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little reason for it to be an app, and lots of websites along these lines already exist.
You should pursue this idea if and only if you have a solid understanding of how you'll accomplish this, and why it will work. Just making this and dumping this on the app store will not work.
Ignore those. Start by researching books (good, old, paper-based pbooks) that offer exactly this: There are plenty of them out there, usually one or two quotes per page, usually taken from public sources. Some of them are work related, some have a spiritual bent, etc.
Do this research just to satisfy yourself that yes, there are people who buy this sort of thing.
Next, validate the idea: Not with the HN crowd, I can almost guarantee they are not your audience. We tend to be self-starters, independent thinkers, etc. Some of us even mock the whole "motivational quote/poster/speaker" model.
Hell, how many of us would have told the guy who created "bingo card creator" to stick to his day job? Most of us. We are not good judges of the broader market because we all of us live on the fringes.
(Sure, there are one or two or a few people in here who can see into that broader but they are few. If you are lucky, some of the better ones will comment on this.)
Bring up those inspirational quote books with your friends, your family members, and acquaintances from non-tech fields. Do this in small groups and at times when people are more reflective, more willing to consider. Ask what they think of these books. Do they read them? Openly? As guilty pleasures? If they do, say something along the lines of "too bad there is no app for this". Judge their reactions.
As to how to do this, crowdsource the quotes. Create a system where people can submit (and correct) quotes with attributions, where they can upvote them. Whether or not a login is required is up to you, but if you go with a login, make it facebook and/or twitter, maybe pinterest, not google+ or roll your own, etc: My guess is that the people who would use this app will be very comfortable logging in with facebook and/or twitter, sharing their favourite quotes on those platforms, etc.
Make it possible for people to tag quotes, e.g., #spirituality, #productivity, #friendship, #peace, etc.
Have quotes of the day, featured quotes, etc.
There are opportunities for translation into many, many languages. See if you can crowdsource that, too.
Do NOT expect to make money doing this. Not because you won't (hell, I have no idea), but because that will allow you to gauge how much time to spend on it. Unless and until you have a successful kickstarter campaign or VC funding or hit a magical pricing structure that "just works", you will be doing this because you enjoy it, but it will not put food in your mouth or a roof over your bed.
Budget your time accordingly.
The fact that there isn't any app that does the same thing doesn't necessarily means that there's an opportunity, on the opposite, it likely means that there is no market for it. Yours it's a niche interest and the app would thus have a niche market, which means you won't make money out of it. If you're okay with it and money isn't what you're looking for, then by any means create your own app.
The fact that it is a niche market doesn't necessarily mean you won't make money out of it. On the contrary if you can work out a good way to monetize it, niche markets can be the most lucrative.
Your one and only problem in making this will be populating it. How will you fill it with data and/or get others to do so? It's not valuable until there's content. You should pursue this idea if and only if you have a solid understanding of how you'll accomplish this, and why it will work. Just making this and dumping this on the app store will not work.
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Main_Page has an API as all the wikimedia projects.
I see a lot of "don't do this unless..." or "why would you...". Ignore those. Start by researching books (good, old, paper-based pbooks) that offer exactly this: There are plenty of them out there, usually one or two quotes per page, usually taken from public sources. Some of them are work related, some have a spiritual bent, etc. Do this research just to satisfy yourself that yes, there are people who buy this sort…