Deep quotes

A collection of quotes on the topic of wise, deep, inspirational, motivational.

Best deep quotes

Rumi photo

“Let the beauty of what you love be what you do.”

Rumi (1207–1273) Iranian poet

As quoted in Path for Greatness : Spiritualty at Work (2000) by Linda J. Ferguson, p. 51

George Eliot photo

“It is never too late to be what you might have been.”

George Eliot (1819–1880) English novelist, journalist and translator
Theodore Roosevelt photo

“Believe you can and you're halfway there.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States
Euripidés photo
Albert Einstein photo

“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity
Eleanor Roosevelt photo

“Do one thing every day that scares you.”

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States
Arthur Ashe photo
Mark Twain photo

“Whoever is happy will make others happy too.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist
Agatha Christie photo

“The secret of getting ahead is getting started.”

Agatha Christie (1890–1976) English mystery and detective writer
Emile Zola photo

“I would rather die of passion than of boredom.”

Source: The Ladies' Paradise

Deep quotes

Confucius photo

“Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher

Attributed on the internet but not found in print prior to an attribution in Aero Digest, Vols. 58–59, 1949, p. 115 https://books.google.com/books?id=q2ofAQAAMAAJ&dq=%22Life+is+simple%22+but+we+insist+on+making+it+complicated&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=%22Life+is+simple%22+
Misattributed, Not Chinese

Dolly Parton photo
Albert Einstein photo

“Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Variant: A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.

Ella Fitzgerald photo
Martin Luther King, Jr. photo

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

'Where Do We Go From Here?" as published in Where Do We Go from Here : Chaos or Community? (1967), p. 62; many statements in this book, or slight variants of them, were also part of his address Where Do We Go From Here?" which has a section below. A common variant appearing at least as early as 1968 has "Returning violence for violence multiplies violence..." An early version of the speech as published in A Martin Luther King Treasury (1964), p. 173, has : "Returning hate for hate multiplies hate..."
1960s
Source: A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches
Context: The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. So it goes. … Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.

William James photo
Anne Frank photo
Nikola Tesla photo

“If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

First attibution is to Ralph Bergstresser who claims to have heard this from Tesla in a conversation "following an experience with the Maharaja's son".
Disputed
Source: Coments From The Inventor of the Purple Harmony Plates http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/ciencia/esp_ciencia_universalenergy02.htm,

Marcus Aurelius photo
Dr. Seuss photo

“Sometimes you will never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory.”

Dr. Seuss (1904–1991) American children's writer and illustrator, co-founder of Beginner Books

Georges Duhamel in THE HEART'S DOMAIN (1919). As it was composed in French, the wording in English may vary in translation. Theodore Geisel / Dr. Seuss was born in 1904, and would have been about 15 years old at the time that it was published. The full text can be found at the link below: We do not know the true value of our moments until they have undergone the test of memory. Like the images the photographer plunges into a golden bath, our sentiments take on color; and only then, after that recoil and that trans-figuration, do we understand their real meaning and enjoy them in all their tranquil splendor.
Misattributed

Marilyn Monroe photo
John Lennon photo

“When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

Variant: When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.

Rosa Parks photo
Barack Obama photo
Benjamin Disraeli photo

“Action may not always bring happiness but there is no happiness without action.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

Books, Coningsby (1844), Lothair (1870)
Variant: Action may not always bring happiness; but there is no happiness without action.

Leo Tolstoy photo
Abraham Lincoln photo
John Lennon photo

“Everything will be okay in the end. If it's not okay, it's not the end.”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

Also found with the alternative spelling: Everything is okay in the end. If it's not okay, it's not the end
Found anonymously on Usenet in 2000 https://groups.google.com/forum/message/raw?msg=alt.support.divorce/gKiyfcAYreo/jjuc6KTu_NAJ. First known attribution to Lennon is from 2011 https://groups.google.com/forum/message/raw?msg=stow-ma-apple-barn/45MNk9KiGsY/vaq6pr8hgI0J.
Disputed
Variant: Everything is OK in the end. If it's not OK, it's not the end.

Eleanor Roosevelt photo

“You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States

Source: You Learn by Living (1960), p. 29–30
Context: You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, "I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along." … You must do the thing you think you cannot do.

Frederick Douglass photo

“It's easier to build strong children then repair broken men.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

Variant: It is easier to build strong men, than to repair broken ones.
Source: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

Rosa Parks photo
Michael Jordan photo

“Some people want it to happen, some wish it would happen, others make it happen.”

Michael Jordan (1963) American retired professional basketball player and businessman

Variant: Some people want it to happen, some wish it would happen, and others make it happen.

Oscar Wilde photo

“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”

The Soul of Man Under Socialism (1891)
Context: With the abolition of private property, then, we shall have true, beautiful, healthy Individualism. Nobody will waste his life in accumulating things, and the symbols for things. One will live. To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.

Bruce Lee photo
Alice Morse Earle photo
Socrates photo

“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

This is actually a quotation http://books.google.com/books?id=FUIHmRHf8SUC&lpg=PA130&dq=%22not%20on%20fighting%20the%20old%20but%20on%20building%20the%20new%22&pg=PA130#v=onepage&q=%22not%20on%20fighting%20the%20old%20but%20on%20building%20the%20new%22&f=false from a character named Socrates in Way of the Peaceful Warrior: A Book that Changes Lives http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Way_of_the_Peaceful_Warrior, by Dan Millman.
Misattributed

Ralph Waldo Emerson photo
Marie Curie photo

“Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.”

Marie Curie (1867–1934) French-Polish physicist and chemist

As quoted in Our Precarious Habitat (1973) by Melvin A. Benarde, p. v

Stephen Hawking photo

“One, remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Two, never give up work. Work gives you meaning and purpose and life is empty without it. Three, if you are lucky enough to find love, remember it is there and don't throw it away.”

Stephen Hawking (1942–2018) British theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author

Variant: Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Never give up work. Work gives you meaning and purpose and life is empty without it. If you are lucky enough to find love, remember it is there and don't throw it away.

Erica Jong photo
Helen Keller photo
Maya Angelou photo

“My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.”

Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet

Shared on her Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/MayaAngelou/posts/10150251846629796, July 4, 2011

Bob Marley photo
Marie Curie photo

“Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood.”

Marie Curie (1867–1934) French-Polish physicist and chemist

As quoted in Our Precarious Habitat (1973) by Melvin A. Benarde, p. v
Context: Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.

Brené Brown photo

“Owning our story and loving ourselves through that process is the bravest thing we’ll ever do.”

Brené Brown (1965) US writer and professor

Variant: I now see how owning our story and loving ourselves through that process is the bravest thing that we will ever do.
Source: Rising Strong

Laozi photo

“He who knows does not speak; he who speaks does not know.”

Variant: Those who know, do not speak, those who speak, do not know.
Source: Tao Te Ching, Ch. 56

Maya Angelou photo

“Try to be a rainbow in someone's cloud.”

Variant: Be a rainbow in somebody else's cloud.
Source: Letter to My Daughter

Maya Angelou photo
C.G. Jung photo

“No tree, it is said, can grow to heaven unless its roots reach down to hell.”

C.G. Jung (1875–1961) Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology
Elbert Hubbard photo

“The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one.”

Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher fue el escritor del jarron azul

The Note Book of Elbert Hubbard (1927)
Variant: The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one.

Albert Einstein photo

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Letter to his son Eduard (5 February 1930), as quoted in Walter Isaacson, Einstein: His Life and Universe (2007), p. 367
1930s

“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.”

Variant: You can make more friends in two months by being interested in them, than in two years by making them interested in you.
Source: How to Win Friends and Influence People (1936), p. 52 (in 1998 edition)

Martin Luther King, Jr. photo

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

Source: I Have a Dream: Writings and Speeches That Changed the World

Helen Keller photo
Helen Keller photo

“The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart”

Helen Keller (1880–1968) American author and political activist

Variant: The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart.
Variant: The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen, nor touched... but are felt in the heart.

William Faulkner photo
Joseph Campbell photo

“We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.”

Joseph Campbell (1904–1987) American mythologist, writer and lecturer

Variant: You must give up the life you planned in order to have the life that is waiting for you.

Oscar Wilde photo

“Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

Variant: Always forgive your enemies — nothing annoys them so much.

Voltaire photo

“Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers.”

Voltaire (1694–1778) French writer, historian, and philosopher

Il est encore plus facile de juger de l'esprit d'un homme par ses questions que par ses réponses. (It is easier to judge the mind of a man by his questions rather than his answers) — Pierre-Marc-Gaston, duc de Lévis (1764-1830), Maximes et réflexions sur différents sujets de morale et de politique (Paris, 1808): Maxim xviii
Misattributed

Red Symons photo

“No-one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”

Red Symons (1949) Australian broadcaster and musician

Attributed quotes

Вивиан Грин photo
Dr. Seuss photo

“Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting!”

Dr. Seuss (1904–1991) American children's writer and illustrator, co-founder of Beginner Books

Variant: Today is your day, your mountain is waiting. So get on your way.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe photo
Herman Melville photo

“It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.”

Herman Melville (1818–1891) American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet

Hawthorne and His Mosses (1850)
Context: It is better to fail in originality, than to succeed in imitation. He who has never failed somewhere, that man can not be great. Failure is the true test of greatness.
Context: It is better to fail in originality, than to succeed in imitation. He who has never failed somewhere, that man can not be great. Failure is the true test of greatness. And if it be said, that continual success is a proof that a man wisely knows his powers, — it is only to be added, that, in that case, he knows them to be small. Let us believe it, then, once for all, that there is no hope for us in these smooth pleasing writers that know their powers.

Nikola Tesla photo

“The scientists of today think deeply instead of clearly. One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite insane.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

"Radio Power Will Revolutionize the World" in Modern Mechanics and Inventions (July 1934)
Context: The scientists from Franklin to Morse were clear thinkers and did not produce erroneous theories. The scientists of today think deeply instead of clearly. One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite insane.

Sören Kierkegaard photo

“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

Variant: Life can only be understood going backward, but must be lived going forward.

Theodore Roosevelt photo

“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

Ch. IX : Outdoors and Indoors, p. 336; the final statement "quoted by Squire Bill Widener" as well as variants of it, are often misattributed to Roosevelt himself.
Variant: Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
Attributed to Roosevelt in Conquering an Enemy Called Average (1996) by John L. Mason, Nugget # 8 : The Only Place to Start is Where You Are. <!-- The Military Quotation Book, Revised and Expanded: More than 1,200 of the Best Quotations About War, Leadership, Courage, Victory, and Defeat (2002) by James Charlton -->
Variant: Do what you can, with what you've got, where you are.
Context: There are many kinds of success in life worth having. It is exceedingly interesting and attractive to be a successful business man, or railroad man, or farmer, or a successful lawyer or doctor; or a writer, or a President, or a ranchman, or the colonel of a fighting regiment, or to kill grizzly bears and lions. But for unflagging interest and enjoyment, a household of children, if things go reasonably well, certainly makes all other forms of success and achievement lose their importance by comparison. It may be true that he travels farthest who travels alone; but the goal thus reached is not worth reaching. And as for a life deliberately devoted to pleasure as an end — why, the greatest happiness is the happiness that comes as a by-product of striving to do what must be done, even though sorrow is met in the doing. There is a bit of homely philosophy, quoted by Squire Bill Widener, of Widener's Valley, Virginia, which sums up one's duty in life: "Do what you can, with what you've got, where you are."

Cesare Pavese photo

“We do not remember days, we remember moments.”

Cesare Pavese (1908–1950) Italian poet, novelist, literary critic, and translator

This Business of Living (1935-1950)

Pablo Picasso photo

“Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.”

Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer

Quote attributed to Picasso in TIME, October 4, 1976, Modern Living: Ozmosis in Central Park http://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/03/07/child-art/ http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,918412,00.html
Disputed
Variant: All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.

Bertrand Russell photo

“The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Variant: The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.

Leonardo Da Vinci photo
Eleanor Roosevelt photo

“The purpose of life…is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.”

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States

Foreword (January 1960)
You Learn by Living (1960)

Michael Jordan photo
Arnold Schwarzenegger photo

“Strength does not come from winning.”

Arnold Schwarzenegger (1947) actor, businessman and politician of Austrian-American heritage

From a 1982 interview with Boston Globe journalist Marian Christy. Christy, Marian. "Winning according to Schwarzenegger." https://secure.pqarchiver.com/boston/doc/294151457.html Boston Globe: Boston, MA. 9 May 1982: p 51. Accessed 25 Jun 2016.
1980s
Context: Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths. When you go through hardships and decide not to surrender, that is strength. When you make an impasse passable, that is strength. But you must have ego, the kind of ego which makes you think of yourself in terms of superlatives. You must want to be the greatest. We are all starved for compliments. So we do things that get positive feedback.

Ralph Waldo Emerson photo

“All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Source: Journals of Ralph Waldo Emerson, with Annotations - 1841-1844

Confucius photo

“The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher

Laozi in the Tao Te Ching, Chapter 64
Misattributed, Chinese

Johnny Cash photo

“You build on failure. You use it as a stepping stone. Close the door on the past. You don't try to forget the mistakes, but you don't dwell on it. You don't let it have any of your energy, or any of your time, or any of your space.”

Johnny Cash (1932–2003) American singer-songwriter

Variant: You build on failure. You use it as a stepping sone. Close the door on the past. You don't try to forget the mistakes, but you don't dwell on it. You don't let it have any of your energy, or any of your time, or any of your space.

Diane Ackerman photo

“I don't want to get to the end of my life and find that I just lived the length of it. I want to live the width of it as well.”

Diane Ackerman (1948) Author, poet, naturalist

As quoted in Meditations for Women Who Do Too (1991) by Anne Wilson Schaef

Bill Cosby photo
Anne Frank photo

“Whoever is happy will make others happy.”

Anne Frank (1929–1945) victim of the Holocaust and author of a diary

Source: The Diary of a Young Girl