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The Best Quotes of All Time

The Best Quotes of All Time

1,018 commentsDecember 1, 202338 min readby Jennifer Mattern
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Have you ever come across a simple line that inspired you to make a major life change? The best quotes of all time are distillations of the experiences and thoughts of inspiring people. They can have a powerful effect on us.

A few impactful words can change your mind on an important issue, or shift your entire perspective on a problem. Sometimes a good quote is just what you need when you’re looking for a quick smile and a bit of motivation.

We’ve looked through hundreds of quotes by famous leaders and thinkers. We picked some of the best to share with you in a few categories. These are inspiring, motivational quotes that will hopefully get you thinking about your life, your work, or your dreams – and perhaps show you ways to make these things better.

We’ve been updating this article with more quotes since it first appeared. It now stands at around 300! Please also check out our list of the Best Quotes About Life!

If your own favorite inspirational and motivational quotes aren’t on the list, or you know another version of one that is, let us know in the comments.

Here’s our list of the best quotes of all time – let’s get started!

Quotes on Age

If there’s a single thing all living things have in common, then it’s that we all age. Here are some of our top pieces of wisdom about youth, aging, and age:

The secret to staying young is to live honestly, eat slowly, and lie about your age.
– Lucille Ball

Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young.
– Henry Ford

We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.
– George Bernard Shaw

Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.
– Mark Twain

No one is so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.
– Henry David Thoreau

Forty is the old age of youth; fifty is the youth of old age.
– Victor Hugo

The old believe everything: the middle-aged suspect everything: the young know everything.
– Oscar Wilde

Life’s tragedy is that we get old too soon and wise too late.
– Benjamin Franklin

Middle age is when you’re sitting at home on a Saturday night and the telephone rings and you hope it isn’t for you.
– Ogden Nash

You know you are getting old when the candles cost more than the cake.
– Bob Hope

Anger Quotes

Feeling a little hot under the collar? Here are some of our top picks for the best adages on anger:

I would not look upon anger as something foreign to me that I have to fight… I have to deal with my anger with care, with love, with tenderness, with nonviolence.
– Thich Nhat Hanh

For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

In times of great stress or adversity, it’s always best to keep busy, to plow your anger and your energy into something positive.
– Lee Iacocca

Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. But anger is like fire. It burns it all clean.
– Maya Angelou

He who angers you, conquers you.
– Elizabeth Kenny

Man should forget his anger before he lies down to sleep.
– Mohandas Gandhi

When angry, count to four; when very angry, swear.
– Mark Twain

Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned,
Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.
– William Congreve

You will not be punished for your anger; you will be punished by your anger.
– Buddha

Anyone can become angry – that is easy, but to be angry with the right person at the right time and for the right purpose and in the right way – that is not within everyone’s power and that is not easy.
– Aristotle

Anger repressed can poison a relationship as surely as the cruelest words.
– Dr. Joyce Brothers

Thoughtful Beauty Quotes

Here is some of our favorite wisdom regarding beauty. Because it is so notoriously subjective, beauty – of places, of ideas, and of course of people – offers a lot of perspective for contemplation.

Beauty, without expression, tires.
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness.
– Leo Tolstoy

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
– Margaret Hungerford

I’m tired of all the nonsense about beauty being only skin-deep. That’s deep enough. What do you want – an adorable pancreas?
– Jean Kerr

Everything has its beauty, but not everyone sees it.
– Confucius

Some people, no matter how old they get, never lose their beauty – they merely move it from their faces into their hearts.
– Martin Buxbaum

It is not beauty that endears; it’s love that makes us see beauty.
– Leo Tolstoy

Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes clean to the bone.
– Dorothy Parker

Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything beautiful, for beauty is God’s handwriting.
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

Beauty is whatever gives joy.
– Edna St. Vincent Millay

Motivational Quotes on Beginnings and Starting Out

Here are some of our favorite quotes about starting out and making new beginnings.

Too many of us are not living our dreams because we are living our fears.
– Les Brown

Though no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending.
– Carl Bard

Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.
– Mark Twain

Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome.
– Samuel Johnson

Every artist was first an amateur.
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle.
– Steve Jobs

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.
– Mark Twain

Much of the advice given to young men about saving money is wrong. I never saved a cent until I was forty years old. I invested in myself – in study, in mastering my tools, in preparation. Many a man who is putting a few dollars a week into the bank would do much better to put it into himself.
– Henry Ford

Brilliant Business Quotes

Here are some of our top picks of sage advice for managers, business owners, and workers who’re aiming high.

A business absolutely devoted to service will have only one worry about profits. They will be embarrassingly large.
– Henry Ford

By working faithfully eight hours a day you may eventually get to be boss and work twelve hours a day.
– Robert Frost

Never burn bridges. Today’s junior jerk, tomorrow’s senior partner.
– Sigourney Weaver

The secret of business is to know something that nobody else knows.
– Aristotle Onassis

It is difficult, but not impossible, to conduct strictly honest business.
– Mahatma Gandhi

If your business keeps you so busy that you have no time for anything else, there must be something wrong either with you or with your business.
– William J. H. Boetck

If you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work.
– Kahlil Gibran

A real entrepreneur is somebody who has no safety net underneath them.
– Henry Kravis

Good products can be sold by honest advertising. If you don’t think the product is good, you have no business to be advertising it.
– David Ogilvy

Drive your business. Let not your business drive you.
– Benjamin Franklin

Great Quotes About Change

Here are some of our top picks for the best quotes of all time on change:

You must be the change you wish to see in the world.
– Gandhi

The greatest discovery of all time is that a person can change his future by merely changing his attitude.
– Oprah Winfrey

The only thing constant in life is change.
– Francois de la Rochefoucauld

He who rejects change is the architect of decay. The only human institution which rejects progress is the cemetery.
– Harold Wilson

Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.
– George Bernard Shaw

Consider how hard it is to change yourself and you’ll understand what little chance you have in trying to change others.
– Jacob M. Braude

No change of circumstances can repair a defect of character.
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.
– Charles Darwin

Only the wisest and stupidest of men never change.
– Confucius

Change the changeable, accept the unchangeable, and remove yourself from the unacceptable.
– Denis Waitley

Children Quotes

Children! Truly one of life’s biggest delights – and one of its biggest challenges. As we teach them, so we learn from them. Here’s what some of the best thinkers in history have said about children.

Children are one third of our population and all of our future.
– Select Panel for the Promotion of Child Health

Adults are always asking little kids what they want to be when they grow up ’cause they’re looking for ideas.
– Paula Poundstone

Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.
– James Baldwin

Don’t handicap your children by making their lives easy.
– Robert A. Heinlein

There’s nothing that can help you understand your beliefs more than trying to explain them to an inquisitive child.
– Frank A. Clark

Pretty much all the honest truth telling in the world is done by children.
– Oliver Wendell Holmes

We worry about what a child will be tomorrow, yet we forget that he is someone today.
– Stacia Tauscher

We cannot always build the future of our youth, but we can build our youth for the future.
– Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Children are our most valuable resource.
– Herbert Hoover

Never underestimate a child’s ability to get into more trouble.
– Martin Mull

Always be nice to your children because they are the ones who will choose your rest home.
– Phyllis Diller

Motivational Quotes on Courage

Here are some of our top picks for the best quotes of the ages on courage:

It takes courage to grow up and turn out to be who you really are.
– E.E. Cummings

Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak. Courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.
– Winston Churchill

Courage is grace under pressure.
– Ernest Hemingway

Courage is being scared to death but saddling up anyway.
– John Wayne

It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.
– Mark Twain

Courage is not the absence of fear but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.
– Ambrose Redmoon

Mistakes are always forgivable, if one has the courage to admit them.
– Bruce Lee

Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says ‘I’ll try again tomorrow.’
– Mary Anne Radmacher

Have the courage to say no. Have the courage to face the truth. Do the right thing because it is right. These are the magic keys to living your life with integrity.
– W. Clement Stone

In any situation, the best thing you can do is the right thing; the next best thing you can do is the wrong thing; the worst thing you can do is nothing.
– Theodore Roosevelt

Faced with what is right, to leave it undone shows a lack of courage.
– Confucius

Comforting Quotes About Death

Here are some of our top picks for the best sayings on death and dying:

In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.
– Benjamin Franklin

Even death is not to be feared by one who has lived wisely.
– Buddha

Our death is not an end if we can live on in our children and the younger generation. For they are us, our bodies are only wilted leaves on the tree of life.
– Albert Einstein

The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.
– Mark Twain

The only difference between death and taxes is that death doesn’t get worse every time Congress meets.
– Will Rogers

As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so a life well spent brings happy death.
– Leonardo da Vinci

The boundaries which divide life from death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins?
– Edgar Allan Poe

Death is nothing, but to live defeated and inglorious is to die daily.
– Napoleon Bonaparte

The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.
– Mark Twain

No one knows whether death, which people fear to be the greatest evil, may not be the greatest good.
– Plato

Quotes on Education

Here are some of our top picks for the best quotes of all time on education:

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
– Aristotle

Education is when you read the fine print. Experience is what you get if you don’t.
– Pete Seeger

To repeat what others have said requires education. To challenge it requires brains.
– Marry Pettibone Poole

It is possible to store the mind with a million facts and still be entirely uneducated.
– Alec Bourne

Life is not divided into semesters. You don’t get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you find yourself.
– Charles J. Sykes (although often attributed to Bill Gates due to a viral email)

Intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease only at death.
– Albert Einstein

Education is like a double-edged sword. It may be turned to dangerous uses if it is not properly handled.
– Wu Ting-Fang

Ignorance, the root and the stem of every evil.
– Plato

Education’s purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one.
– Malcolm Forbes

Outstanding Quotes on Equality

Here are some of our top picks for the best quotes of all time on equality:

The only stable state is the one in which all men are equal before the law.
– Aristotle

Democracy does not guarantee equality of conditions. It only guarantees equality of opportunity.
– Irving Kristol

As many political writers have pointed out, commitment to political equality is not an empirical claim that people are clones.
– Steven Pinker

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
– Thomas Jefferson

All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.
– George Orwell

I believe in equality for everyone, except reporters and photographers.
– Mohandas Gandhi

Before God we are all equally wise – and equally foolish.
– Albert Einstein

Nobody can give you freedom. Nobody can give you equality or justice or anything. If you’re a man, you take it.
– Malcolm X

The sole equality on earth is death.
– Philip James Bailey

To live anywhere in the world today and be against equality because of race or color is like living in Alaska and being against snow.
– William Faulkner

Unless man is committed to the belief that all mankind are his brothers, then he labors in vain and hypocritically in the vineyards of equality.
– Adam Clayton Powell Jr.

Pick-me-up Quotes on Failure

Here are some of our top picks for wise words on the topic of failure:

Success is never final. Failure is never fatal. It’s courage that counts.
– John Wooden

I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.
– Bill Cosby

The greatest barrier to success is the fear of failure.
– Sven Goran Eriksson

Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.
– Henry Ford

Success is walking from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.
– Winston Churchill

All misfortune is but a stepping stone to fortune.
– Henry David Thoreau

You can do anything, but not everything.
– David Allen

The road to success and the road to failure are almost exactly the same.
– Colin R. Davis

I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.
– Thomas Edison

The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.
– Walt Disney

No one can cheat you out of ultimate success but yourself.
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

In order to succeed, your desire for success should be greater than your fear of failure.
– Bill Cosby

Family Quotes

Here are some of our top picks for the best quotes of all time on family:

The only rock I know that stays steady, the only institution I know that works is the family.
– Lee Iacocca

Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city.
– George Burns

A happy family is but an earlier heaven.
– George Bernard Shaw

You know the only people who are always sure about the proper way to raise children? Those who’ve never had any.
– Bill Cosby

Family isn’t about whose blood you have. It’s about who you care about.
– Trey Parker and Matt Stone

All happy families resemble one another. Each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
– Leo Tolstoy

Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family. Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one.
– Jane Howard

You don’t choose your family. They are God’s gift to you, as you are to them.
– Desmond Tutu

As the family goes, so goes the nation and so goes the whole world in which we live.
– Pope John Paul II

If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance.
– George Bernard Shaw

Quotes About Friendship

Here are some of our top picks for the best quotes of all time on friends:

Don’t walk in front of me, I may not follow. Don’t walk behind me, I may not lead. Walk beside me and be my friend.
– Albert Camus

Misfortune shows those who are not really friends.
– Aristotle

Your friend is the man who knows all about you and still likes you.
– Elbert Hubbard

You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.
– Dale Carnegie

True friends stab you in the front.
– Oscar Wilde

Walking with a friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the light.
– Helen Keller

I destroy my enemies when I make them my friends.
– Abraham Lincoln

Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art… It has no survival value. Rather it is one of those things that give value to survival.
– C. S. Lewis

There are no strangers here; Only friends you haven’t yet met.
– William Butler Yeats

Wear a smile and have friends; wear a scowl and have wrinkles.
– George Eliot

Powerful Happiness Quotes

Here are some of our top picks for the best quotes of all time on happiness:

Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.
– Abraham Lincoln

Happiness is not doing fun things. Happiness is doing meaningful things. – Maxime Lagacé

If you aren’t grateful for what you already have, what makes you think you would be happy with more? – Roy T. Bennett

Happiness is a butterfly which, when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.
– Nathaniel Hawthorne

The best way to cheer yourself up is to cheer somebody else up.
– Mark Twain

The quality of a person’s life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavor.
– Vince Lombardi

It is very important to generate a good attitude, a good heart, as much as possible. From this, happiness in both the short term and the long term for both yourself and others will come.
– Dalai Lama

Happiness makes up in height for what it lacks in length.
– Robert Frost

Happiness is not a goal; it is a by-product.
– Eleanor Roosevelt

Happiness comes of the capacity to feel deeply, to enjoy simply, to think freely, to risk life, to be needed.
– Storm Jameson

The U.S. Constitution doesn’t guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself.
– Benjamin Franklin

Humor Quotes

Here are some of our top picks for the best quotes of all time on humor (or just humorous quotes we love):

Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.
– Oscar Wilde

I intend to live forever. So far, so good. – Steven Wright

There’s so much comedy on television. Does that cause comedy in the streets?
– Dick Cavett

Never be afraid to laugh at yourself. After all, you could be missing out on the joke of the century.
– Dame Edna Everage

That is the saving grace of humor. If you fail no one is laughing at you.
– A. Whitney Brown

Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory.
– Albert Schweitzer

Humor is perhaps a sense of intellectual perspective: an awareness that some things are really important, others not; and that the two kinds are most oddly jumbled in everyday affairs.
– Christopher Morely

Life is tough, and if you have the ability to laugh at it you have the ability to enjoy it.
– Salma Hayek

The best jokes are dangerous, and dangerous because they are in some way truthful.
– Kurt Vonnegut

Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog. Few people are interested and the frog dies of it.
– E.B. White

You are not angry with people when you laugh at them. Humor teaches tolerance.
– W. Somerset Maugham

I think the next best thing to solving a problem is finding some humor in it.
– Frank Howard Clark

Enchanting Quotes About Love

Here are some of our top picks for the best quotes of all time on love:

Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.
– Aristotle

To love is risky. Not to love is foolish. – Maxime Lagacé

Love does not consist of gazing at each other, but in looking together in the same direction. – Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Age does not protect you from love, but love to some extent protects you from age. – Jeanne Moreau

Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.
– Robert Heinlein

Love is friendship, set on fire.
– Jeremy Taylor

Love doesn’t make the world go round; love is what makes the ride worthwhile.
– Elizabeth Browning

It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.
– Friedrich Nietzsche

Love is, above all else, the gift of oneself.
– Jean Anouilh

Love at first sight is easy to understand; it’s when two people have been looking at each other for a lifetime that it becomes a miracle.
– Amy Bloom

Love is the irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired.
– Mark Twain

Friendship may, and often does, grow into love, but love never subsides into friendship.
– Lord Byron

Love is like a virus. It can happen to anybody at any time.
– Maya Angelou

Quotes About Men and Women

Here are some of our top picks for the best quotes of all time on men and women:

A diplomat is a man who always remembers a woman’s birthday but never remembers her age.
– Robert Frost

Women marry men hoping they will change. Men marry women hoping they will not. So each is inevitably disappointed.
– Albert Einstein

Men are what their mothers made them.
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

Male and female represent the two sides of the great radical dualism. But in fact they are perpetually passing into one another. Fluid hardens to solid, solid rushes to fluid. There is no wholly masculine man, no purely feminine woman.
– Margaret Fuller

If women are expected to do the same work as men, we must teach them the same things.
– Plato

For most of history, ‘Anonymous’ was a woman.
– Virginia Woolf

Women are made to be loved, not understood.
– Oscar Wilde

There are three kinds of men. The one that learns by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves.
– Will Rogers

Women don’t want to hear what you think. Women want to hear what they think – in a deeper voice.
– Bill Cosby

Women who seek to be equal with men lack ambition.
– Timothy Leary

Inspiring Quotes on Money

Here are some of our top picks for the best quotes of all time on money:

The best way to teach your kids about taxes is by eating 30 percent of their ice cream. – Bill Murray

The more you learn, the more you earn. – Warren Buffett

Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.
– Mark Twain

I will tell you how to become rich. Close the doors. Be fearful when others are greedy. Be greedy when others are fearful.
– Warren Buffet

A bank is a place where they lend you an umbrella in fair weather and ask for it back when it begins to rain.
– Robert Frost

Money won’t create success. The freedom to make it will.
– Nelson Mandela

Money isn’t the most important thing in life, but it’s reasonably close to oxygen on the ‘gotta have it’ scale.
– Zig Ziglar

Time is money.
– Benjamin Franklin

If you’re given a choice between money and sex appeal, take the money. As you get older, the money will become your sex appeal.
– Katherine Hepburn

It is the wretchedness of being rich that you have to live with rich people.
– Logan Pearsall Smith

The only way not to think about money is to have a great deal of it.
– Edith Wharton

Noteworthy Quotes on Movies

Here are some of our top picks for the best quotes on movies (about movies, not from them – for those, check out our 100 all-time-best movie quotes!).

This film cost $31 million. With that kind of money I could have invaded some country.
– Clint Eastwood

All of life’s riddles are answered in the movies.
– Steve Martin

A good film script should be able to do completely without dialogue.
– David Mamet

Shoot a few scenes out of focus. I want to win the foreign film award.
– Billy Wilder

The best reason to make a film is that you feel passionately about it.
– Jodie Foster

A film has its own life and takes its own time.
– Aaron Eckhart

Movies can and do have tremendous influence in shaping young lives in the realm of entertainment towards the ideals and objectives of normal adulthood.
– Walt Disney

The average Hollywood film star’s ambition is to be admired by an American, courted by an Italian, married to an Englishman, and have a French boyfriend.
– Katharine Hepburn

In the theater, you go from point A to point Z, building your performance as the evening progresses. You have to relinquish that control on a film.
– Gwyneth Paltrow

Every great film should seem new every time you see it.
– Roger Ebert

Memorable Music Quotes

Here are some of our top picks for the best quotes of all time on music:

Opera is when a guy gets stabbed in the back and, instead of bleeding, he sings.
– Ed Gardner

Music is the wine that fills the cup of silence.
– Robert Fripp

Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything.
– Plato

Life is one grand, sweet song so start the music.
– Ronald Reagan

Nothing separates the generations more than music. By the time a child is eight or nine, he has developed a passion for his own music that is even stronger than his passions for procrastination and weird clothes.
– Bill Cosby

Of all noises, I think music is the least disagreeable.
– Samuel Johnson

Music in the soul can be heard by the universe.
– Lao Tzu

I don’t know anything about music. In my line you don’t have to.
– Elvis Presley

Music is a safe kind of high.
– Jimi Hendrix

Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent.
– Victor Hugo

Famous Quotes About Peace

Here are some of our top picks for the best quotes of all time on peace:

If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, then there’d be peace.
– John Lennon

Peace begins with a smile.
– Mother Teresa

Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding.
– Albert Einstein

Peace is its own reward.
– Mohandas Gandhi

If you want to make peace, you don’t talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies.
– Moshe Dayan

The only alternative to coexistence is codestruction.
– Jawaharlal Nehru

Fighting for peace is like screwing for virginity.
– George Carlin

Where ignorance is our master, there is no possibility of real peace.
– Dalai Lama

Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without.
– Buddha

It isn’t enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it. And it isn’t enough to believe in it. One must work at it.
– Eleanor Roosevelt

My first wish is to see this plague of mankind, war, banished from the earth.
– George Washington

Powerful Quotes About Politics

Here are some of our top picks for the best sayings on politics:

One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.
– Plato

Politics is such a torment that I advise everyone I love not to mix with it.
– Thomas Jefferson

I have come to the conclusion that politics are too serious a matter to be left to the politicians.
– Charles De Gaulle

Being in politics is like being a football coach. You have to be smart enough to understand the game, and dumb enough to think it’s important.
– Eugene McCarthy

Politics is the ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month and next year and to have the ability afterwards to explain why it didn’t happen.
– Winston Churchill

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
– H.L. Mencken

Politics have no relation to morals.
– Niccolo Machiavelli

Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable.
– John Kenneth Galbraith

It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession. I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first.
– Ronald Reagan

Quotes about Science

Here are some of our top picks for the best quotes of all time on science:

Science may set limits to knowledge, but should not set limits to imagination.
– Bertrand Russell

Science never solves a problem without creating ten more.
– George Bernard Shaw

Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science.
– Charles Darwin

The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.
– Isaac Asimov

The important thing in science is not so much to obtain new facts as to discover new ways of thinking about them.
– Sir William Bragg

New discoveries in science will continue to create a thousand new frontiers for those who still would adventure.
– Herbert Hoover

However far modern science and techniques have fallen short of their inherent possibilities, they have taught mankind at least one lesson; nothing is impossible.
– Lewis Mumford

I am among those who think that science has great beauty. A scientist in his laboratory is not only a technician: he is also a child placed before natural phenomena which impress him like a fairy tale.
– Marie Curie

Science is simply common sense at its best. That is, rigidly accurate in observation, and merciless to fallacy in logic.
– Thomas Huxley

Sports Quotes

Here are some of our top picks for the best quotes of all time on sports:

Sports do not build character. They reveal it.
– Heywood Broun

Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence. In other words, it is war minus the shooting.
– George Orwell

We didn’t lose the game; we just ran out of time.
– Vince Lombardi

I went to a fight last night and a hockey game broke out.
– Rodney Dangerfield

Sports serve society by providing vivid examples of excellence.
– George F. Will

You can’t win unless you learn how to lose.
– Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Winners never quit and quitters never win.
– Vince Lombardi

Sport is imposing order on what was chaos.
– Anthony Starr

The difference between the old ballplayer and the new ballplayer is the jersey. The old ballplayer cared about the name on the front. The new ballplayer cares about the name on the back.
– Steve Garvey

The breakfast of champions is not cereal, it’s the opposition.
– Nick Seitz

Inspiring Quotes on Success

Here are some of our top picks for the best quotes of all time on success:

Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it.
– Thomas Edison

A goal is a dream with a deadline.
– Napoleon Hill

Motivation is a fire from within. If someone else tries to light that fire under you, chances are it will burn very briefly.
– Stephen R. Covey

People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing – that’s why we recommend it daily.
– Zig Ziglar

Eighty percent of success is showing up.
– Woody Allen

Never leave that till tomorrow which you can do today.
– Benjamin Franklin

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then is not an act but a habit.
– Aristotle

Anyone can do something when they want to do it. Really successful people do things when they don’t want to do it.
– Dr. Phil

Opportunity is missed by most people, because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.
– Maya Angelou

Famous Quotes on War

Here are some of our top picks for the best quotes of all time on war:

I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.
– Albert Einstein

May God have mercy upon my enemies, because I won’t.
– George Patton

You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake.
– Jeannette Rankin

There never was a good war or a bad peace.
– Benjamin Franklin

What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless whether the mad destruction is brought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty and democracy?
– Mahatma Gandhi

There is no glory in battle worth the blood it costs.
– Dwight Eisenhower

It is well that war is so terrible – otherwise we would grow too fond of it.
– Robert E. Lee

War is a cowardly escape from the problems of peace.
– Thomas Mann

Civil war? What does that mean? Is there any foreign war? Isn’t every war fought between men, between brothers?
– Victor Hugo

I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain.
– John Adams

Wise Quotes

Here are some of our top picks for the wisest quotes of all time: Thinking about life itself.

In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: It goes on.
– Robert Frost

Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards. – Søren Kierkegaard

Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but sometimes, playing a poor hand well. – Jack London

A little foolishness, enough to enjoy life, and a little wisdom to avoid the errors, that will do. – Osho

Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment. – Rita Mae Brown

If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door.
– Milton Berle

Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people.
– Eleanor Roosevelt

You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time. But you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.
– Abraham Lincoln

I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.
– Thomas Jefferson

The only true wisdom is knowing that you know nothing.
– Socrates

Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self control — these three alone lead to power.
– Alfred, Lord Tennyson

There are in fact two things, science and opinion; the former begets knowledge, the latter ignorance.
– Hippocrates

Other Great Quotes

While reviewing quotes there were some favorites that didn’t quite fit within the categories above, but they were still considered worth including as some of the best quotes of all time. Here are those quotes:

That which doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.
– Friedrich Nietzsche

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
– Eleanor Roosevelt

Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right.
– Henry Ford

If you don’t make mistakes, you’re not working on hard enough problems.
– Frank Wilczek

Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.
– Benjamin Franklin

We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.
– Martin Luther King, Jr.

The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.
– William Arthur Ward

Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.
– Thomas Edison

I do not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.
– Voltaire

Do you have any favorite quotes you’d put your personal list of the best quotes of all time? Remember, different quotes will touch and inspire different people in different ways. Your favorite quote might become a favorite of other readers as well. Please leave a comment below and share your favorite quotes with the rest of us.

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Jennifer Mattern
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1,018 comments

  • my life motto:
    “In my life’s chain of events, nothing was accidental. Everything happened according to an inner need.”

    Hannah Senesh

    Reply

  • One of my favorites was the one told me by a wee elderly Kerryman at the Brandon hotel bar as he cadged drinks. ” A man convinced against his will , is of the same opinion still “.

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        • STEVE: “WHO” CAN’T SPEAK ENGLISH.”
          “THAT” IS HOW ONE SPEAKS ENGLISH.
          (“GUYS’ ARE NOT ”THATS”)

          THERE ARE SOME ENGLISH RULES OF THE PAST WHICH HAVE BEEN CHANGED, LIKE THE WAY WE LEARN “NEVER USE AIN’T.” THAT AIN’T TRUE ANYMORE. AND THE LAST SENTENCE I WROTE IS STILL WRONG. YOU ONLY MAY USE “AIN’T” IN PLACE OF “AM NOT.”

          SO…”I AIN’T LEARNED NO ENGLISH” MEANS “I AM NOT LEARNED NO ENGLISH.” AND THAT SENTENCE MEANS THAT “IF i AINT LEARNED NO ENGLISH, THEN I MUST HAVE LEARNED SOME ENGLISH. (AM NOT AND NO CONTAINED TWO NEGATIVES. AND THAT IS A NO-NO. AND A “NO” TO A “NO” IS A YES! LOL!

          SO IF I WERE TO TELL YOU THAT “I AIN’T NO ENGLISH TEACHER,” THAT WOULD MEAN THAT “I AM NOT NO ENGLISH TEACHER” AND THAT WOULD MEAN THAT I AM AN ENGLISH TEACHER. AND THAT SENTENCE LAST IS CORRECT.

          BUT REAL TEACHERS TEACH STUDENTS HOW TO LEARN TO TEACH THEMSELVES ANYTHING. THOMAS EDISON ALREADY KNEW HOW TO LEARN, BUT NOT TO TEACH.

          BECAUSE HE KNEW THAT IF HE TRIED OVER AND OVER AGAIN, EVENTUALLY HE WOULD FIND, THE RIGHT FILAMENT FOR THE ELECTRIC LIGHT BULB, AN ITEM WHAT THE CREATOR HAD ALREADY CREATED HERE FOR ANYONE TO FIND. IT TOOK HIM 8000 TRIES.

          WE ARE NOW ON MARS BECAUSE SOME PEOPLE ON THIS EARTH BELIEVED THAT THEY COULD DO IT THE SAME WAY. “SEEK AND YE SHALL FIND” IS REALLY “THE WAY.”

          IT WOULD HAVE BEEN NICE HAD MY TEACHERS IN 12 ELEMENTARY, 4 HIGH SCHOOL 4 COLLEGE AND 3 GRADUATE SEMINARY YEARS AND MOST SUNDAYS IN CHURCH HAD CONVINCED ME THIS WAS TRUE. AND ALL OF THEM, LIKE ME AS A TEACHER AND PASTOR FOR 40 YEARS, HAD VERY GOOD INTENTIONS TO DO THE BEST WE KNEW TO TEACH WHAT WE WERE TAUGHT. BUT “SEEK AND YE SHALL FIND” WAS NOT PARTICULARLY. ONE OF THEM. WE WERE TAUGHT MOSTLY TO LOOK IN BOOKS FOR ANSWERS TO TEST QUESTIONS.

          SO, BRING UP A CHILD IN THE WAY HE SHOULD GO” HAS BEEN THE PRACTICE OF TRADITION-ORIENTED ATTEMPTS TO TEACH SUBJECTS…NOT STUDENTS.

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          • As a writer I deal with the grammar police a lot. It always amazes me when those who criticize others struggle with the same problems. As much as I usually don’t like getting into these grammatical back-and-forths, good catch on that one Marvin.

      • #1: You used “most stupid.” That’s not grammatically correct.
        #2: You aren’t being open minded to others opinions.
        #3: Edgar Allen Poe for example, nearly all the people he loved in his life all died from TB, but he didn’t die. He lived through all of the pain of seeing all of them pass away right before his eyes. Why did that happen to him then? If he happened to see this comment during his lifetime he probably would’ve gotten a big laugh out of it. That’s because the funniest of jokes have truth to them. I hope you think about this for a minute before you respond, if you do respond.

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        • Hey Ben,you know, even though Poe had awful luck in his personal life,he had a childlike,whimsical side.He was responsible for some of the best hoaxes and April fools pranks of his time.Shows a huge amount of resilience.

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          • That’s interesting. Do you have some specific examples of the pranks he used to pull? As a fan of Poe, I never would have guessed he was the type. Very cool. 🙂

      • God is a big boy, if he is what he claims to be he can handle a little joke at his expense since he created humor, and if he is not what he claims to be we do not have to worry about it in the first place…

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        • Andrew: I agree with you. And I am not aware of very many people who choose to do that. If they did, they would be more comfortable with their belief in an unconditional loving God, rather than one who plays policeman with his children and throws them in a prison of eternal fire when their rap sheet gets long enough.

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    • Oh dear me, all the quote means is that God makes things work out in a way that shows He likely have a very odd sense of humor, and people on Earth take things way too seriously, because this isn’t the part that really matters. We need to let go and go with whats thrown at us. No isults to God. Nothing bad was said. And even if it was, why are you fighting? The guy that said it is dead, people.

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      • “Don’t sweat the small stuff, and remember… Its all small stuff.” — I enjoyed your response, Samantha… It’s always a matter of time before someone lists a quote about “God” and sets off the fireworks. I’m sure if I scroll further down, there will be a quote about politics and another 80-post long stream of back and forth arguing.

        People need to take life less seriously, and enjoy the moments they can enjoy.

        The author of The Supreme Philosophy of Man: The Laws of Life, Alfred A. Montapert said, “Expect problems, and eat them for breakfast.” The God that everyone is so afraid of introduces problems into the daily life of people who believe in Him in order to help them avoid stagnation…

        A stagnant life is one that is wasted! Accept change, flow with change. It is “God’s” idea of humor to do something you do not expect… The greatest pranks of all time are both miracles and disasters set forth by the deity of Christianity… “I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. They are nothing like your Christ,” said Ghandi…

        Smile. Laugh. Live. Love. Die. If you can’t laugh when life throws you a curve ball… Does anyone get the quote yet…? Okay then… Hope you do…

        My favorite quotes of all time:

        “Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.” — Thomas A. Edison

        “If the elevator of success is out, use the stairs, one step at a time.” — John Reyes (2010 Philipines Presidential Candidate)

        “I have just three things to teach: simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are your greatest treasures.” — Lao Tzu (Ancient Taoism Philosopher)

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      • “I am me”, Thats not a quote everyone knows this.
        You are you.
        We are we. 🙂
        A quote is a wise (simple) saying that makes someone think of the truth twice.
        I hate that people just say some things that make no sense at all and call it a quote because they just want to say something , then people just start thinking over nothing but a couple of empty words.

        Reply

  • In the age section, you said that Mark Twain said “Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.” Actually Leroy ‘Satchel’ Paige said that first like a decade earlier

    Reply

    • The exact version included here is attributed to Mark Twain. It appears Paige has a very similar quote however — “function” as opposed to “issue.” So we’ll just have to consider that an addition to the list here in comments, as the exact version included appears to have been cited correctly.

      Reply

    • Satchel Paige was 4 years old when Mark Twain died, so he probably didn’t say a whole lot a decade before Twain did.

      Reply

    • For someone so adamant that they got it wrong, you might want to check out your source because unless Mr Paige was coming up with quotes concerning age, before he was born, he certainly didn’t say it a decade before Mark Twain.
      Mark Twain died in 1910
      Leroy “Satchel” Paige was born in 1906

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    • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) born November 30, 1835 died April 21, 1910
      Satchel Paige born July 7, 1906 died June 8, 1982

      Not quite sure how Satchel could have said it like a decade earlier since he was born only 4 years before Mark Twain died.. Just sayin.

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  • “Having a positive attitude may not get you what you want, but it will annoy enough people to be worth the effort”

    “Tact is for people not witty enough to be sarcastic”

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  • “we as humans cannot survive in a dark world. But, we can live dreaming of a brighter tomorrow”

    (I totally just made that up) 🙂

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  • “If you don’t make mistakes, you’re not working on hard enough problems.”

    – Frank Wilczek

    So true. I think people, in general, are way too afraid to make mistakes. The fact is, you’ll probably never succeed on your first try.

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    • so true. When I think of this I think of a kid tying their shoes or working on any other of life’s skills. You wouldn’t believe how many different ways and attempts are made and even when we model the correct way they still make many mistakes for a while before it finally happens. (I also picture how adorable the kids look so concentrated thinking that wrapping one side of the lace around the other 10 times is gonna work. I’m sure every kid does this at least a couple times in life!)

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  • Don’t mean to be a debby downer but i couldn’t help but notice all the gandhi quotes and thou the words are true the man who said them wasn’t exactly pure or true to his word. Check it out, some stuff about the man behind the words, http://www.gandhism.net/.

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      • I’ve heard that one slightly different — “Do as I say, not as I do.” Either way, it’s a good one. I can’t count how many times I had to hear it growing up. It’s surely a favorite of parents.

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    • Most priests aren’t as pure as the words they say either… Does that detract from the value of going to church..?

      If you can hear a statement… even if its a quote from Manson… If something that someone says inspires you to a positive place… Then does the source REALLY matter at that point?

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  • I’m not able the original quote anywhere, so I used Google Translate from danish to english. I know it sucks, I really do. If anyone knows, or is able to find, the original quote, I would be ever grateful.
    It’s a quote from Jurassic Park, the novel, and it’s being said by Ian Malcolm.
    “Negative things clump together. Things are going to hell together. How is the real world”

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  • “Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees all others.”

    – W.C.

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  • It’s amazing how influential a quote can be. Reading one of these quotes can be the inspiration needed to complete a task. I stumbled across another great list of famous quotes. Check them out and enjoy! Seize the day 🙂

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  • Some additions:

    “The creative adult is the child who survived.” –Ursula LeGuin

    “Life has taught us that love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking outward together in the same direction.” -Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

    “If I love you, what business is it of yours?” -Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

    Great quotes you had listed above!

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  • one of my favorite quotes about fear actually comes from the last Harry Potter book, written by J.K. Rowling, and is said by the character of Albus Dumbledore-“It is the unknown we fear when we look upon death and darkness, nothing more.”

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  • “if you put a limit on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them.” -Bruce Lee

    “One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain” -Bob Marley

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  • “I try not to think with my gut. If i’m serious about understanding the world, thinking with anything besides my brain, as tempting as that might be, is likely to get me into trouble.”

    Carl Sagan

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  • “When the power of love overcomes the love of power, then the world will know peace.”

    “Everything will be ok in the end. If it’s not ok, it’s not the end.”

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    • Thnx Liana 🙂

      Here are some more for yall.

      “You give me presents with your presence alone” (Jack Johnson)

      “I am nothing special; just a common man with common thoughts, and I’ve led a common life. There are no monuments dedicated to me and my name will soon be forgotten. But in one respect I have succeeded as gloriously as anyone who’s ever lived: I’ve loved another with all my heart and soul; and to me, this will always be enough.” (The Notebook)

      “The things we do in this life are insignificant, but it’s very important that we do them…..because no one else will.” (Gandhi)
      …
      “Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.” (Albert Einstein)

      “Do more for others than you would do for yourself.” (Book of Eli)

      “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.” 1 Corinthians 13:7-8

      “Faith is being sure of what you hope for and certain of what you do not see.” (Hebrews 11:1)

      “You may say that I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.” (Jack Johnson)

      “Baby don’t worry about a thing cause every little thing is gonna be alright.” (Bob Marley)

      “Go Big or Go Home. If it’s worth doing it’s worth doing right.” (?)

      Jenny: Do you ever dream, Forrest, about who you’re gonna be?
      Forrest Gump: Who I’m gonna be?
      Jenny: Yeah.
      Forrest Gump: Aren’t-aren’t I going to be me?

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    • It is too the end….no it’s not….. YES IT IS…no it’s not……YES IT IS!!
      Debating “the end” is pointless. So, henceforth debating the end shall be considered horrifyingly extraneous and best understood when compared to some really confusing mathematical theory or even to exponentially more mind boggling conundrums or mystical occurrences, unexplained, and best left alone for the well being of the human race. For example, we really may never know how many licks it takes to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Roll pop….So there, that’s what I think.
      p.s. It’s not easy to explain the boundaries, but at certain times for me personally, whether perceived as unintended or not, sarcasm hits the spot for those of us who were fortunate enough to be born without an innate sense of tact.

      Reply

  • “Never explain yourself. Your friends don’t need it, and your enemies won’t believe it.”

    “Don’t regret anything, because at some point in time, it was exactly what you wanted.”

    “You can pretend to be serious, but you can’t pretend to be witty.”
    -Sacha Guitry

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    • Love the second quote. I told a friend once before that spent two and a half hours apologizing to me for stuff that happened… “An apology is only useful if you would have done something differently.. If not, don’t apologize, don’t regret. Learn from it and move on.”

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  • Strength means recognizing that it is impossible to be strong all the time.   – Sally Franser
    “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be”

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  • My fave -“Coincidence is God’s way of staying invisible”

    Also: “The key to a great relationship are the four C’s: Chemistry, Compatibility, Commitment, and Communication”.

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    • “The key to a successful relationship are the three C’s: Commitment, Compromise, and Communication” – I’ve said this for years.

      Chemistry and compatibility describe the word relationship not what keeps it great or successful.

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  • “You don’t try to build a wall, you don’t set out to build a wall, you don’t say I’m going to build the biggest wall. You don’t start there…You say I’m going to lay this brick as perfectly as a brick can be laid and you do that every single day and soon you will have a wall.”

    “Being REALISTIC is the most common road to mediocrity, why would you be realistic? What’s the point? Its just puts up a barrier.”

    “Represent the IDEA that you can really make what you want.”

    –All of these quotes are from Will Smith.

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  • need to put the quote by winston churchil, If youre not a liberal at 20 you have no heart; if youre not a conservative at 40 you have no brain

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  • Here’s one from Albert Einstein:

    “Two things are infinite in this world: The Universe, and human stupidity. And i’m not so sure about the universe.”

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  • Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job. -Douglas Adams

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  • “Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man’s sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true.”- Martin Luther King Jr.

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  • “The emotions are not skilled workers.”

    “Bravery. For better or for worse, men usually give it up after adolescence.”

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  • After eating an entire bull, a mountain lion felt so good he started roaring. He kept it up until a hunter came along and shot him. The moral: When you’re full of bull, keep your mouth shut.

    -Will Rogers

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  • I have never let my schooling interfere with my education – Mark Twain

    Music should strike fire from the hearts of men, and bring tears from the eyes of women- Ludwig Van Beetoven

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  • There are four questions of value in life… What is sacred? Of what is the spirit made? What is worth living for, and what is worth dying for? The answer to each is the same. Only love
    -Johnny Depp

    Anything that is too stupid to be spoken is sung.
    –Voltaire

    Nothing travels faster than the speed of light with the possible exception of bad news, which obeys its own special laws.
    Douglas Adams, “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”

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  • “The heartbeat of a football team is the quarterback, and I think anyone who has any intellegene about the game know that you must have consistency and that position to be a championship team” -Ron Jaworski

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  • Failure is not the worth thing to happen the absolute worst is to not try.

    If success builds character then Failure reviles it.

    Its not what has happened to one but how one reacts to it.

    Every man dies however not all live.

    All done said by someone

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  • My comment:- “we often say that ‘money’ is not everything but the fact is that there is nothing without ‘money’.”

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    • Money does not buy you happiness nor does it buy wisdom. The only reason that we choose to place value on money is because we have not found something more valued yet. If it wasn’t paper that grows on trees then it could have been shells on the beach; after a while even that would become rare.

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  • “To suppose, as we all suppose, that we could be rich and not behave as the rich behave, is like supposing that we could drink all day and stay sober.” — Logan Pearsall Smith

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  • Thanks for the additions to the list folks. Of the quotes left in comments so far I like the Lincoln quote Travis mentioned and the Letterman quote about luck, posted by Tsal. Thanks! It’s always interesting to see which quotes stick with people. 🙂

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  • “Identify what’s important – eliminate everything else”. Don’t know who it came from but it’s been my rule for everything in life.

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  • He who works with his hands is a laborer. He who works with his hands and his head is a craftsman. He who works with his hands, his head and his heart is an artist.

    -St.Francis of Assisi

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  • ‎”We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.” – J.K. Rowling

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  • “Most men pursue pleasure with such breathless haste that they hurry past it.” – Soren Kierkegaard

    “We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.” – J.K. Rowling

    “You can never underestimate the stupidity of the general public.” – Scott Adams

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  • “The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.” Albert Einstein

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  • “I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, for vengeance, for desolation. War is hell.”
    ~William Tecumseh Sherman

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  • “We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately” was made at the signing of the Declaration of Independence on August 2nd 1776.
    Benjamin Franklin

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  • “Anything clever you can think to say, somebody’s already said it better!”

    I think that came from Mark Twain?

    “The man who works for nothing will never be out of work”

    My dad

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  • Many young people want to take time to “find themselves.” Who you are is not something you find, it’s something you create
    — me

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      • Maybe no two men are equal, but I do believe this quote is true. If someone was capable of doing something once, I believe everybody else can, but only if they are willing to do it. We all have the ability of doing everythig we want. We set our own boundries.

        “Whether you think you can’t or can, you are right”

        “You are your biggest obstacle”

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  • I have alot of favorites

    If I stoop
    Into a dark tremendous sea of cloud,
    It is but for a time; I press God’s lamp
    Close to my breast; its splendour, soon or late,
    Will pierce the gloom: I shall emerge one day.
    You understand me? I have said enough?
    -Paracelsus

    All the gold which is under or upon the earth is not enough to give in exchange for virtue. Plato

    For a man to conquer himself is the first and noblest of all victories.
    Plato

    If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace. – Thomas Paine

    Let your heart feel for the afflictions and distress of everyone.
    -George Washington

    Fairy tales do not tell children that dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children that dragons can be killed.
    -G.K. Chesterton

    He who does not punish evil, commands it to be done -Leonardo Da Vinci

    Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win. -Stephen King

    There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness but of power. They are messengers of overwhelming grief and of unspeakable love -Washington Irving

    I have seen children successfully surmount the effects of an evil inheritance. That is due to purity being an inherent attribute of the soul
    – Mohandas Ghandi

    Nothing is so strong as gentleness and nothing is so gentle as real strength – Ralph W. Sockman

    Perhaps we are wiser, less foolish and more far-seeing than we were two hundred years ago. But we are still imperfect in all these things, and since the turn of the century it has been remarked that neither wisdom nor virtue have increased as rapidly as the need for both.
    Joseph Wood Krutch

    I don’t want people who want to dance, I want people who have to dance. ~George Balanchine

    Stifling an urge to dance is bad for your health – it rusts your spirit and your hips. ~Adabella Radici

    And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music. ~Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

    Anyone who says sunshine brings happiness has never danced in the rain. ~Author Unknown

    Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing. ~William James

    You can dance anywhere, even if only in your heart. ~Author Unknown

    “Now this is not the end, It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is perhaps, the end of the beginning.”-Winston Churchill

    Joseph Conrad said, “The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary. Men alone are quite capable of every wickedness.”

    “The ultimate choice for a man, inasmuch as he is driven to transcend himself, is to create or to destroy, to love or to hate.” Erich Fromm

    Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.
    …Plato

    The author François de la Rochefoucauld wrote, “We are so accustomed to disguise ourselves to others that in the end we become disguised to ourselves.”

    Gandhi said, “Better to be violent if there’s violence in our hearts than to put on the cloak of non-violence to cover impotence.”

    Gandhi also said, “I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary. The evil it does is permanent.”

    Albert Pine said, “What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world remains and is immortal.”

    Albert Einstein said, “The question that sometimes drives me hazy: am I or the others crazy?”

    “A belief is not merely an idea the mind possesses; it is an idea that possesses the mind.”
    Robert Oxton Bolton

    Woman was created from the rib of man.
    She was not made from his head to be above him,
    nor was she made from his feet to be trampled on.
    She was created out of his side to equal him,
    under his arm to be protected by him
    and near his heart to be loved.

    The life which is unexamined is not worth living.- Socrates

    Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something.
    Plato (429-347 BC)

    If a million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing.
    Anatole France [Jacques Anatole Thibault] (1844-1924)

    All truly wise thoughts have been thought already thousands of times; but to make them truly ours, we must think them over again honestly, till they take root in our personal experience.
    Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)

    We know what a person thinks not when he tells us what he thinks, but by his actions.
    Isaac Bashevis Singer (1904-1991)

    It is another’s fault if he be ungrateful, but it is mine if I do not give. To find one thankful man, I will oblige a great many that are not so.
    Seneca

    The important thing is never to stop questioning.
    Albert Einstein

    Do the right thing. It will gratify some people and astonish the rest.Mark Twain [Samuel Langhornne Clemens] (1835-1910)

    When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other. Eric Hoffer (1902-1983)

    It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not deserve them.
    Mark Twain [Samuel Langhornne Clemens] (1835-1910)

    It has been said, ‘time heals all wounds.’ I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens. But it is never gone.” Rose Kennedy.

    Timshel – East of Eden

    Friends are angels who lift our feet when our own wings have trouble remembering how to fly. -Unknown

    “There is no secret ingredient” – Kung Foo Panda

    Gott würfelt nicht (God does not play dice)

    if you’re always late, you’ve bad time management, if youre never late your not doing wnough with your life- Alexander Herpst

    Reply

    • …with respect…

      Oprah Winfrey did not creat the saying… It was quoted before she was even born.
      Please give credit where due.

      “The greatest discovery of any generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitude.”
      WILLIAM JAMES
      US Pragmatist philosopher & psychologist (1842 – 1910)

      Reply

      • Thanks for your thoughts Dom. While very similar, the quotes aren’t exactly the same. The one included in the article was indeed from Oprah Winfrey. The version you cited was indeed from William James. There’s no doubt that Oprah’s version was influenced by James’. But as that was the version I initially came across while reviewing and gathering quotes for the article, that’s the correct citation for it. But I appreciate you including James’ version here for everyone to see. I’m sure there are many similar quotes out there to others on the list, some newer and some older. It’s always interesting to see where someone’s own thoughts might have originally stemmed from. Appreciate the contribution. 🙂

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  • To exceed less than your brothers and sisters in life, is to kill everyone of them without giving them a fighting chance.

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  • Another one that I really like that I probably should have put in that other post. “Wisdom is like a video game, you have to level up to unlock it.”

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    • That was Captain Kirk from Star Trek, in response to Spock’s frequent observations on the futiity of the missions at hand.

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      • It’s cool that so many well-known quotes come from characters rather than actual people. So many of them come from clever writers who never get much credit for them.

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  • “There is no justice in war, nor is there any right or wrong. Whoever wins the fight becomes right, and the blinded opinions of those men become justice.”-not sure by who, but i defiantly modified and added to this. Also-
    “Any and all who would fight for power are not fit for it. It is only those who have power thrust upon them unexpectedly and unwanted, and who find themselves capable of it, who are fit to wield it.”-again, just a random thing I just thought of.

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  • All generalisations are false including this one.

    Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.

    If I cannot convince you, I will confuse you.

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    • He who looks into the eyes of a dolphin and see’s cat food will one day become rich beyond his wildest dreams of avarice.
      Yet he who looks into the eyes of a cat and see’s dolphin food won’t.

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  • Wow…Guys…I really love your quotes. I was reflecting every quote posted in this blog…Good job to J.M. Please continue to work on quotes. Can you please suggest more quotes? I was making my own generalization in everything that was written in this blog. Why don’t you make a page on facebook and twitter and send us some quotes every day? that would be great…

    I’m looking forward to reading every quotes as soon as I get back into re-surfing your site. Thank you.

    Reply

  • “People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that’s what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that is holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life. A true soul mate is probably the most important person you’ll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful. Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then leave. A soul mates purpose is to shake you up, tear apart your ego a little bit, show you your obstacles and addictions, break your heart open so new light can get in, make you so desperate and out of control that you have to transform your life, then introduce you to your spiritual master…”

    Reply

  • Great quotes. but i missed a few, like kahlil gibran. “If you love somebody, let them go, for if they return, they were always yours. And if they don’t, they never were” for example

    Reply
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