Follow Your Dreams Quotes: Sourced Lines and Where They Come From
“Follow your dreams” quotes are short lines urging someone to pursue a long-held goal, and many popular ones have no confirmed author. The ones below do: each comes from a book, poem or speech. The last section covers the commonly shared lines that cannot be traced.
Henry David Thoreau
“If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.”
— Henry David Thoreau, Walden (1854), “Conclusion”
This is the source of the shortened version “Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you’ve imagined,” which circulates as if it were Thoreau’s sentence. It is a paraphrase. Cite the original when you need an exact quotation.
Langston Hughes
“Hold fast to dreams, / For if dreams die / Life is a broken-winged bird / That cannot fly.”
— Langston Hughes, “Dreams” (1923)
The poem is eight lines. The second stanza turns the image around: with dreams gone, life is “a barren field / Frozen with snow.” Hughes writes about holding on, not about achieving, which suits a graduation card better than a motivational poster.
Martin Luther King Jr.
“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
— Martin Luther King Jr., “I Have a Dream,” August 28, 1963
King’s dream is a public goal, not a personal career plan. Use it when the theme is the cause behind the dream, and do not shorten it into a general inspirational line.
Joseph Campbell
“Follow your bliss.”
— Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth (1988), interviews with Bill Moyers
Campbell’s phrase is the closest sourced match to “follow your dreams” as a command. In the interview he describes it as paying attention to what makes you feel most alive, not as a guarantee of a career.
Dr. Seuss
Seuss’s Oh, the Places You’ll Go! (1990) is the standard graduation gift, but it does not use the word “dreams” in its best-known lines. See our page on Dr. Seuss inspirational quotes for students for the sourced ones.
Quotes that are widely shared but not sourced
“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams” is credited to Eleanor Roosevelt almost everywhere. No Roosevelt writing or speech containing it has been found.
“You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream” is credited to C.S. Lewis. No source in his works has been found.
“All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them” is credited to Walt Disney. The attribution is disputed.
If you want one of these on a card, you can use the words without a name. Attaching a famous name to an unsourced line is what makes the misattribution spread.
Choosing a quote
For a graduation or send-off card, Hughes’s four lines or Thoreau’s sentence are the strongest sourced options. For a student writing an essay, Thoreau gives a primary text and a date to cite. For a short caption, “Follow your bliss” is three words with a real source.
Related pages: college quotes for students and grads, off to college quotes, and lifelong learning quotes.
FAQ
Who said “follow your dreams”?
No single person. Thoreau’s Walden passage is the best-known literary source for the idea.
Is “go confidently in the direction of your dreams” a real Thoreau quote?
It is a condensed version of the Walden sentence above. The original is longer and in the third person.
Is the Hughes poem free to quote?
Short quotation with attribution is common practice. Reprinting the full poem on a product or in a publication may require permission.