creates jobs. Reforming our outdated tax system and our broken immigration system creates jobs."
43. "The success of our economy has always depended not just on the size of our gross domestic product, but on the reach of our prosperity; on the ability to extend opportunity to every willing heart—not out of charity, but because it is the surest route to our common good."
44. "No one's written your destiny for you, because here in America, you write your own destiny. You make your own future."
45. "All the education and good intentions in the world couldn't help plug up the holes in the universe or give you the power to change its blind, mindless course."
46. "Every single one of you has something you're good at. Every single one of you has something to offer. And you have a responsibility to yourself to discover what that is. That's the opportunity an education can provide."
47. "This is the moment we must come together to save this planet. Let us resolve that we will not leave our children a world where the oceans rise and famine spreads and terrible storms devastate our lands."
48. "Yes we can to justice and equality. Yes we can to opportunity and prosperity. Yes we can heal this nation. Yes we can repair this world."
49. "What makes us Americans is our shared commitment to an ideal—that all of us are created equal, and all of us have the chance to make of our lives what we will."
50. "We are made for this moment, and we will seize it—so long as we seize it together."
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