82 Inspiring Dreaming Quotes

In the hustle and bustle of daily life, dreams serve as our sanctuary, fueling our ambitions and lighting the path to our deepest desires. They are the quiet whispers that nudge us to explore the uncharted territories of potential and creativity. With their transformative power, dreams inspire us to look beyond the horizon and reach for what might seem impossible. In this collection, we've gathered 82 of the most inspiring dreaming quotes, each one a reminder of the boundless possibilities that await when we dare to dream. Whether you’re seeking motivation, clarity, or a gentle push to dream bigger, these quotes will resonate with your inner visionary and kindle the passion to turn your dreams into reality.

1. “Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.” - Edgar Allan Poe

2. “Ol' man Simon, planted a diamond. Grew hisself a garden the likes of none. Sprouts all growin' comin' up glowin' Fruit of jewels all shinin' in the sun. Colors of the rainbow. See the sun and the rain grow sapphires and rubies on ivory vines, Grapes of jade, just ripenin' in the shade, just ready for the squeezin' into green jade wine. Pure gold corn there, Blowin' in the warm air. Ol' crow nibblin' on the amnythyst seeds. In between the diamonds, Ol' man Simon crawls about pullin' out platinum weeds. Pink pearl berries, all you can carry, put 'em in a bushel and haul 'em into town. Up in the tree there's opal nuts and gold pears- Hurry quick, grab a stick and shake some down. Take a silver tater, emerald tomater, fresh plump coral melons. Hangin' in reach. Ol' man Simon, diggin' in his diamonds, stops and rests and dreams about one... real... peach.” - Shel Silverstein

3. “At the age of six I wanted to be a cook. At seven I wanted to be Napoleon. And my ambition has been growing steadily ever since.” - Salvador Dali

4. “You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. I hope someday you'll join us. And the world will live as one.” - John Lennon

5. “A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is reality.” - John Lennon

6. “All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake up in the day to find it was vanity, but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible.” - T.E. Lawrence

7. “I believe in everything until it's disproved. So I believe in fairies, the myths, dragons. It all exists, even if it's in your mind. Who's to say that dreams and nightmares aren't as real as the here and now?” - John Lennon

8. “Man is a genius when he is dreaming.” - Akira Kurosawa

9. “I know in my mindI would leave you nowIf I had the strength toI would leave you upTo your own devicesWill you not talkCan you take pityI don't ask muchBut won't you speakPlease.” - Dave Matthews Band

10. “Film as dream, film as music. No art passes our conscience in the way film does, and goes directly to our feelings, deep down into the dark rooms of our souls.” - Ingmar Bergman

11. “I've crossed some kind of invisible line. I feel as if I've come to a place I never thought I'd have to come to. And I don't know how I got here. It's a strange place. It's a place where a little harmless dreaming and then some sleepy, early-morning talk has led me into considerations of death and annihilation.” - Raymond Carver

12. “I dream. Sometimes I think that's the only right thing to do.” - Haruki Murakami

13. “Excellence is the result of caring more than others think is wise, risking more than others think is safe, dreaming more than others think is practical, and expecting more than others think is possible.” - Ronnie Oldham

14. “You seemed so far away," Miss Honey whispered, awestruck."Oh, I was. I was flying past the stars on silver wings," Matilda said. "It was wonderful.” - Roald Dahl

15. “Am I really admitting that my sister is determined to marry a man she has only seen once and doesn't much like the look of? It is half real and half pretense - and I have an idea that it is a game most girls play when they meet an eligible young men. They just...wonder.” - Dodie Smith

16. “When you wake up from a dream you have only a few precious moments before the details of the dream begin to dissipate and the memory fades.Not all dreams are significant or worth remembering.But the ones that are . . . happen again.So, wait for the dream to return. And never be afraid. Instead, consider it an opportunity to learn something profound and possibly wondrous about yourself.” - Vera Nazarian

17. “Promise me you'll never stop dreaming.” - Melina Marchetta

18. “Before everything happened I wished i had double voice box like a song bird so I could sing two songs at once, the way a bird can harmonize with itself. I wanted to sing crystal clear notes. I wanted to sing them one after anther in ascending order. And at the same time I wanted to let another fountain of notes descend from my heart.” - Karen Foxlee

19. “Why Dream?Life is a difficult assignment. We are fragile creatures, expected to function at high rates of speed, and asked to accomplish great and small things each day. These daily activities take enormous amounts of energy. Most things are out of our control. We are surrounded by danger, frustration, grief, and insanity as well as love, hope, ecstasy, and wonder. Being fully human is an exercise in humility, suffering, grace, and great humor. Things and people all around us die, get broken, or are lost. There is no safety or guarantees.The way to accomplish the assignment of truly living is to engage fully, richly, and deeply in the living of your dreams. We are made to dream and to live those dreams.” - Susan Ariel Rainbow Kennedy (SARK)

20. “Identifying Your DreamSome people can easily identify one primary dream. For others, a dream is more elusive. These people often have many dreams at once, or a general idea of a dream that never takes a specific shape.” - Susan Ariel Rainbow Kennedy (SARK)

21. “Create a guidebook of creative dreamsYou can use a blank book or just blank paper clipped together. Put photographs or scraps from magazines in that represent your creative dreams. Draw, scribble, or paint in between the images. Make a list of creative dreams you've thought of or admire in others. ” - Susan Ariel Rainbow Kennedy (SARK)

22. “Inside" ChildrenInside each of us are the children we were at each developmental stage. With regard to our creative dreams, these inside children can prevent us from living them by "acting out" in order to try to get our attention. Your inner 5-year-old is not going to patiently wait as you learn intricate metalworking techniques or study impressionist painting. Yet, your inner 10-year-old may be perfectly suited to learn and observe new skills.What's really needed is parenting of these inside children so that we bring them to age-appropriate activities.” - Susan Ariel Rainbow Kennedy (SARK)

23. “Building your "dream life" is filled with things that can feel like the opposite of a dream:MistakesDelaysStarting overFailureThe building part is actually more of a rebuilding that is a continual process. The building is not linear in nature but far more interesting. You might start a creative dream, take the "next step", and find yourself completely bored, dissatisfied, or just not inspired. ” - Susan Ariel Rainbow Kennedy (SARK)

24. “Initially, I feel expansive when I try something new, and then contract as soon as I encounter difficulty or the unknown. I am learning to experiment with my tolerance of difficulty and the not knowing, in order to go further with my creative dreams.Whenever I experience contraction, I explore it by asking, "Where did I stop and why?" Building a creative dream life is not just about achieving, succeeding, or "meeting goals." It is also about floundering, stumbling, tripping and failing. ” - Susan Ariel Rainbow Kennedy (SARK)

25. “From now on I hope always to stay alert, to educate myself as best I can. But lacking this, in Future I will relaxedly turn back to my secret mind to see what it has observed when I thought I was sitting this one out. We never sit anything out.We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out. ” - Ray Bradbury

26. “Dreaming is another form of thinking, more concrete, more economical, more visual, and often more emotional than the thoughts of the day, but a thinking through of the day, nevertheless.” - Siri Hustvedt

27. “Dreams are stories made by and for the dreamer, and each dreamer has his own folds to open and knots to untie.” - Siri Hustvedt

28. “When they say the sky's the limit to me that's really true” - Michael Jackson

29. “Nothing else you want to do after all your dreams come true. You've become numb. You shouldn't have ever stopped dreaming.” - Toba Beta [Betelgeuse Incident]

30. “And people who don’t dream, who don’t have any kind of imaginative life, they must… they must go nuts. I can’t imagine that.” - Stephen King

31. “I know you can dream your way through an otherwise fine life, and never wake up, which is what I almost did.” - Richard Ford

32. “It is not needful for our dreams to be very grand nor very big. It is only needful for our dreams to be very shiny.” - C. JoyBell C.

33. “The Dream of a Queer Fellow I write the words again and they appear doubly pregnant with meaning. It is a true and terrible phrase : true, because we are all queer fellows dreaming ; and we are queer just because we dream ; terrible, because of the vastness of the unknown which it carries within itself, because it sets loose the tremendous and awful question : What if we are only queer fellows dreaming ? What if behind the veil the truth is leering and jeering at our queerness and our dreams? What if the queer fellow of the story were right, before he dreamed ? What if it were really all the same?What if it were all the same not once but a million times, life after life, world after world, the same pain, the same doubt, the same dreams? The queer fellow went but one day's journey along the eternal recurrence which threatens human minds and human destinies. When he returned he was queer. There was another man went the same journey. Friedrich Nietzsche dreamed this very dream in the mountains of the Engadine. When he returned he too was queer.” - John Middleton Murry

34. “The concept of dreaming is known to the waking mind but to the dreamer there is no waking, no real world, no sanity; there is only the screaming bedlam of sleep.” - Stephen King

35. “We spend a good part of our lives dreaming, especially when we're awake.” - Carlos Ruiz Zafon

36. “First you have nothing, and then, astonishingly, after ripping out your brain and your heart and betraying your friends and ex-lovers and dreaming like a zombie over the page till you can't see or hear or smell or taste, you have something.” - T.C. Boyle

37. “J. R. R. Tolkien, the near-universally-hailed father of modern epic fantasy, crafted his magnum opus The Lord of the Rings to explore the forces of creation as he saw them: God and country, race and class, journeying to war and returning home. I’ve heard it said that he was trying to create some kind of original British mythology using the structure of other cultures’ myths, and maybe that was true. I don’t know. What I see, when I read his work, is a man trying desperately to dream.Dreaming is impossible without myths. If we don’t have enough myths of our own, we’ll latch onto those of others — even if those myths make us believe terrible or false things about ourselves. Tolkien understood this, I think because it’s human nature. Call it the superego, call it common sense, call it pragmatism, call it learned helplessness, but the mind craves boundaries. Depending on the myths we believe in, those boundaries can be magnificently vast, or crushingly tight.” - N.K. Jemisin

38. “So here is why I write what I do: We all have futures. We all have pasts. We all have stories. And we all, every single one of us, no matter who we are and no matter what’s been taken from us or what poison we’ve internalized or how hard we’ve had to work to expel it –– we all get to dream.” - N.K. Jemisin

39. “He had read much of things as they are, and talked with too many people. Well-meaning philosophers had taught him to look into the logical relations of things, and analyse the processes which shaped his thoughts and fancies. Wonder had gone away, and he had forgotten that all life is only a set of pictures in the brain, among which there is no difference betwixt those born of real things and those born of inward dreamings, and no cause to value the one above the other.” - H.P. Lovecraft

40. “The best way to be appreciative for your life is to live it; don't die for any other reason but love. Dreams are what guide us, art is what defines us, math is makes it all possible, and love is what lights our way.” - Mike Norton

41. “Man träumt gar nicht, oder interessant -- Man muss lernen, ebeson zu wachen: -- gar nicht, oder interessant” - Friedrich Nietzsche

42. “Dreaming was easier than screaming, and screaming was easier than worrying, and worrying was easier than crying, which was what she knew she would be reduced to if she didn’t keep a hard eye on herself.” - Kevin Brockmeier

43. “What I really needed wasn't a dose of school spirit; it was a glass of water, an aspirin the size of my fist, and the answers to the history exam that I hadn't studied for the night before. "As long as I'm dreaming," I muttered, my words lost to the cacophony of the gym, "I'd also like a pony, a convertible, and a couple of friends.""That's a tall order." I'd known that there were people sitting next to me, but I couldn't begin to imagine how one of them had heard me. I hadn't even heard me. "Would you settle for a piece of gum, an orange Tic Tac, and an introduction the the school slut?” - Jennifer Lynn Barnes

44. “He was in a strange, badly lit room, wearing even stranger clothes, getting an earful from an unknown woman, in a language that he could and couldn’t exactly place in a very disturbing way.These were not his memories.” - Angelo Tsanatelis

45. “Träume und Märchen waren ihr eigentlicher Lebensinhalt, dachte ich jetzt. Deshalb hat sie sich auch umgebracht, dachte ich, weil ein Mensch, der nur Träume und Märchen sich zu seinem Lebensinhalt gemacht hat, in dieser Welt nicht überleben kann, nicht überleben darf, dachte ich.” - Thomas Bernhard

46. “Strange dreams are better than no dreams at all.” - Vera Nazarian

47. “Men speak of dreaming as if it were a phenomenon of night and sleep. They should know better. All results achieved by us are self-promised, and all self-promises are made in dreams awake. Dreaming is the relief of labor,the wine that sustains us in act. We learn to love labor, not for itself, but for the opportunity it furnishes for dreaming, which is the great under-monotone of real life, unheard, unnoticed, because of its constancy. Living is dreaming. Only in the graves are there no dreams.” - Lew Wallace

48. “It was possible in this wonderful city for that nameless little boy -for any of its millions- to have a decent chance to scale the walls and achieve what they wished. Wealth, rank or an imposing name counted for nothing. The only credential the city asked was the boldness to dream. For those who did, it unlocked its gates and its treasures, not caring who they were or where they came from.” - Moss Hart

49. “To every dreamer, you direct the light of all the world!” - Tamara Henson

50. “You appear to me not to have understood the nature of my body & mind. Partly from ill-health, & partly from an unhealthy & reverie-like vividness of Thoughts, & (pardon the pedantry of the phrase) a diminished Impressibility from Things, my ideas, wishes, & feelings are to a diseased degree disconnected from motion & action. In plain and natural English, I am a dreaming & therefore an indolent man. I am a Starling self-incaged, & always in the Moult, & my whole Note is, Tomorrow, & tomorrow, & tomorrow.” - Samuel Taylor Coleridge

51. “I won't stop writing until I am known as the Kurt Cobain of literature!” - Christina Westover

52. “Oh, to awake from dreaming!” - Virginia Woolf

53. “I wish I could go to Paris right now.” - Emily J. Proctor

54. “I'll never waste my dreams by falling asleep. Never again.” - Eugene Ionesco

55. “Between living and dreaming there is a third thing. Guess it.” - Antonio Machado

56. “You know a trillion times more about art than me. But I’ve learned that it isn’t necessary to know all that much. You just make what you wanna see, right? It’s a game, right? It’s like being paid for dreaming.” - Tom Robbins

57. “Screw technicolor, red, and foreign languages. I dream in status updates.” - Fierce Dolan

58. “I'm dreaming of a month of Sundays.” - Steven Herrick

59. “Something must always remain that eludes us ... For power to have an object on which it can be exercised, a space in which to stretch out its arms ... As long as I know there exists in the world someone who does tricks only for the love of the trick, as long as I know there is a woman who loves reading for reading's sake, I can convince myself that the world continues ... And every evening I, too, abandon myself to reading, like that distant unknown woman ....” - Italo Calvino

60. “Everything has taken on a strange, distant quality - the sounds of running and shouting outside get warped and weird like they're being filtered through water, and Alex looks miles away. I start to think I might be dreaming, or about to pass out. And then I decide I'm definitely dreaming, because as I'm watching, Alex starts peeling his shirt off over his head.” - Lauren Oliver

61. “But I felt like I'd made a journey to the land of fairytales only to find out that the magical world was identical to the real one. Even in fairytales, the sun still burns, sand still works its way into your bikini bottoms, and the diner next door to your motel still scorches toast.” - Holly Schindler

62. “Dreaming permits each and everyone of us to be quietly insane every night of out lives.” - William Dement

63. “A garden to walk in and immensity to dream in--what more could he ask? A few flowers at his feet and above him the stars.” - Victor Hugo

64. “you know, a daydream properly utilized can be the most powerful force in the universe. One need only dream of freedom to begin to break the spell of enslavement.” - William Joyce

65. “Sometimes, as Eve was born from one of Adam’s ribs, a woman was born during my sleep from a cramped position of my thigh. Formed from the pleasure I was on the point of enjoying, she, I imagined, was the one offering it to me. My body, which felt in hers my own warmth, would try to find itself inside her, I would wake up. The rest of humanity seemed very remote compared to this woman I had left scarcely a few moments before; my cheek was still warm from her kiss, my body aching from the weight of hers. If, as sometimes happens, she had the features of a woman I had known in life, I would devote myself entirely to this end: to finding her again, like those who go off on a journey to see a longed-for city with their own eyes and imagine that one can enjoy in reality the charm of a dream. Little by little, the memory of her would fade, I had forgotten the girl of my dream.” - Marcel Proust

66. “A shepherd may like to travel, but he should never forget his sheep.” - Paulo Coelho

67. “WRITER'S NIGHTMARE""I felt a grip on my arm that shook my body, forcefully pulling me toward a tunnel of darkness.   The threat of consciousness stole my steady breath. For a moment I believed myself to be under siege; ripped from the sky in mid flight, my wings useless against the monstrous claws shredding my reality. I struggled to remain, to be left alone, aloft.  Reaching with wings that through the power of imagination were suddenly feathered arms, I grabbed at the air.  My hands clutched at something solid.  Wooden.  A desk.  My head spun as I held the furniture, suffering the illusion of falling.  "I was flying," I gasped, realizing suddenly that it had all been a dream. "My best fantasy ever." Lifting my head from its resting spot on the writing desk, I worked mentally to secure the fading images, hoping to capture their essence to memory before they faded away forever.  Bitterness tainted my heart against the hand that had jerked me into sensibility.  Why was I always so callously awakened while doing my best work?  Why not let me dream?” - Richelle E. Goodrich

68. “We're all dreaming,” Arctor said. If the last to know he's an addict is the addict, then maybe the last to know when a man means what he says is the man himself, he reflected. He wondered how much of the garbage that Donna had overheard he had seriously meant. He wondered how much of the insanity of the day--his insanity--had been real, or just induced as a contact lunacy, by the situation. Donna, always, was a pivot point of reality for him; for her this was the basic, natural question. He wished he could answer.” - Philip K. Dick

69. “These paper boats of mine are meant to dance on the ripples of hours, and not reach any destination.” - Rabindranath Tagore

70. “Dream by making and make by dreaming.” - Dejan Stojanovic

71. “What's so horrible about being dead forever, and not feeling anything, and not even dreaming? What's so great about feeling and dreaming?” - Jonathan Safran Foer

72. “Just because you don’t know how on Earth something might be achieved doesn’t mean you shouldn’t allow yourself to really, really want it. That’s the essence of a dream, the realms of magic and of miracles.” - Silvia Hartmann

73. “Mai tii minte cat visai? Mai visezi?” - Giovanni Arpino

74. “Înţelege tot. Eu îl insult şi el mă urăşte. Sau invers" rîdea el.” - Giovanni Arpino

75. “You must learn to control your dreams or your dreams will forever control you.” - Wayne Gerard Trotman

76. “Is that actually you or am I dreaming again?” - Ella Fox

77. “She wanted to return to her dream. Perhaps it was still somewhere there behind her closed eyelids. Perhaps a little of its happiness still clung like gold dust to her lashes. Don't dreams in fairy tales sometimes leave a token behind?” - Cornelia Funke

78. “You’re afraid of imagination. And even more afraid of dreams. Afraid of the responsibility that begins in dreams. But you have to sleep, and dreams are a part of sleep. When you’re awake you can suppress imagination. But you can’t suppress dreams.” - Haruki Murakami

79. “In life we don't always get what we want; hopes and dreams get washed away so easily, hearts are broken, chances are missed, and we always seem to end up right back where we started.” - Rebecah McManus

80. “A man who sits under a tree and dreams makes more journey than a man who goes around the world without dreaming!” - Mehmet Murat ildan

81. “When I awake thinking of dreams I slept on, I often wonder, if the dreams ever wake up thinking of me?” - Anthony Liccione

82. “The world’s crawling with stupid, innocent girls, and I’m just one of them, self-consciously chasing after dreams that will never come true.” - Haruki Murakami