Inspirational Short Poems & Quotes to Memorize

Most people equate memorization with being forced to memorize boring information during their school years. However, while being forced to memorize certain dates and facts may not have had an obvious benefit, the fact remains that being able to memorize things well can actually provide many positive advantages.

The brain benefits alone are enough of a reason to want to work on your memory skills. Memorizing passages can help increase neuroplasticity, the brain’s ability to form new connections, give your brain a mental workout, and train your brain to help increase your capacity to remember more information. It can also help you increase your ability to focus on tasks, making it easier to learn new concepts and be more creative overall.

Possibly the most motivating factor of working on your memorization skills is that it frees up your brain power to work on more complex issues. Instead of trying to remember basic information like what you need to get at the store, looking up a word or even doing a math problem, you can spend your brain power on working on higher level concepts or creative endeavours.

While memorizing definitions, facts, and stats can be helpful, there is also much to be said for memorizing inspirational passages. These types of passages can be used to provide you with quick inspiration whenever you may need it. This is a key reason why many work on memorizing biblical passages. However, since there are plenty of resources for finding bible verses to memorize, here we are going to focus on more overall inspirational passages and prose.

Below you’ll find a variety of passages of varying lengths to memorize depending on your memory skills at the moment. We’ve also included some of our favorite inspiring quotes. Hopefully these will become a starting point to a new lifelong habit!

Dust of Snow
by Robert Frost

The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow

From a hemlock tree
Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.

Sonnet 18
by William Shakespeare

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm’d;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

If
by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:.
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build’em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings – nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man, my son!

The Road Not Taken
by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference

Dreams
by Langston Hughes

Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.

Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.

Hope Is The Thing With Feathers
by Emily Dickinson

“Hope” is the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the words –
And never stops – at all –

And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard –
And sore must be the storm –
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm –

I’ve heard it in the chillest land –
And on the strangest Sea –
Yet – never – in Extremity,
It asked a crumb – of me.

In Myself
by Louisa May Alcott

I do not ask for any crown
But that which all may win;
Nor try to conquer any world
Except the one within.
Be thou my guide until I find
Led by a tender hand,
The happy kingdom in myself
And dare to take command.

10,000
by Wu Men

Ten thousand flowers in spring,
the moon in autumn,
a cool breeze in summer,
snow in winter.
If your mind isn’t clouded
by unnecessary things,
this is the best season of your life.

My Wage
by Jessie B. Rittenhouse

I bargained with Life for a penny,
And Life would pay no more,
However I begged at evening
When I counted my scanty store;
For Life is a just employer,
He gives you what you ask,
But once you have set the wages,
Why, you must bear the task.
I worked for a menial’s hire,
Only to learn, dismayed,
That any wage I had asked of Life,
Life would have paid.

One
by Shawnee Kellie

One word can spark a moment,
One flower can wake the dream;
One tree can start a forest,
One bird can herald Spring.
One smile can bring a friendship,
One handclasp can lift a soul;
One star can guide a ship at sea,
One cheer can obtain a goal.
One vote can change a Nation,
One sunbeam can lift a room;
One candle wipes out darkness,
One laugh will conquer gloom.
One look can change two lives;
One kiss can make love bloom.
One step must start each journey,
One word must start each prayer;
One hope can raise our spirits,
One touch can show you care.
One voice can speak with wisdom,
One heart can know what’s true;
One life can make a difference,
One life is me and you…

A Time To Believe
by B.J. Morbitzer

To believe is to know that
every day is a new beginning.
Is to trust that miracles happen,
and dreams really do come true.
To believe is to see angels
dancing among the clouds,
To know the wonder of a stardust sky
and the wisdom of the man in the moon.
To believe is to know the value of a nurturing heart,
The innocence of a child’s eyes
and the beauty of an aging hand,
for it is through their teachings we learn to love.
To believe is to find the strength
and courage that lies within us
When it’s time to pick up
the pieces and begin again.
To believe is to know
we are not alone,
That life is a gift
and this is our time to cherish it.
To believe is to know
that wonderful surprises are just
waiting to happen,
And all our hopes and dreams are within reach.
If only we believe.

QUOTES

• “Remember no one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” -Eleanor Roosevelt
• “Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right.” -Henry Ford
• “Do or do not. There is no try.” -Yoda
• “Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve.” -Napoleon Hill
• “I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions.” -Stephen Covey
• “When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.” -Henry Ford
• “The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.” -Alice Walker
• “What’s money? A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do.” -Bob Dylan
• “I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do.” -Leonardo da Vinci
• “When one door of happiness closes, another opens, but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one that has been opened for us.” -Helen Keller
• “The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson
• “Everything you’ve ever wanted is on the other side of fear.” -George Addair
• “We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.” -Plato
• “Nothing will work unless you do.” -Maya Angelou
• “Believe you can and you’re halfway there.” -Theodore Roosevelt
• “What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.” -Plutarch