We’ve all seen inspirational quotes, they are inescapable. They are chock full of elegant scripts and decorative photos with a meaningful sentence or two laid overtop. You can find these online, on posters at work, or on billboards as you drive down the highway. These quotes affect us positively and keep us motivated throughout the day. There is only one question…Why do they matter? Let’s look at three of the different yet similar reasons they help us.

We could go on forever about the importance of brainstorming. When you’re pulling a story together, inspiration can come from the world around you, or you may have to do a little detective work.  Browsing through pages of quotes can help you brainstorm and collect different ideas to help decide the light of the piece. If you’re writing a blog about finding peace of mind, reading  “You’ll never find peace of mind until you listen to your heart,”  (a quote by music sensation George Michael) may steer you in the direction of discussing the importance of listening to your heart when making major decisions, somethng you might not have ever considered.

Are you the type of person who sees someone working or planning or contemplating and you immediately want to offer up some words or wisdom? Not just from a micromanaging standpoint–not that there’s anything wrong with that–but from wanting to genuinley help someone who may be struggling. This is another way inspirational quotes help us: they’re called inspirational quotes because they inspire. If you see someone struggling to take a step in their business or scared to make a big life change even though all the signs are pointing to the timing being right,you might want to remind them of the Danish proverb  “One should do the blacksmithing while the iron is hot.” And even if you don’t pass this bit of wisdom on to someone else, keeping it in mind for yourself when you’re scared to take a big step in your life might be just the right amount of inspiration you need to take the next big step.

Something commonly taught to writers is if you want to be a writer worth any stock, you must first read a lot. You have to read and write and then read more and write more, in order to figure out what works for you. Motivational quotes offer short and sweet passages that we can build bigger ideas off of to pull our thoughts together. For example, if you’re writing a piece about dogs, seraching for inspirational quotes about dogs would get you back to writing faster than reading an entire book would.

Inspirational quotes are greatly beneficial to everyone, especially writers, regardless of where they are in the writing process. Quotes can help generate ideas within brainstorming, which can influence the ideas within the piece. They can send you in new directions by presenting the ideas of others. Finally, quotes can be a succinct way to fuel a writer as they pull a piece together, which will not distract them from writing for too long.