Independent. Human-Curated. Established 2007.
Editorial Board· 31 min read
The Best Quotes of All Time
Jennifer Mattern19-Year Expert
Originally published December 2023, Updated May 2026
Independent. Human-Curated. Established 2007.
The best quotes distil years of thought into a single sentence. We’ve verified every attribution — and corrected the ones that are wrong.
Have you ever come across a single line that changed how you looked at something? The best quotes do exactly that — they compress a lifetime of observation into a sentence small enough to carry with you. They travel because they’re true, or feel true, or say something we suspected but couldn’t articulate ourselves.
We’ve been building this list since 2009. What we’ve learned: a surprising proportion of the most famous quotes on the internet are wrong — not wrong as ideas, but wrong about who said them. Einstein didn’t coin the insanity definition. Walt Disney didn’t tell you to dream it to do it. Churchill didn’t say half the things attributed to him. We’ve flagged all of these, because correcting the attribution doesn’t diminish the wisdom — it just gives credit where it’s actually due.
In an age of infinite content, the aphorism — the one-sentence distillation of a deep idea — has not become less valuable. It has become more so. We are overwhelmed by words. A sentence that cuts through to something genuinely true is rarer and more useful than ever.
The quotes on this page were said or written by people in radically different times, places, and circumstances — a Roman emperor, a Harlem Renaissance poet, a Ghanaian proverb, a British novelist, a Greek philosopher, a Silicon Valley CEO. What they share is the quality of having been genuinely thought about. That’s what makes a quote last.
Which quote on this list has most affected your life? Tell us in the comments — we read every one.
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