55 Surprising Quotes To Inspire

In a world where words hold power, the right quote can ignite inspiration and provoke thought. They are succinct, yet profound, often capturing the essence of complex emotions or ideas in just a few words. Whether you’re navigating a challenging moment or simply seeking a fresh perspective, these surprising quotes offer a source of motivation and insight. Explore our carefully curated collection of the top 55 surprising quotes that will inspire and challenge you to see life through a new lens. Let these words stir your imagination and propel you toward your goals.

1. “Those who are easily shocked should be shocked more often.” - Mae West

2. “Humor is a spontaneous, wonderful bit of an outburst that just comes. It's unbridled, its unplanned, it's full of suprises.” - Erma Bombeck

3. “That of all people, it should be him; that took her aback. That the heart should settle on somebody like him; that surprised her. But she was so certain about it, so certain.” - Alexander McCall Smith

4. “I stood on my toes and stole a soft kiss from his lips. "Surprise attack," I said.Sam leaned down and kissed me back, his mouth lingering on mine, teeth grazing my lower lip, making me shiver. "Surprise attack back.""Sneaky," I said, my voice breathier than I intended.” - Maggie Stiefvater

5. “Our brightest blazes of gladness are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks.” - Samuel Johnson

6. “Would you like to know your future?If your answer is yes, think again. Not knowing is the greatest life motivator.So enjoy, endure, survive each moment as it comes to you in its proper sequence -- a surprise.” - Vera Nazarian

7. “Then he led her to sit by him on a fallen gum trunk, smooth and white, and he leaned to whisper in her ear. Transferred the secret he and her mother had kept for seventeen years. Waited for the flicker of recognition, the minute shift in expression as she registered what he was telling her. Watched as the bottom fell out of her world and the person she had been vanished in an instant.” - Kate Morton

8. “I said I *liked* being half-educated; you were so much more *surprised* at everything when you were ignorant.” - Gerald Durrell

9. “The secret to humor is surprise.” - Aristotle

10. “There can never be surprises in logic.” - Ludwig Wittgenstein

11. “I try not to be surprised. Surprise is the public face of a mind that has been closed.” - Bernard Beckett

12. “I may be surprised. But I don't think I will be.” - Andrew Strauss

13. “She stretched out her hand, saying, “Vernon! My dear, what a delightful surprise!”“What’s surprising about it?” he enquired, lifting his black brows. “Didn’t you ask me to come?”The smile remained pinned to Lady Buxted’s lips, but she replied with more than a touch of acidity: “To be sure I did, but so many days ago that I supposed you had gone out of town!”“Oh, no!” he said, returning her smile with one of great sweetness.” - Georgette Heyer

14. “Knowing is not simply a material act, since the object that is known always conceals something beyond the empirical datum. All our knowledge, even the most simple, is always a minor miracle, since it can never be fully explained by the material instruments that we apply to it. In every truth there is something more than we would have expected, in the love that we receive there is always an element that surprises us.” - Pope Benedict-XVI

15. “Nick shook his head and found to his surprise that he did have tears left after all. He wasn't surprised by a talking cat. The world was crumbling around him and anything could happen.” - Garth Nix

16. “A general air of surprise and genuine satisfaction fell upon everyone as they saw the pianist enter.” - Kate Chopin

17. “How ridiculous and how strange to be surprised at anything which happens in life” - Marcus Aurelius

18. “I was like a chocolate in a box, looking well behaved and perfect in place, all the while harboring a secret center.” - Deb Caletti

19. “The magic of purpose and of love in its purest form. Not televison love, with its glare and hollow and sequined glint; not sex and allure, all high shoes and high drama, everything both too small and in too much excess, but just love. Love like rain, like the smell of a tangerine, like a surprise found in your pocket.” - Deb Caletti

20. “Frankly, I couldn't be more astonished that this guy was involved in something like this than if you came riding through my apartment on a hippopotamus.” - Dan Rather

21. “Even when alternative views are clearly wrong, being exposed to them still expands our creative potential. In a way, the power of dissent is the power of surprise. After hearing someone shout out an errant answer, we work to understand it, which causes us to reassess our initial assumptions and try out new perspectives. “Authentic dissent can be difficult, but it’s always invigorating,” [Charlan] Nemeth [a professor of psychology at the University of California at Berkeley] says. “It wakes us right up.” - Jonah Lehrer

22. “I think in a moment of weakness, you might surprise yourself.” - Lisa Kleypas

23. “The attacks of 9/11 were the biggest surprise in American history, and for the past ten years we haven't stopped being surprised. The war on terror has had no discernible trajectory, and, unlike other military conflicts, it's almost impossible to define victory. You can't document the war's progress on a world map or chart it on a historical timetable in a way that makes any sense. A country used to a feeling of being in command and control has been whipsawed into a state of perpetual reaction, swinging wildly between passive fear and fevered, often thoughtless, activity, at a high cost to its self-confidence.” - George Packer

24. “Engage people with what they expect; it is what they are able to discern and confirms their projections. It settles them into predictable patterns of response, occupying their minds while you wait for the extraordinary moment — that which they cannot anticipate.” - Sun Tzu

25. “Elizabeth: "Maybe he'll surprise you."Meghann: "Birdie, they all surprise me. Last week, I hugged my date at the door and felt a bra strap.” - Kristin Hannah

26. “There are two kinds of taste in the appreciation of imaginative literature: the taste for emotions of surprise and the taste for emotions of recognition.” - Henry James

27. “There is no surprise more magical than the surprise of being loved.” - Charles Morgan

28. “It's shocking the things we call love.” - Deb Caletti

29. “It was like we had known all along that the sky was going to fall and then it fell and we pretended to be surprised.” - Elin Hilderbrand

30. “Even in the familiar there can be surprise and wonder.” - Tierney Gearon

31. “He pulled her close kissing her mouth taking her by surprise. He stepped back passion smoldering in his eyes. She looked at him touching her mouth where his kiss still burned.” - Amanda Stephan

32. “That should have been my strategy! By the time I’ve worked through the emotions of surprise, admiration, anger, jealousy, and frustration, I’m watching that reddish mane of hair disappear into the trees well out of shooting range.” - Suzanne Collins

33. “Well, hello there, Mother,” Sebastian said in a voice like silk. “Surprised to see me?” - Cassandra Clare

34. “Truly? That whole determined, dangerous saunter across the room was for me? In that case, would you mind going back and doing it all over again? Slowly this time, and with feeling.” - Tessa Dare

35. “Well, this is basically the end, so the answers should be in these next few pages. I doubt they will surprise you, but you never know. I don't know how smart or thick you are. You could be Albert Einstein for all I know, or some literary prizewinner, or maybe you're just middle of the road like me.” - Markus Zusak

36. “Twelve dead?” I said. “Jesus.” - Dennis Lehane

37. “I know enough of the world now to have almost lost the capacity of being much surprised by anything” - Charles Dickens

38. “I've learned that some memories surprise you and reveal a sharp edge just when you least expect it.” - Pittacus Lore

39. “Seriously. Poor little me can deal with having mated a millionaire.”“Oh, you found someone else? With less money?” - Vivian Arend

40. “I'm justthe reason they married.Mum saysI was a surprise.Dad saysI was an accident.Truth is ...I am their mistake.” - Emma Cameron

41. “People are invariably surprised to hear me say I am both an atheist and an agnostic, as if this somehow weakens my certainty. I usually reply with a question like, 'Well, are you a Republican or an American?' The two words serve different concepts and are not mutually exclusive. Agnosticism addresses knowledge; atheism addresses belief. The agnostic says, 'I don't have a knowledge that God exists.' The atheist says, 'I don't have a belief that God exists.' You can say both things at the same time. Some agnostics are atheistic and some are theistic.” - Dan Barker

42. “What's happened to me,' he thought. It was no dream.” - Franz Kafka

43. “Chance is the nature of our universe. […] madness represents a chaotic reservoir of surprises. Some surprises can be valuable.” - Frank Herbert

44. “Society is always taken by surprise at any new example of common sense.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

45. “I didn't particularly feel like explaining myself to eighteen bewildered people.” - Shannon A Thompson

46. “It's a lovely answer and takes me entirely by surprise. I hadn't realized we were having a serious conversation, or I think I would've given a better reply when he asked me.” - Maggie Stiefvater

47. “If you can sustain your interest in what you’re doing, you’re an extremely fortunate person. What you see very frequently in people’s professional lives, and perhaps in their emotional life as well, is that they lose interest in the third act. You sort of get tired, and indifferent, and, sometimes, defensive. And you kind of lose your capacity for astonishment — and that’s a great loss, because the world is a very astonishing place. What I feel fortunate about is that I’m still astonished, that things still amaze me. And I think that that’s the great benefit of being in the arts, where the possibility for learning never disappears, where you basically have to admit you never learn it.” - Milton Glaser

48. “Sometimes people surprise us. People we believe we know.” - Joyce Carol Oates

49. “Everybody knows that pestilences have a way of recurring in the world; yet somehow we find it hard to believe in ones that crash down on our heads from a blue sky. There have been as many plagues as wars in history; yet always plagues and wars take people equally by surprise.” - Albert Camus

50. “No matter that you anticipate a thing; you get so used to it as part of the future that its actuality, its arrival, its force and presence, startles you, takes you by surprise, as would a ghost suddenly appearing in the room wearing familiar perfume and boots.” - Lorrie Moore

51. “You don't have to be surprised when the end comes - just read the Word of God and get the full scoop!” - Velyn Cooper

52. “You may pray to God to remove the hills on your way and fill every pothole on your path; but don’t be surprised if God gives you a shovel to do so!” - Israelmore Ayivor

53. “To my surprise, Brooke smiled, and I realized that even though two of the other teams had managed to bug their marks' cell phones, the information Tara and I had received might just prove it self to be even more useful.Take that Chloe!” - Jennifer Lynn Barnes

54. “Surprise is the tool of the Devil and it is the greatest power of the evil forces!” - Mehmet Murat ildan

55. “Humans were always surprising me.” - Stephenie Meyer