Explore well-known and useful English quotes, phrases and sayings. Quotes in English with translations.
“The sadness will last forever.”
Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)
Attributed to Vincent, as quoted by Theo van gogh in his letter from Paris, to Elisabeth van Gogh, 5 August 1890 http://www.webexhibits.org/vangogh/letter/21/etc-Theo-Lies.htm <br class="br">Some of the last words Vincent said to Theo, while dying <br class="br">1890s
“I believe that if you focus on what you should do, the road ahead will open up naturally.”
Yuzuru Hanyu (1994) Japanese figure skater (1994-)
Other quotes, 2016 <br class="br">Original: (ja) 自分がすべきことを集中してやっていけば、自ずと道は開かれてくると信じているので。 <br class="br">Source: Interview at the arrival in Marseille ahead of the Grand Prix Final 2016, published 7 December 2016 by テレビ朝日 フィギュアスケート https://twitter.com/figureskate5ch/status/806400507698876416 (TV Asahi Figure Skate on Twitter). (Retrieved 11 September 2020)
“Communication is an essential factor in any type of relationship; friend, romantic, or business.”
Paul J. Alessi (1968) Actor / Producer
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/communication-is-an-essential-factor-in-any-type-of-relationship-friend-romantic-or-business-paul-j-alessi-q--10696117851703955/?mt=login
Source: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1568493/bio?ref_=nm_dyk_qt_sm#quotes
“The first true love is always the last one.”
Andrzej Majewski (1966) Polish writer and photographer
Aphorisms. Magnum in Parvo (2000)
“Breathe. It’s only a bad day, not a bad life.”
Johnny Depp (1963) American actor, film producer, and musician
“We all have two lives. The second begins when you realize you only have one.”
Tom Hiddleston (1981) English actor, producer and musical performer
“The noblest art is that of making others happy”
P.T. Barnum (1810–1891) American showman and businessman
“I am a hard person to love but when I love, I love really hard.”
Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor
“Don't live to fight, fight to live.”
Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor
Source: Resurrection, 1971-1996
“My imagination will get me a passport to hell one day.”
John Steinbeck book East of Eden
Source: East of Eden
“My tastes are simple: I am easily satisfied with the best.”
Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
Variant: I am easily satisfied with the very best.
Dale Carnegie How to Win Friends and Influence People
Variant: It isn't what you have, or who you are, or where you are, or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about.
Source: How to Win Friends and Influence People
“The minute you settle for less than you deserve, you get even less than you settled for.”
Maureen Dowd (1952) American journalist
“People like you to be something, preferably what they are.”
John Steinbeck book East of Eden
Source: East of Eden
“Once we accept our limits, we go beyond them.”
Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity
“Your attitude, more than your aptitude, will determine your altitude.”
John C. Maxwell (1947) American author, speaker and pastor
Failing Forward: How to Make the Most of Your Mistakes
“Life always waits for some crisis to occur before revealing itself at its most brilliant.”
Paulo Coelho book Eleven Minutes
Source: Eleven Minutes (2003), p. 50.
“He never went out without a book under his arm, and he often came back with two.”
Victor Hugo book Les Misérables
Source: Les Misérables
“Never memorize something that you can look up.”
Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity
Variant: Never memorize something that you can look up.
Victor Hugo book Les Misérables
Variant: I met in the street a very poor young man who was in love. His hat was old, his coat was threadbare - there were holes at his elbows; the water passed through his shoes and the stars through his soul.
Source: Les Misérables
“If you want to be happy, be.”
Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian writer
As quoted in Wisdom for the Soul : Five Millennia of Prescriptions for Spiritual Healing (2006) by Larry Chang, p. 352; this statement appears in late 20th century inspirational books, but with no known citation to original material by Tolstoy.
Disputed
Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher
Source: The Analects, Chapter IV
“The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet
“You cannot always control what goes on outside. But you can always control what goes on inside.”
Wayne W. Dyer (1940–2015) American writer
“If my mind can conceive it; and my heart can believe it — then I can achieve it.”
Muhammad Ali book The Soul of a Butterfly
Similar to a quote by Jesse Jackson, which is in turn a modification of a quote by Napoleon Hill: "Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve."
Misattributed
Source: The Soul of a Butterfly: Reflections on Life's Journey
“The simple things are also the most extraordinary things, and only the wise can see them.”
Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist
Variant: simple things are the most valuable and only wise people appreciate them".
Source: The Alchemist
“Things work out best for those who make the best of the way things work out.”
John Wooden (1910–2010) American basketball coach
Variant: Things turn out best for those who make best of how things turn out.
“There is nothing like a dream to create the future.”
Victor Hugo book Les Misérables
Source: Les Misérables
“Friends… they cherish one another's hopes. They are kind to one another's dreams.”
Henry David Thoreau A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
Source: A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
“… time was not passing… it was turning in a circle…”
Gabriel García Márquez book One Hundred Years of Solitude
Source: One Hundred Years of Solitude
“Before we acquire great power we must acquire wisdom to use it well.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet
“Nothing behind me, everything ahead of me, as is ever so on the road.”
Jack Kerouac book On the Road
Source: On the Road
“I love Humanity but I hate humans”
Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity
A comment of Einstein's recalled by John Wheeler in Albert Einstein: His influence on physics, philosophy and politics edited by Peter C. Aichelburg, Roman Ulrich Sexl, and Peter Gabriel Bergmann (1979), p. 202
Attributed in posthumous publications
Variant: I love to travel, but I hate to arrive.
“I never think of the future. It comes soon enough.”
Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity
Attributed in The Encarta Book of Quotations http://books.google.com/books?id=Af84fBmzmVYC&pg=PA305&dq=Belgenland to an interview on the Belgenland (December 1930), which was the ship on which he arrived in New York that month. According to The Ultimate Quotable Einstein by Alice Calaprice (2010), p. 18 http://books.google.com/books?id=G_iziBAPXtEC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA18#v=onepage&q&f=false, the quote also appears as "Aphorism, 1945-1946" in the Einstein Archives 36-570. Calaprice speculates that "perhaps it was recalled later and inserted into the archives under the later date." According to a snippet on Google Books, the phrase '"I never think of the future," he said. "It comes soon enough."' appears in The Literary Digest: Volume 107 on p. 29, in an article titled "We May Not 'Get' Relativity, But We Like Einstein" from 27 December 1930 http://books.google.com/books?id=T0A_AAAAMAAJ&q=%22we+like+einstein%22#search_anchor. The snippet http://books.google.com/books?id=T0A_AAAAMAAJ&q=belgenland+%22I+never+think+of+the+future%22+%22it+comes+soon+enough%22#search_anchor also discusses the "welcome to Professor Einstein on the Belgenland" in New York <br class="br">1930s
P.G. Wodehouse (1881–1975) English author
The Man Upstairs (1914)
Source: The Man Upstairs and Other Stories
“The function of wisdom is to discriminate between good and evil.”
Marcus Tullius Cicero (-106–-43 BC) Roman philosopher and statesman
“The path to success is to take massive, determined action.”
Anthony Robbins (1960) Author, actor, professional speaker
“If I'd observed all the rules I'd never have got anywhere.”
Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962) American actress, model, and singer
Variant: If I'd observed all the rules, I'd never have got anywhere.
“Beneath the makeup and behind the smile I am just a girl who wishes for the world.”
Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962) American actress, model, and singer
“The Universe is made of stories, not of atoms.”
Muriel Rukeyser (1913–1980) poet and political activist
"The Speed of Darkness"; this line is sometimes misquoted as "The Universe is made of stories not atoms."
The Speed of Darkness (1968)
Variant: The universe is made up of stories, not atoms.
Franz Kafka (1883–1924) author
Variant: What I write is different from what I say, what I say is different from what I think, what I think is different from what I ought to think and so it goes further into the deepest darkness.
“And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.”
Paul McCartney (1942) English singer-songwriter and composer
"The End"; The last full song track of Abbey Road (1969) the last Beatles album to be recorded before the band broke up. (Let It Be was the last album released, but had been recorded earlier.)
Lyrics, The Beatles
Source: The Beatles Illustrated Lyrics
Dale Carnegie (1888–1955) American writer and lecturer
As quoted in The Ring of Truth (2004) by Joseph O'Day
“It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness.”
Leo Tolstoy book The Kreutzer Sonata
Variant: What a strange illusion it is to suppose that beauty is goodness.
Source: The Kreutzer Sonata
Jane Austen book Persuasion
Variant: But I hate to hear you talking so like a fine gentleman, and as if women were all fine ladies, instead of rational creatures. We none of us expect to be in smooth water all our days.
Source: Persuasion
Woody Allen (1935) American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, author, playwright, and musician
Variant: If it turns out that there is a God, I don't think that he's evil. But the worst that you can say about him is that basically he's an underachiever.
“We cannot do everything at once, but we can do something at once.”
Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)
“Don't allow your mind to tell your heart what to do. The mind gives up easily”
Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist
“The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend.”
Robertson Davies book Tempest-Tost
Source: Tempest-Tost
F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby
Variant: They're a rotten lot," I shouted, across the lawn. "You're worth the whole damn bunch put together.
Source: The Great Gatsby
“The most pathetic person in the world is some one who has sight but no vision.”
Helen Keller (1880–1968) American author and political activist
“Nothing is so necessary for a young man as the company of intelligent women.”
Leo Tolstoy book War and Peace
Source: War and Peace
“If you're going to tell people the truth, you better make them laugh; otherwise they'll kill you.”
George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright
Credited to Shaw in the lead in to the mockumentary C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America (2004) and other recent works, but this or slight variants of it are also sometimes attributed to W. C. Fields, Charlie Chaplin, and Oscar Wilde. It might possibly be derived from Shaw's statement in John Bull's Other Island (1907): "My way of joking is to tell the truth. It's the funniest joke in the world."
Another possibility is that it is derived from Shaw's characteristic of Mark Twain: "He has to put things in such a way as to make people who would otherwise hang him believe he is joking."
Variants:
If you are going to tell people the truth, you'd better make them laugh. Otherwise, they'll kill you.
If you're going to tell people the truth, you'd better make them laugh. Otherwise, they'll kill you.
Disputed
“Salt is born of the purest parents: the sun and the sea.”
Pythagoras (-585–-495 BC) ancient Greek mathematician and philosopher
“You're never given a dream without also being given the power to make it true.”
Richard Bach (1936) American spiritual writer
Variant: You are never given a dream without also being given the power to make it true. You may have to work for it, however.
Source: Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah
“Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.”
Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Anglo-Irish statesman
Not found in Burke's writings. Appears to be a paraphrase of "It is the greatest of all mistakes to do nothing because you can only do little." sourced to Sydney Smith (1771 - 1845).
“The time is always right to do what’s right.”
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement
Speech delivered in Finney Chapel at Oberlin College (22 October 1964), as reported in "When MLK came to Oberlin" by Cindy Leise, The Chronicle-Telegram (21 January 2008) http://chronicle.northcoastnow.com/2008/01/21/when-mlk-came-to-oberlin/ <br class="br">1960s <br class="br">Variant: The time is always right to do what’s right.
“A man should look for what is, and not for what he thinks should be.”
Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity
“Wisdom comes to us when it can no longer do any good.”
Gabriel García Márquez book Love in the Time of Cholera
Source: Love in the Time of Cholera
“What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?”
Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)
Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity
1930s, Wisehart interview (1930)
Context: Much reading after a certain age diverts the mind from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking, just as the man who spends too much time in the theaters is apt to be content with living vicariously instead of living his own life.
Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity
Letter to Adrianna Enriques (October 1921), p. 83
Attributed in posthumous publications, Albert Einstein: The Human Side (1979)
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement
“A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject.”
Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
Variant: A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject.
“I have not the pleasure of understanding you.”
Jane Austen book Pride and Prejudice
Source: Pride and Prejudice
Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism
Source: Entweder / Oder
“Men are from Earth, women are from Earth. Deal with it.”
George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian
“At every moment of our lives, we all have one foot in a fairy tale and the other in the abyss.”
Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist
“A single metaphor can give birth to love.”
Milan Kundera book The Unbearable Lightness of Being
pg 10
Variant: Metaphors are not to be trifled with. A single metaphor can give birth to love.
Source: The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984), Part One: Lightness and Weight
Michel De Montaigne (1533–1592) (1533-1592) French-Occitan author, humanistic philosopher, statesman
“Technology is the campfire around which we tell our stories.”
Laurie Anderson (1947) American musician
Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860–1935) American feminist, writer, commercial artist, lecturer and social reformer
“If the stars should appear but one night every thousand years how man would marvel and adore.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson book Nature
Source: 1830s, Nature http://www.emersoncentral.com/nature.htm (1836), Ch. 1, Nature <br class="br">Context: If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore, and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown! <br class="br">Context: If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore, and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown! But every night come out these envoys of beauty, and light the universe with their admonishing smile.
Hans Christian Andersen (1805–1875) Danish author, fairy tale writer, and poet
Source: The Complete Fairy Tales
