35 Motivating Quotes From “To Kill a Mockingbird” About Achieving Your Goals

Harper Lee is the author of the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, which was first published in the year 1960. Instantaneously popular, it is now required reading in many secondary and even some primary schools across the United States. It was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for literature and has gone on to become a timeless piece of contemporary American writing. The storyline and the characters are largely inspired by Lee’s observations of her own family, her neighbors, and an event that took place close to her childhood home in Monroeville, Alabama, in the year 1936, when she was ten years old. You will gain motivation and inspiration from the To Kill a Mockingbird quotes that discuss the importance of having courage in life.

The most famous quotes From To Kill a Mockingbird

1. “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view… Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.” ― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
2. “Sometimes the Bible in the hand of one man is worse than a whiskey bottle in the hand of (another)… There are just some kind of men who-who’re so busy worrying about the next world they’ve never learned to live in this one, and you can look down the street and see the results.” ― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
3. “Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corncribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.” ― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
4. “Real courage is when you know you’re licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.” ― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

To Kill A Mockingbird quotes about courage

5. “But sometimes we have to make the best of things, and the way we conduct ourselves when the chips are down…” ― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
6. “Simply because we were licked a hundred years before we started is no reason for us not to try to win.” ― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

7. “You just hold your head high and keep those fists down. No matter what anybody says to you, don’t you let ’em get your goat. Try fightin’ with your head for a change. -Atticus Finch” ― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
8. “The apple does not fall far from the tree.” ― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
9. “I wonder how much of the day I spend just callin’ after you.” ― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
10. “When a child asks you something, answer him, for goodness sake. But don’t make a production of it. Children are children, but they can spot an evasion faster than adults, and evasion simply muddles ’em.” ― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
11. “People in their right minds never take pride in their talents.” ― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
12. “The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.” ― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
13. “People generally see what they look for, and hear what they listen for.” ― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

14. “I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what. – Atticus Finch” ― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
15. “Cry about the simple hell people give other people- without even thinking. Cry about the hell white people give colored folks, without even stopping to think that they’re people too.” ― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
16. “Nothing’s real scary except in books.” ― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
17. “Bad language is a stage all children go through, and it dies with time when they learn they’re not attracting attention with it.” ― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
18. “Atticus had said it was the polite thing to talk to people about what they were interested in, not about what you were interested in.” ― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
19. “People don’t like to have somebody knowing more than they do. It aggravates them.” ― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
20. “Try fighting with your head for a change… it’s a good one, even if it does resist learning.” ― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
21. “I came to the conclusion that people were just peculiar, I withdrew from them, and never thought about them until I was forced to.” ― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
22. “Before Jem looks at anyone else he looks at me, and I’ve tried to live so I can look squarely back at him.” ― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
23. “Equal rights for all, special privileges for none.” ― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
24. “That proves something- that a gang of wild animals can be stopped, simply because they’re still human.” ― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
25. “Nothing is more deadly than a deserted, waiting street.” ― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
26. “Sometimes it’s better to bend the law a little in special cases.” ― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

27. “I never loved reading until I feared I would lose it. One does not love breathing.” ― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
28. “There’s a lot of ugly things in this world, son. I wish I could keep ’em all away from you. That’s never possible.” ― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
29. “You see they could never, never understand that I live like I do because that’s the way I want to live.” ― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
30. “Mutual defiance made them alike.” ― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
31. “So far nothing in your life has interfered with your reasoning process.” ― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
32. “Remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.” ― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
33. “Things are never as bad as they seem.” ― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
34. “You can choose your friends but you sho’ can’t choose your family, an’ they’re still kin to you no matter whether you acknowledge ’em or not, and it makes you look right silly when you don’t.” ― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
35. “Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.” ― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

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