Emotional intelligence (otherwise known as emotional quotient or EQ) is the ability to understand, use, and manage your own emotions in positive ways to relieve stress, communicate effectively, empathize with others, overcome challenges and defuse conflict. Inspirational emotional intelligence quotes will challenge the way you think, change the way you live and transform your whole life.
If you’re searching for uplifting quotes about strength and famous forgiveness quotes that perfectly capture what you’d like to say or just want to feel inspired yourself, browse through an amazing collection of greatest control quotes, inspiring challenge quotes, and powerful being a man quotes.
Famous Emotional Intelligence Quotes
There are certain emotions that will kill your drive; frustration and confusion. You can change these to a positive force. Frustration means you are on the verge of a breakthrough. Confusion can mean you are about to learn something. Expect the breakthrough and expect to learn. – Kathleen Spike
You can conquer almost any fear if you will only make up your mind to do so. For remember, fear doesn’t exist anywhere except in the mind. – Dale Carnegie
There is no separation of mind and emotions; emotions, thinking, and learning are all linked. – Eric Jensen
Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space lies our freedom and power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and freedom. – Viktor E. Frankl
It is a choice. No matter how frustrating or boring or constraining or painful or oppressive our experience, we can always choose how we respond. – Edith Eger
We define emotional intelligence as the subset of social intelligence that involves the ability to monitor one’s own and others’ feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and actions. – Salovey and Mayer
Women are much more than men in touch with their emotional intelligence. That explains why women read fiction books while men stick to the user manuals. – M.Z.Riffi

Feelings are self– justifying, with a set of perceptions and proofs all their own. – Daniel Goleman
If your emotional abilities aren’t in hand, if you don’t have self– awareness, if you are not able to manage your distressing emotions, if you can’t have empathy and have effective relationships, then no matter how smart you are, you are not going to get very far. – Daniel Goleman
The only way to change someone’s mind is to connect with them from the heart. – Rasheed Ogunlaru
75 percent of careers are derailed for reasons related to emotional competencies, including inability to handle interpersonal problems; unsatisfactory team leadership during times of difficulty or conflict; or inability to adapt to change or elicit trust. – Center for Creative Leadership
No one cares how much you know, until they know how much you care. – Theodore Roosevelt
Unleash in the right time and place before you explode at the wrong time and place. – Oli Anderson
When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but with creatures of emotion. – Dale Carnegie
When our emotional health is in a bad state, so is our level of self– esteem. We have to slow down and deal with what is troubling us, so that we can enjoy the simple joy of being happy and at peace with ourselves. – Jess C. Scott
The greatest ability in business is to get along with others and influence their actions. – John Hancock
Anyone can be angry that is easy. But to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way that is not easy. – Aristotle
Any person capable of angering you becomes your master. – Epictetus
Comparing the three domains, I found that for jobs of all kinds, emotional competencies were twice as prevalent among distinguishing competencies as were technical skills and purely cognitive abilities combined. In general the higher a position in an organization, the more EI mattered: for individuals in leadership positions, 85 percent of their competencies were in the EI domain. – Daniel Goleman
Anyone can be angry–that is easy. But to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way–that is not easy. – Aristotle
Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom. – Aristotle
Every time we allow someone to move us with anger, we teach them to be angry. – Barry Neil Kaufman
Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around. – Leo Buscaglia
Emotions can get in the way or get you on the way. – Mavis Mazhura
Experience is not what happens to you it’s how you interpret what happens to you. – Aldous Huxley
Running a marathon with a backpack is tough and may hinder you from winning the race. Don’t let the baggage from your past heavy with fear, guilt, and anger slow you down. – Maddy Malhotra
Emotional competence is the single most important personal quality that each of us must develop and access to experience a breakthrough. Only through managing our emotions can we access our intellect and our technical competence. An emotionally competent person performs better under pressure. – Dave Lennick
Powerful Emotional Intelligence Quotes
Our feelings are not there to be cast out or conquered. They’re there to be engaged and expressed with imagination and intelligence. – T.K. Coleman
Anyone can become angry —that is easy. But to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way —this is not easy.
When you make people angry, they act in accordance with their baser instincts, often violently and irrationally. When you inspire people, they act in accordance with their higher instincts, sensibly and rationally. Also, anger is transient, whereas inspiration sometimes has a lifelong effect. – Peace Pilgrim
It isn’t stress that makes us fall. It’s how we respond to stressful events. – Wayde Goodall
Whatever is begun in anger, ends in shame. – Benjamin Franklin
Emotional Intelligence is a way of recognizing, understanding, and choosing how we think, feel, and act. It shapes our interactions with others and our understanding of ourselves. It defines how and what we learn; it allows us to set priorities; it determines the majority of our daily actions. Research suggests it is responsible for as much as 80% of the “success” in our lives. – J. Freedman
For news of the heart, ask the face. – West African saying
Let’s not forget that the little emotions are the great captains of our lives and we obey them without realizing it. – Vincent van Gogh
Quick to judge, quick to anger, slow to understand … prejudice, fear, and ignorance walk hand in hand. – Peart
The essential difference between emotion and reason is that emotion leads to action while reason leads to conclusions. – Donald Calne
Your intellect may be confused, but your emotions will never lie to you. – Roger Ebert
In a study of skills that distinguish star performers in every field from entry-level jobs to executive positions, the single most important factor was not IQ, advanced degrees, or technical experience, it was EQ. Of the competencies required for excellent in performance in the job studies, 67% were emotional competencies. – Daniel Goleman
Change happens in the boiler room of our emotions so find out how to light their fires. – Jeff Dewar
Never react emotionally to criticism. Analyze yourself to determine whether it is justified. If it is, correct yourself. Otherwise, go on about your business. – Norman Vincent Peale
To increase your effectiveness, make your emotions subordinate to your commitments. – Brian Koslow
When you listen with empathy to another person, you give that person psychological air. – Stephen R. Covey
Tenderness and kindness are not signs of weakness and despair, but manifestations of strength and resolution. – Kahlil Gibran
Remember that failure is an event, not a person. – Zig Ziglar
In the last decade or so, science has discovered a tremendous amount about the role emotions play in our lives. Researchers have found that even more than IQ, your emotional awareness and abilities to handle feelings will determine our success and happiness in all walks of life, including family relationships. – John Gottman
We are at our most powerful the moment we no longer need to be powerful. – Eric Micha’el Leventhal
I’m a pessimist because of intelligence, but an optimist because of will. – Antonio Gramsci
It takes something more than intelligence to act intelligently. – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
A leader is a dealer in hope. – Napoleon Bonaparte
When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen. – Ernest Hemingway
Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone … just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had. – F. Scott Fitzgerald
Inspirational Emotional Intelligence Quotes
Some people think only intellect counts: knowing how to solve problems, knowing how to get by, knowing how to identify an advantage and seize it. But the functions of intellect are insufficient without courage, love, friendship, compassion, and empathy. – Dean Koontz
Just imagine you’re four years old, and someone makes the following proposal: If you’ll wait until after he runs an errand, you can have two marshmallows for a treat. If you can’t wait until then, you can have only one–but you can have it right now. It is a challenge sure to try the soul of any four-year-old, a microcosm of the eternal battle between impulse and restraint, id and ego, desire and self-control, gratification and delay… There is perhaps no psychological skill more fundamental than resisting impulse. It is the root of all emotional self-control, since all emotions, by their very nature, led to one or another impulse to act. – Daniel Goleman
He’d always known that shit rolled downhill, but he never knew tears did the same thing. – Amy Lane
Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate. – C.G. Jung
Don’t compromise yourself. You’re all you’ve got. – Janis Joplin
Wisdom tends to grow in proportion to one’s awareness of one’s ignorance. – Anthony de Mello
The way to do is to be. – Lao Tzu
The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change. – Carl R. Rogers
I know that I am intelligent, because I know that I know nothing. – Socrates
If we can’t laugh at ourselves, do we have the right to laugh at others? – C.H. Hamel
Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others. – Jack Welch
In my 35 years in business, I have always trusted my emotions. I have always believed that by touching emotion you get the best people to work with you, the best clients to inspire you, the best partners and most devoted customers. – Kevin Roberts
One way to boost our willpower and focus is to manage our distractions instead of letting them manage us. – Daniel Goleman
Use pain as a stepping stone, not a camp ground. – Alan Cohen
If we lack emotional intelligence, whenever stress rises the human brain switches to autopilot and has an inherent tendency to do more of the same, only harder. Which, more often than not, is precisely the wrong approach in today’s world. – Robert K. Cooper
We are dangerous when we are not conscious of our responsibility for how we behave, think, and feel. – Marshall B. Rosenberg
Emotional intelligence grows through perception. Look around at your present situation and observe it through the level of feeling. – Deepak Chopra
No doubt emotional intelligence is more rare than book smarts, but my experience says it is actually more important in the making of a leader. You just can’t ignore it. – Jack Welch
What really matters for success, character, happiness and life long achievements is a definite set of emotional skills – your EQ — not just purely cognitive abilities that are measured by conventional IQ tests. – Daniel Goleman
Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else: you are the one who gets burned. – Buddha
We plant seeds that will flower as results in our lives, so best to remove the weeds of anger, avarice, envy and doubt… – Dorothy Day
Emotional intelligence is what humans are good at and that’s not a sideshow. That’s the cutting edge of human intelligence. – Ray Kurzweil
Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding. – Khalil Gibran
Whatever is begun in anger, ends in shame. – Benjamin Franklin
Emotional intelligence begins to develop in the earliest years. All the small exchanges children have with their parents, teachers, and with each other carry emotional messages. – Daniel Goleman
All your thoughts, imagination, feelings, emotions and sensation are part of the mechanical process that can be understood, at the state of self– realization. – Roshan Sharma
Deep Emotional Intelligence Quotes
Emotional intelligence is a way of recognizing, understanding, and choosing how we think, feel, and act. It shapes our interactions with others and our understanding of ourselves. It defines how and what we learn; it allows us to set priorities; it determines the majority of our daily actions. Research suggests it is responsible for as much as 80 percent of the success in our lives. – J. Freedman
Life is a series of experiences, each one of which makes us bigger, even though it is hard to realize this. For the world was built to develop character and we must learn that the setbacks and griefs which we endure help us out in marching onward. – Henry Ford
Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs. – Charlotte Bronte
Instead of resisting any emotion, the best way to dispel it is to enter it fully, embrace it and see through your resistance. – Deepak Chopra
When awareness is brought to an emotion, power is brought to your life. – Tara Meyer Robson
Even though a high IQ is no guarantee of prosperity, prestige, or happiness in life, our schools and our culture fixate on academic abilities, ignoring the emotional intelligence that also matters immensely for our personal destiny. – Daniel Goleman
Emotional intelligence simply means managing your mental state for a positive result. – David Atta
Realize that now, in this moment of time, you are creating. You are creating your next moment based on what you are feeling and thinking. That is what’s real. – Doc Childre
Emotional intelligence accounts for 80 percent of career success. – Daniel Goleman
When emotional intelligence merges with spiritual intelligence, human nature is transformed. – Deepak Chopra
Developing emotional intelligence is one way to protect yourself from damaging relationships. Emotional intelligence is a science that has been studied and researched for over a decade. According to the theories, mutual respect and effective communication are key. – Liz Miller
Emotional intelligence is the ability to sense, understand, and effectively apply the power and acumen of emotions as a source of human energy, information, connection, and influence. – Robert K. Cooper
In the school of emotional intelligence, even if the action or cause is negative, the reaction or effect should be positive. – David Atta
There are emotions which are biologically oriented and then there are complex emotions which are saturated with thoughts and cognition. – Jack Mayer
The sign of an intelligent people is their ability to control their emotions by the application of reason. – Marya Mannes
IQ and technical skills are important, but Emotional Intelligence is the Sine Qua Non of Leadership. – Daniel Goleman
The strength of character and emotional intelligence to face your failures and learn from them are at the core of success. – Robert Kiyosaki
Words represent your emotional state, beware of what you speak! Restore your mental balance. – Ramana Pemmaraju
But once you are in that field, emotional intelligence emerges as a much stronger predictor of who will be most successful, because it is how we handle ourselves in our relationships that determines how well we do once we are in a given job. – Daniel Goleman
Emotional intelligence does not mean merely being nice. At strategic moment it may demand not being nice, but rather, for example, bluntly confronting someone with an uncomfortable but consequential truth they’ve been avoiding. – Daniel Goleman
People high in emotional intelligence are expected to progress more quickly through the abilities designated and to master more of them. – Mayer & Salovey
By 2029, computers will have emotional intelligence and be convincing as people. – Ray Kurzweil
It is very important to understand that emotional intelligence is not the opposite of intelligence, it is not the triumph of heart overhead it is the unique intersection of both. – David Caruso
Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future. – Paul Boese
Emotional self– awareness is the building block of the next fundamental emotional intelligence: being able to shake off a bad mood. – Daniel Goleman
Be not disturbed at being misunderstood; be disturbed rather at not being understanding. – Chinese Proverb
There is no weakness in being able to love fully. It takes courage, tenacity, and an emotional intelligence that most people are incapable of. – Alafia Stewart