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In my paper, I want to say a sentence like this:

Inspiring from human societies, we want to do something.

As I searched it seems that "inspiring from" is not correct. What should I use instead of that? Just to clarify, I don't want to use "inspired by", since human societies did not DO anything to us (i.e. inspire us), instead we analyzed human societies and inspired from it. So we are the subject, not the object.

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    I think you may be reading inspired by a little too literally as a passive. Most (all?) native speakers will not assume that "societies" actually did anything to inspire you when you say you were inspired by human societies. A painter can easily say he was inspired by Picasso, nobody will think that he actually interacted with Picasso, or that Picasso actually did anything to actually inspire that specific painter.
    – oerkelens
    Aug 3, 2015 at 12:37
  • In His music interested me, the music interested "me". The same goes to His music inspired me. The music inspired "me", and thus I'm inspired by his music. There is no need to avoid saying Inspired by an inanimate thing, we do such and such.
    – Damkerng T.
    Aug 4, 2015 at 0:26
  • But I want to use it in my title too. Does it make sense to say: Inspiring by Birds for Improving Airplanes, instead of Inspiring from Birds for Improving Airplanes? I don't think so.
    – Shayan
    Aug 4, 2015 at 20:28
  • If you want to use it in a title, you'd better say so in the question. Anyway, Inspiring by Birds for Improving Airplanes sounds wrong, Inspiring from Birds for Improving Airplanes sounds a little better but awkward. I think what you're thinking of could be written as Inspiration from Birds for Improving Airplanes. Keep in mind that titles are a bit more flexible. Such titles as From Birds to an Airplane Improvement or Inspired by Birds: An Airplane Improvement are possible too.
    – Damkerng T.
    Aug 4, 2015 at 20:51

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Inspire by can be used in the sense you are trying to use it. But if you really want to bring home the point that you were actively "getting inspired" you can use "take inspiration from".

Having taken inspiration from the human societies we want to do something.

It's a bit clumsy but it works.

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  • I also want to use it in the title of my paper. Instead of for example saying: Inspiring from Birds for Improving Airplanes, saying Having Taken Inspiration from Birds for Improving Airplanes. doesn't make sense :(
    – Shayan
    Aug 4, 2015 at 20:27
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I think Inspired by is OK, but if you insist on using from you may say:

Having drawn inspiration from human societies, we want to do something.

Or

Human societies were the source of inspiration for this work.

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  • I also want to use it in the title of my paper. Instead of for example saying: Inspiring from Birds for Improving Airplanes, saying Source of Insipiration from Birds for Improving Airplanes. doesn't make sense :(
    – Shayan
    Aug 4, 2015 at 20:27
  • if one wants to use source of inspiration, it can be Birds as source of inspiration for improving airplanes
    – Ahmad
    Aug 5, 2015 at 4:49

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