Learn English – Difference between “prodigal” and “profligate”

Close and near can be used as adjectives, and in many cases they are the same when talking about physical distances.

The train station is close.
The train station is near.

They are not the same when talking about more abstract concepts, like relationships.

My mother is close [she is 3 feet away].
My mother and I are very close [we have a strong family bond].
My mother is near [she is 3 feet away].
My mother and I are very near [we are 3 feet apart].

Only near can be used as a preposition without the word to.

*We are close the train station.
We are close to the train station [correct: close to is the proposition].
We are near the train station [correct: near is the preposition].

When you convert to adverb form, they are not interchangeable at all. In this case, closely implies "at a small distance", while nearly implies "almost but not quite"

*We are nearly following the news.
We are closely following the news.

*I closely hurt myself.
I nearly hurt myself.

* incorrect usage

One difference is that inspiring always means that someone is actually inspired by it, whereas inspirational can also be used in compounds where it means only that something is intended to inspire; an inspirational speaker (or "motivational speaker"), for example, is someone whose job is to give speeches that are intended to inspire, without regard for whether they succeed (so "boring inspirational speaker" is not a contradiction in terms), and similarly, an inspirational poster (or "motivational poster") is a poster that is (supposedly) intended to inspire positive qualities, but I don't think it generally succeeds. But this use is non-predicative; in "the speaker was inspirational" (predicate adjective) or "a very inspirational poster" (modified by very), that meaning is not available, so in these cases inspirational just means inspiring.