Deep quotes
page 3

Maggie Stiefvater photo

“If I were a tree, I would have no reason to love a human.”

Maggie Stiefvater (1981) American writer

The Raven Cycle Series, The Raven Boys (2012)

William Greenough Thayer Shedd photo

“A ship is safe in harbor, but that's not what ships are for.”

William Greenough Thayer Shedd (1820–1894) American theologian

Attributed without citation in Gary Ninneman, C.I.A.: Church in Atrophy (Xulon Press, 2006), p. 167. This is possibly a confusion with John Augustus Shedd.

Joanne K. Rowling photo
Jackie Robinson photo

“A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives.”

Jackie Robinson (1919–1972) American baseball player

I Never Had It Made (1972) by Robinson, as told to Alfred Duckett; excerpted in "Why 'I Never Had It Made': Jackie Robinson's Own Story," http://www.mediafire.com/view/bkybh5wfo9zf32o Newsday (November 5, 1972)

Vincent Van Gogh photo

“I would rather die of passion than of boredom”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

Not by van Gogh, but from Emile Zola's novel The Ladies' Paradise (1883)
Misattributed

Anne Frank photo

“Dead people receive more flowers than the living ones because regret is stronger than gratitude.”

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

Source: Unsourced

Robert Frost photo

“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

Source: Poem "The Road Not Taken"
Context: Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Oscar Wilde photo

“Be Yourself. Everyone Else Is Already Taken.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

Anonymous advertising copywriter for Menards chain of hardware stores (2000), according to Quote Investigator http://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/01/20/be-yourself
Misattributed

Thomas Carlyle photo

“Silence is deep as Eternity, speech is shallow as Time.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher
William Shakespeare photo
Anatole France photo

“To accomplish great things we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.”

Anatole France (1844–1924) French writer

Variant: To accomplish great things, we must dream as well as act.
Source: Discours de réception, Séance De L'académie Française (introductory speech at a session of the French Academy), 24th December 1896, on Ferdinand de Lesseps' work on the Suez Canal.
Context: To accomplish great things we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.

Wayne W. Dyer photo
Oscar Wilde photo

“I am not young enough to know everything.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

Variant: I am not young enough to know everything.

Zig Ziglar photo

“If you go looking for a friend, you’re going to find they’re very scarce. If you go out to be a friend, you’ll find them everywhere.”

Zig Ziglar (1926–2012) American motivational speaker

As quoted in The Power of Respect : Benefit from the Most Forgotten Element of Success (2009) by Deborah Norville, p. 65

Beverly Sills photo

“You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don't try.”

Beverly Sills (1929–2007) opera soprano

As quoted in Incredible Quotations : 230 Thought-Provoking Quotes with Prompts to Spark Students' Writing, Thinking, and Discussion (1997) by Jacqueline Sweeney

Bill Gates photo
Paulo Coelho photo
John Locke photo
Elizabeth Berg photo

“There is love in holding and there is love in letting go.”

Elizabeth Berg (1948) American novelist

Variant: There is love in holding, and there is love in letting go.
Source: The Year of Pleasures

William Shakespeare photo
William Faulkner photo

“The past is never dead. It's not even past.”

Act 1, sc. 3; this has sometimes been paraphrased or misquoted as "The past isn't over. It isn't even past."
Source: Requiem for a Nun (1951)

Albert Einstein photo

“You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else.”

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

An abbreviated version of a quote by California politician Dianne Feinstein, from an interview with Cosmopolitan magazine in October 1985 https://books.google.com/books?id=zmxNAQAAIAAJ&dq=You+have+to+learn+the+rules+of+the+game+and+then+you+have+to+play+better+than+anyone+else&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=%22rules+of+the+game%22, on the topic of women running for public office. The original was: "... I really do have staying power. That's important for women who run for office. When you get in there and push for a lot of new things all at once and don't get them, you don't just leave. You have to commit, be a team player, learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play it better than anyone else."
Misattributed

Maya Angelou photo
Ernest Hemingway photo
Bill Gates photo
Friedrich Nietzsche photo

“They muddy the water, to make it seem deep.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist
Albert Einstein photo

“The important thing is not to stop questioning.”

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

Old Man's Advice to Youth: "Never Lose a Holy Curiosity," http://books.google.com/books?id=dlYEAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PP1&dq=Life%2C%202%20May%201955&pg=PA61#v=onepage&q=Life,%202%20May%201955&f=false LIFE magazine (2 May 1955) statement to William Miller, p. 64.
1950s
Context: The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existence. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery each day. Never lose a holy curiosity. … Don't stop to marvel.

Alexandre Dumas photo

“All generalizations are dangerous, even this one.”

Alexandre Dumas (1802–1870) French writer and dramatist, father of the homonym writer and dramatist
Elbert Hubbard photo

“He who does not understand your silence will probably not understand your words.”

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

“Really great people make you feel that you, too, can become great.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Variant: great people are those who make others feel that they, too, can become great.

Paulo Coelho photo
Abraham Lincoln photo

“Folks are usually about as happy as they make their minds up to be.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

Often misquoted as: "I have found that most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be." or "People are just as happy as they make up their minds to be."
This quote is not found in the various Lincoln sources which can be searched online (e.g. Gutenberg). Niether does Lincoln appear more generally to use the phrase "making up {one's} mind". The saying was first quoted, ascribed to Lincoln but with no source given, in 1914 by Frank Crane and several times subsequently by him in altered versions. It was later quoted in How to Get What You Want (1917) by Orison Swett Marden (Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1917), 74, again without source. Alternative versions quoted are: "I have found that most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be" and "People are just as happy as they make up their minds to be."


Source: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/10/20/happy-minds/#:~:text=%E2%80%9CPeople%20are%20about%20as%20happy,up%20their%20minds%20to%20be.%E2%80%9D&text=Remember%20Lincoln's%20saying%20that%20%E2%80%9Cfolks,up%20their%20minds%20to%20be.%E2%80%9D

Curiously in later books Crane, e.g. Four Minute Essays, 1919, Adventures in Common Sense, 1920, "21", 1930, Crane mentions other routes to happiness and does not again use this quote.

Marden used a great many quotes in his writings, without giving sources. Whilst sources for many of the quotes can be found, this is not true for all. For instance he mentions another story in which Lincoln says "Madam, you have not a peg to hang your case on"; this also does not seem to found in Lincoln sources.

Mark Twain photo
Vincent Van Gogh photo

“Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

In his letter to Theo, from The Hague, 22 October 1882, http://www.webexhibits.org/vangogh/letter/11/237.htm
1880s, 1882

Zig Ziglar photo

“Go as far as you can see and you will see further.”

Zig Ziglar (1926–2012) American motivational speaker

Variant: Go so far as you can see and when you get there you will always be able to see farther.
Source: See You at the Top (2000), p. 164; Variant: When obstacles arise, you change your direction to reach your goal; you do not change your decision to get there.
Context: Go so far as you can see and when you get there you will always be able to see farther. … as you head toward your goals, be prepared to make some slight adjustments to your course. You don't change your decision to go — you do change your direction to get there.

H. Jackson Brown, Jr. photo

“Think big thoughts but relish small pleasures.”

H. Jackson Brown, Jr. (1940) American writer

Source: Life's Little Instruction Book

Roald Dahl photo
Napoleon Hill photo

“Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe it can achieve.”

Napoleon Hill (1883–1970) American author

p.32 -->
Variant: Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve.
Source: Think and Grow Rich: A Black Choice

Mark Twain photo
Bertrand Russell photo

“What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite.”

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

“The difference between successful people and very successful people is that very successful people say “no” to almost everything.”

Warren Buffett (1930) American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist

Variant: The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say no to almost everything.

Friedrich Nietzsche photo

“Happiness is the feeling that power increases - that resistance is being overcome.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

Source: The Anti-Christ

William Faulkner photo
Marcus Aurelius photo
Zig Ziglar photo

“What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.”

Zig Ziglar (1926–2012) American motivational speaker

As quoted in Secrets of Superstar Speakers: Wisdom from the Greatest Motivators of Our Time (2000) by Lilly Walters, p. 96
Variant: What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.

Isaac Asimov photo

“The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

Isaac Asimov's Book of Science and Nature Quotations (1988), edited with Jason A. Shulman, p. 281
General sources

George Bernard Shaw photo

“A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

Preface
1910s, The Doctor's Dilemma (1911)
Variant: A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.
Context: Attention and activity lead to mistakes as well as to successes; but a life spent in making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.

Victor Hugo photo

“What makes night within us may leave stars.”

Victor Hugo (1802–1885) French poet, novelist, and dramatist

Variant: Whatever causes night in our souls may leave stars.
Source: Ninety-Three

Oscar Wilde photo

“An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

The Epigrams of Oscar Wilde, edited by Alvin Redman (1954)

Ralph Ellison photo
Sam Levenson photo
Bertrand Russell photo

“Most people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so.”

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

“You can, you should, and if you’re brave enough to start, you will.”

Stephen King (1947) American author

Source: On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

Andy Rooney photo
Leonardo Da Vinci photo

“I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

No published occurrence of such an attribution has yet been located prior to one in Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre — Band 3 http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/2411/pg2411.html by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Disputed
Variant: Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do.

Katharine Hepburn photo

“If you obey all of the rules, you miss all of the fun.”

Katharine Hepburn (1907–2003) film, stage, and television actress

Variant: If you obey all the rules, you miss all the fun

Mark Twain photo

“All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then Success is sure.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Mark Twain's Notebook, 1887
Letter to Cordelia Welsh Foote (Cincinnati), 2 December 1887. Letter reprinted http://www.twainquotes.com/Success.html in Benjamin De Casseres's When Huck Finn Went Highbrow https://www.worldcat.org/title/when-huck-finn-went-highbrow/oclc/2514292 (1934)

Bertrand Russell photo

“Not to be absolutely certain is, I think, one of the essential things in rationality.”

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

"Don't Be Too Certain!"
1940s, Am I An Atheist Or An Agnostic? http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/russell8.htm (1947)
Source: Am I an Atheist or an Agnostic?

Martin Luther King, Jr. photo

“There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love.”

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

1960s, (1963)

Bertrand Russell photo

“Remember your humanity, and forget the rest.”

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

“A quick temper will make a fool of you soon enough.”

Bruce Lee (1940–1973) Hong Kong-American actor, martial artist, philosopher and filmmaker
Victor Hugo photo

“He who opens a school, closes a prison”

Victor Hugo (1802–1885) French poet, novelist, and dramatist

Also cited as Opening a school is closing a prison
This quotation has been attributed to Victor Hugo since the nineteenth century, but the earliest citations attribute the saying instead to French education minister Victor Duruy:
Déjà M. Duruy avait posé en fait, quouvrir une école, c'est fermer une prison (1865)
English translation: M. Duruy had already suggested that opening a school is closing a prison
Disputed
Source: Journal des Economistes, March 1865, p. 489 http://hdl.handle.net/2027/nyp.33433022399574?urlappend=%3Bseq=495

Babe Ruth photo

“Every strike brings me closer to the next home run.”

Babe Ruth (1895–1948) American baseball player

As quoted in Weird Ideas That Work : 11 1/2 practices for promoting, managing, and sustaining innovation (2001) by Robert I. Sutton, p. 95

Edgar Allan Poe photo

“They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.”

Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849) American author, poet, editor and literary critic

" Eleonora http://www.classicreader.com/read.php/sid.6/bookid.9/" (1841).

Pindar photo

“Become such as you are, having learned what that is”

Pindar (-517–-437 BC) Ancient Greek poet

Pythian 2, line 72.
Variant translations:
Be what you know you are
Be true to thyself now that thou hast learnt what manner of man thou art
Having learned, become who you are

Eleanor Roosevelt photo

“Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, and today is a gift… that's why they call it the present.”

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

The quote is usually regarded as anonymous, but is often attributed to her on several websites, as well as in several books, including My Life Is an Open Book http://books.google.es/books?id=qCOa1k--dt4C&printsec=frontcover&hl=es#v=onepage&q=eleanor%20roosevelt&f=false (2008), The Spirituality of Mary Magdalene http://books.google.es/books?hl=es&id=BLRuINwzVZcC&dq=eleanor+roosevelt++%22past+is+history%22&q=eleanor+roosevelt#v=snippet&q=eleanor%20roosevelt&f=false (2008), Mis cuatro estaciones http://books.google.es/books?hl=es&id=QCgANqKq8EIC&dq=ayer+es+historia%2C+ma%C3%B1ana++misterio.+Hoy+regalo+de+Dios+presente&q=%22eleanor+roosevelt%22#v=snippet&q=%22eleanor%20roosevelt%22&f=false (2008), and Gilles Lamontagne http://books.google.es/books?ei=MdG9UqGQK-fL2wX5zYC4Dw&hl=es&id=WyFKAQAAIAAJ&dq=Hier+est+de+l%27histoire%2C+demain+est+un+myst%C3%A8re+et+aujourd%27hui+est+un+cadeau.+C%27+est+pourquoi+nous+l%27appelons+%C2%AB+le+pr%C3%A9sent+roosevelt&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=eleanor+roosevelt (2010). None of these works cite any original reference.
Disputed

Helen Schucman photo

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”

Helen Schucman (1909–1981) Clinical Psychologist

Jesus' Course in Miracles (2000) by Helen Schucman and William Thetford, Ch. 16 The Forgiveness of Illusions, p. 162

Bertrand Russell photo

“The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.”

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

From Marthe Troly-Curtin's Phrynette Married (1912). Misattributed to Bertrand Russell due to an ambiguous entry in Laurence J. Peter's Peter’s Quotations: Ideas for Our Time (1977) http://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/06/11/time-you-enjoy/
Misattributed

Plato photo

“We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.”

Plato (-427–-347 BC) Classical Greek philosopher

This quotation, often attributed on the Internet to Plato, cannot be found in any of Plato's writings, nor can it be found in any published work anywhere until recent years. If it really were a quotation by Plato, then some author in the recorded literature of the last several centuries would have mentioned that quote, but they did not. The sentiment isn't new, however. The ancient Roman Seneca, in his work on "Morals," quoted an earlier Roman writer, Lucretius (who wrote about the year 50 B.C.), as saying "we are as much afraid in the light as children in the dark." (Seneca was paraphrasing a longer passage by Lucretius from De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things), Book II, lines 56 et seq.)
Misattributed

Fred Shero photo

“To avoid criticism, say nothing, do nothing, be nothing.”

Fred Shero (1925–1990) Former ice hockey player and coach

Glenn
Liebman
Hockey Shorts: 1,001 of the games funniest one liners
1996
70, 113 & 229
Contemporary Books
0-8092-3351-7

Aristotle photo

“There is only one way to avoid criticism: do nothing, say nothing and be nothing.”

Aristotle (-384–-321 BC) Classical Greek philosopher, student of Plato and founder of Western philosophy

Misattributed
Source: Elbert Hubbard, Little Journeys to the Homes of American Statesmen (1898), p. 370 http://hdl.handle.net/2027/osu.32435065322687?urlappend=%3Bseq=458: "If you would escape moral and physical assassination, do nothing, say nothing, be nothing—court obscurity, for only in oblivion does safety lie." Other versions of the saying were repeated in several of Hubbard's later writings.

Eleanor Roosevelt photo

“It takes courage to love, but pain through love is the purifying fire which those who love generously know.”

My Day (1935–1962)
Context: It takes courage to love, but pain through love is the purifying fire which those who love generously know. We all know people who are so much afraid of pain that they shut themselves up like clams in a shell and, giving out nothing, receive nothing and therefore shrink until life is a mere living death. (1 April 1939)

Randy Pausch photo
Eleanor Roosevelt photo

“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams. ”

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