Explore well-known and useful English quotes, phrases and sayings. Quotes in English with translations.
“I feel safe in the midst of my enemies, for the truth is all powerful and will prevail.”
“It is not the length of life, but the depth.”
“I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.”
Ich habe keine besondere Begabung, sondern bin nur leidenschaftlich neugierig.
Letter to Carl Seelig http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Seelig (11 March 1952), Einstein Archives 39-013
1950s
“Energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only be changed from one form to another.”
“The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.”
“Some people want it to happen, some wish it would happen, others make it happen.”
Variant: Some people want it to happen, some wish it would happen, and others make it happen.
“No need to hurry. No need to sparkle. No need to be anybody but oneself.”
Source: A Room of One's Own / Three Guineas
“When one door is closed, many more is open.”
Coming in from the Cold, from the album Confrontation
Song lyrics
“The only normal people are the ones you don't know very well.”
Source: The Letters of Vincent van Gogh
“Remember, today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday.”
Source: How to Stop Worrying and Start Living (1948), p. 237. Part 8 : How I Conquered Worry,
“There is no remedy for love but to love more.”
Variant: The only remedy for love is to love more.
“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.
“Train people well enough so they can leave, treat them well enough so they don't want to.”
“I've got the guts to die. What I want to know is, have you got the guts to live?”
Source: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
“The richness I achieve comes from nature, the source of my inspiration.”
“Education is the sum of what students teach each other between lectures and seminars.”
Variant: Education is the sum of what students teach each other between lectures and seminars.
“You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.”
Often attributed to Churchill, this thought was originally expressed by the French author Victor Hugo in Villemain (1845), as follows: You have enemies? Why, it is the story of every man who has done a great deed or created a new idea. It is the cloud which thunders around everything that shines. Fame must have enemies, as light must have gnats. Do not bother yourself about it; disdain. Keep your mind serene as you keep your life clear.
Villemain is a brief segment taken from Hugo’s Choses Vues (Things Seen), a running journal Hugo kept of events he witnessed. The original French versions of these journals were published after Hugo's death.
Misattributed
“Life will bring you pain all by itself. Your responsibility is to create joy.”
“There is nothing in this world that I fear to say.”
Speech at Founding Rally of the Organization of Afro-American Unity (28 June 1964), as quoted in By Any Means Necessary (1970)
By any means necessary: speeches, interviews, and a letter (1970)
Variant: The future belongs to those who prepare for it today.
Source: Malcolm X, Black Liberation, and the Road to Workers' Power
Context: Education is an important element in the struggle for human rights. It is the means to help our children and our people rediscover their identity and thereby increase their self respect. Education is our passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs only to the people who prepare for it today.
“Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift. That's why it's called the present.”
True genius without heart is a thing of nought - for not great understanding alone, not intelligence alone, nor both together, make genius. Love! Love! Love! that is the soul of genius. - Nikolaus Joseph von Jacquin, entry in Mozart's souvenir album (1787-04-11) from Mozart: A Life by Maynard Solomon [Harper-Collins, 1966, ISBN 0-060-92692-9], p. 312.
Misattributed
“Don't be afraid of enemies who attack you. Be afraid of the friends who flatter you.”
Source: How to Win Friends and Influence People
“Maybe it's not too late to learn how to love and forget how to hate.”
Source: Ozzy Osbourne - Blizzard of Ozz
“If you're really a mean person you're going to come back as a fly and eat poop.”
As quoted in Monk Magazine (1992-10).
Interviews (1989-1994), Print
“People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own souls.”
CW 12, par. 126 (p 99)
Psychology and Alchemy (1952)
Context: People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own souls. They will practice Indian yoga and all its exercises, observe a strict regimen of diet, learn the literature of the whole world - all because they cannot get on with themselves and have not the slightest faith that anything useful could ever come out of their own souls. Thus the soul has gradually been turned into a Nazareth from which nothing good can come.
“You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”
Source: Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book VII
“The roots of education … are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.”
The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers
1980s–1990s, Barbarians inside the Gates and Other Controversial Essays (1999)
“My home is in Heaven. I'm just traveling through this world.”
“When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”
“Close your eyes and I'll kiss you, Tomorrow I'll miss you.”
“There are two means of refuge from the misery of life — music and cats.”
Variant: There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats.
“The only thing greater than the power of the mind is the courage of the heart”
Often attributed to Stalin, there is not a single source which show that Stalin said this at any given time. There is only one source outside the blogosphere which attributes the quote to Stalin, but does not provide any evidence for the attribution. That source is the book Quotations for Public Speakers : A Historical, Literary, and Political Anthology (2001), p. 121 by the former US senator Robert Torricelli.
Misattributed
“You gotta be careful: don't say a word to nobody about nothing anytime ever.”
“If things are not failing, you are not innovating enough.”
Fast Company, article "Hondas in Space" https://www.fastcompany.com/52065/hondas-space (1 February 2005)
“Care about people's approval and you will be their prisoner.”
Also: "Care about what other people think and you will always be their prisoner"
Also: "If you care what people think, you will always be their prisoner"
Appears in Stephen Mitchell's rendering into English http://terebess.hu/english/tao/mitchell.html#Kap09 of Tao Te Ching chapter 9; but this is an interpretation of Mitchell's which does not appear in the original text or other recognized English translations. Repeated without attribution in Gilliland, Hide Your Goat https://books.google.com/books?id=ziJQdUzCgTIC&pg=PT98&dq=Care+what+other+think+%22you+will+always+be%22+their+prisoner&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CDQQ6AEwBGoVChMIpsbNzO69yAIVCU2ICh0mXwIE#v=onepage&q=Care%20what%20other%20think%20%22you%20will%20always%20be%22%20their%20prisoner&f=false, a positive thinking book published in 2013.
Misattributed
“Happiness is a good flow of life.”
As quoted by Stobaeus, ii. 77.
“Life ain't a rehearsal, the camera's always rolling”
"Miss Me", Thank Me Later, Lil Wayne (2010)
2010s
“One child, one teacher, one book and one pen can change the world.”
UN speech, June 2013
Context: So let us wage a glorious struggle against illiteracy, poverty and terrorism, let us pick up our books and our pens, they are the most powerful weapons. One child, one teacher, one book and one pen can change the world. Education is the only solution.
“He who knows when he can fight and when he cannot will be victorious.”
Source: The Art of War, Chapter III · Strategic Attack
“In peace, prepare for war. In war, prepare for peace.”
Sometimes erroneously prepended to the opening line "The art of war is of vital importance to the State", but appears to be a variation of the Roman motto "Si vis pacem, para bellum". It's not clear who first misattributed this phrase to Sun Tzu. The earliest appearance of the phrase in Google Books is 1920, when it appeared in a pharmaceutical journal, but no attribution was given then.
Misattributed
“We had a beautiful dream and that was all.”
The interest of my son is the only guide I have, and whatever happiness I could achieve by being free of this place I cannot consent to separate my self from him. I could not have any pleasure in the world if I abandoned my children.I do not even have any regrets.
Marie Antoinette to the Chevalier Jarjayes on his persuading her to escape alone from the Tower; Lettres, II. p. 433; also quoted in Marie Antoinette: The Journey (2001) by Antonia Fraser, ISBN 0307277747.
“It's better to be hated for what you are, than to be loved for what you're not…”
“The future's too bright to dwell on the past. Life moves fast, run faster.”
“It's important to remember that we all have magic inside us.”
“If a man knows more than others, he becomes lonely.”
“Some of us think holding on makes us strong, but sometimes, it is letting go.”
“Happiness is a perfume which you cannot pour on someone without getting some on yourself.”
Variant: Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting some on yourself.
Variant: Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting a few drops on yourself.
“The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.”
“We are never so defenceless against suffering as when we love.”
Source: 1920s, Civilization and Its Discontents (1929), Ch. 2; as translated by James Strachey, p.63
As quoted in Our Precarious Habitat (1973) by Melvin A. Benarde, p. v
“We don’t even ask happiness, just a little less pain.”
Variant: We don't even ask for happiness, just a little less pain.
Source: From a letter to William Packard from 1985 (published in Reach for the Sun - the 3rd volume of Bukowski correspondence)
Context: Sex, love, duty, God, family are not to be bargained with against happiness, and we don’t even ask happiness, just a little less pain.
“I walk slowly, but I never walk backward.”
Likely spurious quote, UNVERIFIED ATTRIBUTE - Quoted in The Lexington Observer & Reporter (16 June 1864)
1860s
Variant: I am a slow walker, but I never walk back.
“I'd rather be an optimist and a fool than a pessimist and right.”
“We cannot become what we need by remaining what we are.”
“Sometimes people don't want to hear the truth because they don't want their illusions destroyed.”
“Only when it is dark enough, can you see the stars.”
Variant: Only in the darkness can you see the stars.
Context: But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough, can you see the stars.
“Practice makes perfect, but nobody's perfect, so why practice?”
“Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear.”
“Living is Easy with Eyes Closed.”
"Strawberry Fields Forever" (1967)
Lyrics
Variant: Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see.
Context: Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see.
It's getting hard to be someone but it all works out.
It doesn't matter much to me. Let me take you down, 'cause I'm going to Strawberry Fields.
Nothing is real and nothing to get hung about.
Strawberry Fields forever.
“There's a time for departure even when there's no certain place to go.”
“To acquire knowledge, one must study; but to acquire wisdom, one must observe.”
As quoted in Courage: the heart and spirit of every woman : reclaiming the forgotten virtue (2001) by Sandra Ford Walston
“Let no man pull you so low as to hate him.”
Source: A Knock at Midnight: Inspiration from the Great Sermons of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.
“You have not lived today until you have done something for someone who can never repay you.”
“I am seeking, I am striving, I am in it with all my heart.”
“Those who have a 'why' to live, can bear with almost any 'how'.”
Source: Quoted in Man's Search for Meaning and attributed to Friedrich Nietzsche.
“Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it.”
“Do not pray for an easy life, pray for the strength to endure a difficult one”
