Top 120 Emotional Intelligence Quotes To Inspire You

Looking for inspirational quotes about emotional intelligence? We have rounded up the best collection of emotional intelligence quotes, sayings, captions, and statuses, (including images, and pictures) to motivate you to understand and use your emotions in positive ways to overcome challenges and defuse conflict in your life.

Also Check: Control your emotion quotes

What is the definition of emotional intelligence (EI)?

Emotional intelligence also known as emotional quotient refers to the ability to monitor and control own emotions.

Having a high EI will reduce mental stress by infusing self-awareness, self-regulation, and good communication skills. This will help you to raise your confidence and make you emotionally stronger.

Also See: Mental Strength Quotes

When you are driven by your emotions like anger or sadness, you tend to be carried away by the feeling and take emotional decisions. So when you are emotionally more aware and intelligent then you will take balanced and practical decisions in life.

If you are encouraged by these emotionally intelligent quotes, then do read be better than yesterday quotes and finish strong quotes to motivate you to control your emotions in positive ways.

Famous Emotional Intelligence Quotes

  1. “Knowledge kills your emotions.” – Pragati
  2. “Happiness depends upon ourselves.” – Aristotle
  3. “Expect the breakthrough and expect to learn.” – Kathleen Spike
  4. “Use pain as a stepping stone, not a camp ground.” – Alan Cohen
  5. “Emotional intelligence allows us to respond instead of react.” – Unknown

    Emotional Intelligence Quotes
    Emotional Intelligence Quotes
  6. “Societies can be sunk by the weight of buried ugliness.” – Daniel Goleman
  7. “Emotional intelligence has a significant impact on happiness.” – Unknown
  8. “Inhale emotional intelligence exhale forgiveness and civility.” – T.Y Howard
  9. “Where we have strong emotions, we’re liable to fool ourselves.” – Carl Sagan
  10. “Emotions are a critical source of information for learning.” – Joseph Ledoux
  11. “Never make a permanent decision based on a temporary emotion.” – Unknown

    Emotional Intelligence Quotes Images
    Emotional Intelligence Quotes Images
  12. “It takes something more than intelligence to act intelligently.” – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
  13. “Emotional intelligence is when you finally realize it’s not all about you.” – Peter Stark
  14. “Emotions and feelings…hmm, I used to have those, when I was a kid.” – Ayush Mehre
  15. “No matter the situation, never let your emotions overpower your intelligence.” – Jean Houston

    working with emotional intelligence quotes
    working with emotional intelligence quotes
  16. “The true losers in life, are not those who try and fail, but those who fail to try.” – Jess C. Scott
  17. “When awareness is brought to an emotion, power is brought to your life.” – Tara Meyer Robson
  18. “The emotional brain responds to an event more quickly than the thinking brain.” – Daniel Golema
  19. “By 2029, computers will have emotional intelligence and be convincing as people.” – Ray Kurzweil
  20. “It is not the stress that makes us fall, it is how we respond to situations of stress.” – Wayde Goodall
  21. “Walk like the lion, talk like doves, live like elephants, and love like a small child.” – Santosh Kalwar
  22. “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” – Proverbs 4:23 (Bible Verses)
  23. “Emotions and reason are intertwined, and both are critical to problem-solving.” – Antonio Damasio
  24. “Unleash in the right time and place before you explode at the wrong time and place.” – Oli Anderson
  25. “There is perhaps no psychological skill more fundamental than resisting impulse.” – Daniel Goleman
  26. “The only way to change someone’s mind is to connect with them from the heart.” – Rasheed Ogunlaru
  27. “Emotional intelligence is ability to use emotion to increase your own and other’s success.” – Annie McKee
  28. “There is no separation of mind and emotions; emotions, thinking, and learning is all linked.” – Eric Jensen
  29. “Your day will go the way your emotional intelligence guides both your thoughts and actions.” – T.Y Howard
  30. “It is amazing how once the mind is free from emotional contamination, logic and clarity emerge.” – Clyde De Souza
  31. “Calm your storm(s). today’s forecast…. Peace of mind and happiness all day long, no matter what.” – T.Y Howard
  32. “If you are tuned out of your own emotions, you will be poor at reading them in other people.” – Daniel Goleman
  33. “True compassion means not only feeling another’s pain but also being moved to help relieve it.” – Daniel Goleman
  34. “Emotionally intelligent people have an ability to manage stress as it happens and remain calm through chaos.” – Unknown
  35. “There is an old-fashioned word for the body of skills that emotional intelligence represents: character.” – Daniel Goleman
  36. “In a sense we have two brains, two minds – and two different kinds of intelligence: rational and emotional.” – Daniel Goleman
  37. “We are dangerous when we are not conscious of our responsibility for how we behave, think, and feel.” – Marshall B. Rosenberg
  38. “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
  39. “Five components of emotional intelligence at work: Self awareness, self regulation, motivation, empathy and social skill.” – Unknown
  40. “When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but with creatures of emotion.” – Dale Carnegie
  41. “People whose eyes shine are happy to be alive. They see the beauty of life and its glory, even when things aren’t easy.” – Jelena Pantić
  42. “Emotional intelligence is what humans are good at and that’s not a sideshow. That’s the cutting edge of human intelligence.” – Ray Kurzweil
  43. Empathy and social skills are social intelligence, the interpersonal part of emotional intelligence. That’s why they look alike.” – Daniel Goleman
  44. “Emotional Intelligence grows through perception. Look around at your present situation and observe it through the level of feeling.” – Deepak Chopra
  45. “The idea behind emotional regulation is not to suppress or deny emotions but to manage them consciously as they shape our words and actions.” – Unknown
  46. “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
  47. “For leaders the first task in management has nothing to do with leading others; step one poses the challenge of knowing and managing oneself.” – Daniel Goleman
  48. “Definition of Emotional Intelligence: The ability to create a balance between knowing what you don’t know and that what you know can be improved.” – Unknown
  49. “Emotional Intelligence (EI) can be broken down into the understanding and management of our own thoughts and feelings as well as the understanding of others.” – Unknown
  50. “The ability to process emotional information, particularly as it involves the perception, assimilation, understanding, and management of emotion.” – Mayer and Cobb
  51. “If you cannot feel your emotions, if you are cut off from them, you will eventually experience them on a purely physical level, as a physical problem or symptom.” – Eckhart Tolle
  52. “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.” – Victor E. Frankl
  53. “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” – Victor Frankl
  54. “It is very important to understand that emotional intelligence is not the opposite of Intelligence, it is not the triumph of heart over head. It is the unique intersection of both.” – David Caruso
  55. “What I’ve come to realize is that emotional intelligence, which I define as buoyancy, was the only way I knew how to lead, and is, in my option, the only way to inspire real change.” – Kevin Allen
  56. “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
  57. “The emotionally intelligent person is skilled in four areas: identifying emotions, using emotions, understanding emotions, and regulating emotions.” – John Mayer And Peter Salovey
  58. “Emotional intelligence is your ability to recognize and understand emotions in yourself and others, and your ability to use this awareness to manage your behavior and relationships.” – Travis Bradberry
  59. “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
  60. “My message for everyone is the same: that if we can learn to identify, express, and harness our feelings, even the most challenging ones, we can use those emotions to help us create positive, satisfying lives.” – Marc Brackett
  61. “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
  62. “Emotional intelligence allows you to regulate and manage your emotions to make yourself emotionally and socially strong. Emotional intelligence helps shape our interactions with others by adding to our skills.” – Unknown
  63. “Your heart does not answer to your mind; your heart reveals the deepest wishes of your soul. No amount of clever justifications or smart excuses alters your heart’s wish, it just delays the richly fulfilling life you truly seek.” – Roberto Beno
  64. “Be patient. Your skin took a while to deteriorate. Give it some time to reflect a calmer inner state. As one of my friends states on his Facebook profile: “The true Losers in Life, are not those who Try and Fail, but those who Fail to Try.” – Jess C. Scott
  65. “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
  66. “Let us fear the torment of emotions that might sway in its wake chaos through the sound construction of reason and discernment. Let us cherish instead emotional intelligence along the intricate and tortuous paths of life’s labyrinth.” – Erik Pevernagie
  67. “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
  68. “There are six elements of gravitas critical to leadership: grace under fire, decisiveness, emotional intelligence and the ability to read a room, integrity and authenticity (people don’t like fakes), a vision that inspires others, and a stellar reputation.” – Sylvia Ann Hewlett
  69. “5 reminders for leaders with emotional intelligence: Reject pity parties. Take a power-walk and breathe deeply. Don’t allow others to set your emotions. Focus your time and energy on what you can control. Stay humble with life’s highs and lows.” – Unknown
  70. “Emotionally competent teams don’t wear blinders; they have the emotional capacity to face potentially difficult information and actively seek opinions on their task processes, progress, and performance from the outside.” – Vanessa Urch Druskat & Steven Wolff, 2001
  71. “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
  72. “When a person has access to both the intuitive, creative, and visual right brain, and the analytical, logical, verbal left brain, the whole brain is working… and this tool is best suited to the reality of what life is, because life is not just logical – it is also emotional.” – Stephen Covey
  73. “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
  74. “Self-control is strength. Calmness is mastery. You have to get to a point where your mood doesn’t shift based on the insignificant actions of someone else. Don’t allow others to control the direction of your life. Don’t allow your emotions to overpower your intelligence.” – Morgan Freeman
  75. “You will continue to suffer if you have an emotional reaction to everything that is said to you. True power is sitting back and observing things with logic. True power is restraint. If words control you that means everyone else can control you. Breathe and allow things to pass.” – Warren Buffet
  76. “Beauty is an asset, just like physical prowess, charisma, brains or emotional intelligence. The key with any gift is in the way that you use it. It doesn’t define you as a person. Rather, it’s an asset to be used judiciously and with an understanding of how it is just a small part of who you are.” – Dale Archer
  77. “It is not depression or anxiety that truly hurts us. It is our active resistance against these states of mind and body. If you wake up with low energy, hopeless thoughts, and a lack of motivation – that is a signal from you to you. That is a sure sign that something in your mind or in your life is making you sick, and you must attend to that signal.” – Vironika Tugaleva
  78. “Emotional intelligence is a way of recognizing, understanding, and choosing how we think, feel, and act. It shapes our interactions with others and our misunderstanding 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
  79. “Emotional intelligence plays an important role in a well-balanced and productive workplace, as well as in leadership development.” – Allan Schweyer
  80. “Emotional intelligence is a different way of being smart. It includes knowing what your feelings are and using your feelings to make good decisions in life.” – J. O’Neil

Motivational Emotional Intelligence Quotes

Emotional intelligence is the ability to harness that power. Learning to control one’s overwhelming emotions is a great lesson to be learned so that you can take the right decisions that are in harmony with your principles to achieve inner happiness and peace in relationships, work, and life. EQ vs IQ Quotes

Also Check: Quotes to keep going through tough times

I hope these quotes about emotional intelligence motivate you to keep your emotions in place and achieve your goals and dreams.

  1. “When anger rises, think of the consequences.” – Confucius
  2. “Whatever is begun in anger, ends in shame.” – Benjamin Franklin
  3. “Any person capable of angering you becomes your master.” – Epictetus
  4. “Where there is anger, there is always pain underneath.” – Eckhart Tolle
  5. “What matters is hard work and emotional intelligence.” – Millard Drexler
  6. “Emotional intelligence is when you finally realize it’s not all about you.” – Peter Stark
  7. “Strong minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, weak minds discuss people.” – Socrates
  8. “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” – C.G Jung
  9. “Men who do not turn to face their own pain are too often prone to inflict it on others.” – Terrence Real
  10. “Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.” – Mahatma Gandhi
  11. “Beauty is an asset, just like physical prowess, charisma, brains, or emotional intelligence.” – Dale Archer
  12. “Emotional pain cannot kill you but running from it can. Allow. Embrace. Let yourself feel. Let yourself heal.” – Unknown
  13. “One ought to hold on to one’s heart; for if one lets it go, one soon loses control of the head too.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
  14. “Experiencing one’s self in a conscious manner- that is, gaining self-knowledge- is an integral part of learning.” – Karen Stone McCown
  15. “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
  16. “The strength of character and emotional intelligence to face your failures and learn from them are at the core of success.” – Robert Kiyosaki
  17. “Our feeling is not there to be cast out or conquered. They’re there to engaged and expressed with imagination and Intelligence.” – T.K Coleman
  18. “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
  19. “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
  20. “Emotional pain is not something that should be hidden away and never spoken about. There is truth in your pain, there is growth in your pain, but only if it’s first brought out into the open.” – Steve Aitchison

Working With Emotional Intelligence Quotes

Our emotions have a great influence on the decisions we make, at work, in life and in relationships. Taking control over our emotions during hard times and adversities, is extremely important for one to succeed  in life.

Also Check: Mind over matter quotes

There are a lot of situations that arise in our workplace which might shake us mentally and emotionally, this is the time when we have to show our personal effectiveness and resolve the situation smartly. These quotes will inspire you to take the right decisions after measuring the pros and cons of every situation.

  1. “CEOs are hired for their intellect and business expertise – and fired for a lack of emotional intelligence.” – Daniel Goleman
  2. “To be emotionally intelligent means to understand the powerful emotions of your and of others and to handle it properly.” – Unknown

    emotional intelligence quotes for work
    emotional intelligence quotes for work
  3. “Group emotional intelligence is about the small acts that make a big difference. It is not about a team member working all night to meet a deadline; it is about saying thank you for doing so.” – Unknown
  4. “Anybody can become angry that is easy but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose and in the right way that is not within everybody’s power and is not easy.” – Aristotle
  5. “Emotional intelligence, more than any other factor, more than I.Q. or expertise, accounts for 85% to 90% of success at work… I.Q. is a threshold competence. You need it, but it doesn’t make you a star. Emotional intelligence can.” – Warren G. Bennis

Quotes About Emotional Intelligence And Leadership

Emotional strength or inner strength is an essential part of being emotionally intelligent. Individuals having this attribute have leadership qualities, they can take on any challenge that life throws at them and come out stronger in worst of the situations in life.

Also Check: Sentimental Quotes

A strong leader is never an emotional being. He is practical with high emotional quotient (EQ) which helps him to deal every problem with a balanced approach.

A person in a leadership position with high emotional intelligence will always motivate his team, and help them combat any adversity.

  1. “A leader who understands emotional intelligence well achieves milestones.” – Ishita Vadher
  2. “Emotionally intelligent leaders know when to display emotions and when to delay emotions.” – Unknown
  3. “Emotional intelligence can be the game changer to high performance and personal leadership.” – Unknown

    emotional intelligence quotes leadership
    emotional intelligence quotes leadership
  4. “IQ and technical skills are important, but emotional intelligence is the sine qua non of leadership.” – Daniel Goleman
  5. “Leadership is all about emotional Intelligence. Management is taught, while leadership is experienced.” – Rajeev Suri
  6. “As more and more artificial intelligence is entering into the world, more and more emotional intelligence must enter into leadership.” – Amit Ray
  7. “Leaders with high emotional intelligence find ways to respect emotions, be authentic, and hold others (and themselves) accountable.” – Unknown
  8. “No doubt emotional intelligence is rarer 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
  9. “I think for leadership positions, emotional intelligence is more important than cognitive intelligence. People with emotional intelligence usually have a lot of cognitive intelligence, but that’s not always true the other way around.” – John Mackey

If you like these deep and powerful emotional intelligence quotes, you can also read our posts on endurance quotes and perseverance quotes to face all challenges and obstacles in life with a lot of strength and courage.

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