40 Inspiring Nonfiction Quotes

In a world overflowing with information, the wisdom encapsulated in nonfiction literature offers a beacon of insight and inspiration. Nonfiction quotes have the unique power to distill complex ideas, life lessons, and profound truths into a single, memorable line. They serve as a reminder of our shared humanity, a guide for personal growth, and a catalyst for transformative thinking. Whether you're seeking motivation to tackle new challenges or simply in need of a moment of reflection, this curated collection of top 40 inspiring nonfiction quotes promises to ignite your curiosity and inspire action. Let's embark on this journey of exploration and discovery, as we delve into words that have shaped thoughts and guided hearts throughout history.

1. “The story you are about to read is a work of fiction. Nothing - and everything - about it is real.” - Todd Strasser

2. “It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

3. “A marriage, willy-nilly, requires you to trust that your spouse will tell your story truthfully and lovingly when you are no longer around to tell it yourself.” - Kate Braestrup

4. “Friendship is greater than the colonial and dominating race ideologies of hundreds of years." -"Some of My Best Friends” - Luis Rodriguez

5. “The child intuitively comprehends that although these stories are unreal, they are not untrue ...” - Bruno Bettelheim

6. “But my way of writing is rather to think aloud, and follow my own humours, than much to consider who is listening to me; and, if I stop to consider what is proper to be said to this or that person, I shall soon come to doubt whether any part at all is proper.” - Thomas De Quincey

7. “What you believe can change your experience.” - Staness Jonekos

8. “I am six years old and instead of celebrating with birthday cakes, I chew on a piece of charcoal. ” - Loung Ung

9. “On previous trips the pirates have stolen valuables, killed people, raped and abducted girls...the women work frantically to ugly themselves up by smearing black charcoal paste on their faces and bodies. With ashen faces, some of the younger, prettier girls reach into the bags we have vomited into and scoop out handfuls of it to smear on their hair and clothes. ” - Loung Ung

10. “When he was very excited, [John Singer] Sargent would rush at his canvas with his brush poised for attack, yelling, 'Demons, demons, demons!' When he was particularly angry or frustrated, he expressed these feelings with 'Damn,' the only curse he allowed himself. He once had the expletive inscribed on a rubber stamp so he could have the satisfaction of pounding it on a piece of paper.” - Deborah Davis

11. “Curiously, anatomical reality in art was apparently a horrifying concept to the same men and women who lined up to see bodies at the morgue. ” - Deborah Davis

12. “Many of the members of the class had never held ice. ” - Dave Eggers

13. “But while Sasha told us that in America even the most successful men can have but one wife at once--my father had six--and talked about escalators, indoor plumbing, and the various laws of the land, he did not warn us that I would be told by American teenagers that I should go back to Africa. ” - Dave Eggers

14. “At mealtime a very broad cloth is laid on the trestle table in the solar. to facilitate service, places are set along one side only. On that side the cloth falls to the floor, doubling as a communal napkin...there are several kinds of knives...but no forks.” - Joseph Gies

15. “...beggars were permitted to enter great houses and solicit directly from the table, but now they are restricted to the doorstep. ” - Joseph Gies

16. “As the baby grows bigger, she [wet nurse] will chew his meat for him.” - Joseph Gies

17. “Instrumental keys [on organs], introduced in the twelfth century, are so heavy and stiff that they must be played with clenched fists. ” - Joseph Gies

18. “Another of them died last night. His body was in the bazaar this morning. It lay, with a collecting bowl at its feet, on the charpoy that is reserved for those who die without money or family to bury them. He looked desiccated and his skin had the sheen and color of the dates we eat to break our fast. There are new bodies on that charpoy every week. ” - Louise Brown

19. “a raped girl is bad for the family: it shows that they can’t protect their women; that they have little social standing; and that they’re not respectable. It’s worse for the victim because once a woman, or a girl—or a boy—is known as the target of a rape she becomes so despised, so shamed, so worthless that she turns into public property. No one is raped only once.” - Louise Brown

20. “He must trust, and he must have faith. And so he builds, because what is building, and rebuilding and rebuilding again, but an act of faith?” - Dave Eggers

21. “We mark with light in the memory the few interviews we have had with souls that made our souls wiser, that spoke what we thought, that told us what we knew, that gave us leave to be what we inly are.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

22. “Our higher needs include making full use of our gifts, finding and fulfilling our calling, being loved and cherished just for ourselves, and being in relationships that honor all of these. Such needs are fulfilled in an atmosphere of the five A’s by which love is shown: attention, acceptance, appreciation, affection, and allowing.” - David Richo

23. “Your life is a trajectory. Every choice you make alters that trajectory, in a positive or negative way. Will you categorize that dinner with friends as a business expense? Will you be honest with your daughter? Will you take more credit than you’re due? These are just the small questions that we face every day, and little by little, the answers influence the trajectory of our lives and beings.” - Donald Van de Mark

24. “My limitless ability to weave time and space does not make me a god - just a da-n good writer.” - Edmund Alexander Sims

25. “This marriage had resulted from impulse: he had seen her on a high-flying swing at Tsarkoe Selo and her skirt, flared by the breeze, had exposed her ankles; he had proposed the following day.” - Robert K. Massie

26. “Life is an obstacle course. You succeed at one thing and then you move on to the next. When an obstacle is tough, you try harder. When an obstacle is insurmountable, you change course. But you never sit down and refuse to finish.” - Bethenny Frankel

27. “The choice is yours: trust the government or trust Mother Nature.” - John Cannell, MD

28. “No one cared what St. Louis thought, although the city got a wink for pluck.” - Erik Larson

29. “....and on occasion I like to write in pencil, because I need to know that I can erase the words, even if I never do.” - Bruce Black

30. “He was a simple honest man. He never strayed,He never drank, he never smoked, and he never kissed a maid.And when he passed away his insurance was denied,Because he never lived, they claimed he never died.” - Ted Gup

31. “When facing a decision that stands a 50/50 chance of being correct, the choice made will be wrong 80% of the time. Rick Coxen” - Frederick L Coxen

32. “from the Basement tapes Eric outdid Dylan with the apologies. To the untrained eye, he seemed sincere. The psychologists on the case found Eric less convincing. They saw a psychopath. Classic. He even pulled the stunt of self-diagnosing to dismiss it. "I wish I was a fucking sociopath so I didn't have any remorse," Eric said. "But I do."Watching that made Dr. Fuselier angry. Remorse meant a deep desire to correct a mistake. Eric hadn't done it yet. He excused his actions several times on the tapes. Fuselier was tough to rattle, but that got to him."Those are the most worthless apologies I've ever heard in my life," he said. It got more ludicrous later, when Eric willed some of his stuff to two buddies, "if you guys live.""If you live?" Fuselier repeated. "They are going to go in there and quite possibly kill their friends. If they were the least bit sorry they would not do it!” - Dave Cullen

33. “Neglected but Undefeated I stand today living the life I was told I would never live all because my faith grew.” - Jonathan Anthony Burkett

34. “The ocean, after all, is not about stability but about change. Change is normal. Everything changes. All the time.” - Wendy Williams

35. “Protein, so far as we know, does not replicate itself all by itself, not on this planet anyway. Looked at this way, the [prion] seems the strangest thing in all biology, and, until someone in some laboratory figures out what it is, a candidate for Modern Wonder. (quote originally by Lewis Thomas)” - D. T. Max

36. “Focus on giants - you stumble.Focus on God - Giants tumble.” - Max Lucado

37. “I'm sure the holy refrigerator is packed solid with cartons of Blue Bell ice cream - times a million. All those amazing flavor combinations minus the calories and fat grams, of course. After all, we are talking about heaven here, amen?” - Diane Moody

38. “El Shaddai. My all-sufficient God who is able to handle all my needs. Everything I will ever need I can find in Him. Think about that for a moment. Do you sense the power He offers us in those words? There is nothing, absolutely nothing in your life that He cannot handle.” - Diane Moody

39. “The good news is we don't have to suffer alone. We don't have to carry the burdens of our messy lives alone. God is there for us. He wants to be the Comforter in Chief for the worst that life on this earth may hand us. but we need to know Him - genuinely know Him - not just when tragedy strikes. We need to know Him every moment of every day we live. We need to quit leaving it to the professionals and make know Him the most important mission of our lives.” - Diane Moody

40. “Though I have started emailing with one of my fellow readers whenever there's something important to say about Modern Family or Friday Night Lights, and with another when I notice her updates on Goodreads.com.” - Rachel Bertsche