30 Inception Quotes on the Power of One’s Mind & Imagination

These Inception quotes will tell you more about the depths of your mind, the power of your imagination, and the world’s infinite possibilities.

Sci-fi movies have become much bolder and more imaginative in the 21st century. One of the biggest hits in this genre would be Inception, a movie released in 2010 starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Joseph Leonard Gordon-Levitt, Tom Hardy, and more. Unlike usual heist movies, Inception uses dreams and infiltration to get into their targets’ subconscious.

Many find the movie confusing, but for fans, it’s clever, witty, and profound. Inception teaches us that everything that happens in life starts as an idea in our minds. Our power is unlimited if we only learn to harness that power.

Inception might be for a niche market, but it’s packed with meaningful messages nonetheless.

Read on if you’re a fan and want to revisit your favorite scenes from the movie. We have the most intriguing, meaningful, and memorable Inception quotes in this collection!

And make sure to check out these Tom Hardy quotes.

Best Inception Quotes

1. “Downward is the only way forward.” – Dom Cobb

2. “What is the most resilient parasite? Bacteria? A virus? An intestinal worm? An idea. Resilient, highly contagious. Once an idea has taken hold of the brain it’s almost impossible to eradicate. An idea that is fully formed—fully understood—that sticks; right in there somewhere.” – Dom Cobb

3. “They say we only use a fraction of our brain’s true potential; now that’s when we’re awake. When we’re asleep, we can do almost anything.” – Dom Cobb

4. “You mustn’t be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling.” – Eames

5. “Dreams feel real while we’re in them. It’s only when we wake up that we realize something was actually strange.” – Dom Cobb

6. “Building a dream from your memory is the easiest way of losing your grasp on what’s real and what is a dream.” – Dom Cobb

7. “In the dream state, your conscious defenses are lowered, and it makes your thoughts vulnerable to theft.” – Arthur

8. “Don’t you want to take a leap of faith? Or become an old man, filled with regret, waiting to die alone!” – Mr. Saito

9. Dom Cobb: “What do you want?”

Mr. Saito: “Inception. Is it possible?”

Arthur: “Of course not.”

Mr. Saito: “If you can steal an idea, why can’t you plant one there instead?”

Arthur: “Okay, this is me, planting an idea in your mind. I say, don’t think about elephants. What are you thinking about?”

Mr. Saito: “Elephants?”

Arthur: “Right, but it’s not your idea. The dreamer can always remember the genesis of the idea. True inspiration is impossible to fake.”

Dom Cobb: “No, it’s not.”

Inception Quotes That’ll Elevate Your Mind

10. “Admit it. You don’t believe in one reality anymore. So choose. Choose to be here. Choose me.” – Mal Cobb

11. “We create our own demons.” – Dom Cobb

12. Ariadne: “Who would wanna be stuck in a dream for 10 years?”

Yusuf: “Depends on the dream.”

13. “We all make choices in life, Mr. Saito, but in the end, our choices make us.” – Dom Cobb

14. Professor Stephen Miles: “Come back to reality, Dom. Please.”

Dom Cobb: “Now you listen to me; if you jump, you’re not going to wake up, remember?”

15. “If you’re going to perform inception, you need imagination. You need the simplest version of the idea—the—the one that will grow naturally in the subject’s mind. Subtle art.” – Eames

16. “You’re waiting for a train—a train that’ll take you far away. You know where you hope this train will take you. But you can’t know for sure. Yet it doesn’t matter.” – Dom Cobb

17. “The first step to inception is inception itself.” – Yusuf

18. “A single idea from the human mind can build cities. An idea can transform the world and rewrite all the rules.” – Dom Cobb

19. “That many dreams within dreams is too unstable.” – Yusuf

Interesting Inception Quotes to Pique Your Curiosity

20. “My subconscious feels that someone else is creating the world. The more you change things, the quicker the projections converge on you.” – Dom Cobb

21. “She locked away a secret, deep inside herself, something she once knew to be true, but chose to forget.” – Dom Cobb

22. “No idea is simple when you have to plant it in someone else’s mind.” – Dom Cobb

23. “Let me ask you a question. You never remember the beginning of your dreams, do you? You just turn up in the middle of what’s going on.” – Dom Cobb

24. Dom Cobb: “I can’t stay with her anymore because she doesn’t exist.”

Mal Cobb: “I’m the only thing you do believe in anymore.”

Dom Cobb: “I wish. I wish more than anything. But I can’t imagine you with all your complexity, all your perfection, all your imperfection. Look at you. You are just a shade of my real wife. You’re the best I can do, but I’m sorry, you are just not good enough.”

Inception Quotes for a Unique Perspective

25. “There is a moment of pure terror when you jump from the ledge and realize that there is nothing but air beneath you.” – Arthur

26. “We all have our limits, Mr. Ariadne. You reach yours when you start making excuses.” – Dom Cobb

27. “No one ever really dies.” – Ariadne

28. “I think positive emotion trumps negative emotion every time. We all yearn for reconciliation—for catharsis.” – Dom Cobb

29. Dom Cobb: “Inception. Now, before you bother telling me it’s impossible—.”

Eames: “No, it’s perfectly possible. It’s just bloody difficult.”

30. Ariadne: “Why is it so important to dream?”

Dom Cobb: “Because in my dreams, we are together.”

How Deep and How Far Has Your Imagination Ever Taken You?

Inception is a tricky movie to understand. Its premise relies on dreams, and as we all know, dreams are not logical. You show up in the middle of your dream without any idea how you got there, and sometimes, everything ends in a flash.

However, though there’s no logic to them, Inception allows us to think more deeply about what our dreams entail. Dreams, after all, are a product of our imagination and subconscious. It’s the embodiment of how expansive and limitless the power of our brains is.

When we’re awake, we hold ourselves back because of our rationality. In this case, it’s good to learn from our illogical or irrational dreams. Don’t limit yourself because, really, our minds hold great power.

Cobb says, “They say we only use a fraction of our brain’s true potential; now that’s when we’re awake. When we’re asleep, we can do almost anything.” This couldn’t be more true.

Remember that we only develop and improve ourselves whenever we use our brains to their full potential. However, that’s not enough. We must constantly push our limits and go beyond what we already know.

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Karen Danao

Hi, I’m Karen, a content curator and writer for Quote Ambition; I’m also a marketing and advertising professional. Beyond the keyboard and the screen, I’m someone who’s out to enjoy every bit that life has to offer!

Poetry, philosophy, history, and movies are all topics I love writing about! However, my true passion is in traveling, photography, and finding common ground to which everyone from different cultures can relate.

With the many places I’ve been to, I found that love, inspiration, and happiness are some things that bring people together. No matter how different we are on the outside, I’m a true believer that our emotions don’t lie; if you dig deep into our psyche, we’re all the same inside.

This belief was further amplified when I joined Quote Ambition. Through the quotes I’ve read, collected, organized, and written about, I found that humans are resilient, creative, and compassionate.

We take from each others’ hearts and courage, and it’s through our individual experiences that we learn how to rise above our challenges and pain. In so many ways, Quote Ambition is a platform that allows people from all over the world to gain the inspiration they need anytime, anywhere!

You can find me on MuckRack and LinkedIn.