Explore well-known and useful English quotes, phrases and sayings. Quotes in English with translations.
“Leadership is not about titles, positions or flowcharts. It is about one life influencing another.”
“You feel your strength in the experience of pain.”
“One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain.”
Variant: One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain.
“I've come too far, and I don't know how to get back.”
“An abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is normal behavior.”
Source: Man's Search for Meaning (1946; 1959; 1984), p. 32 in the 1992 edition, ISBN 0807014265, Beacon Press
“Everything we are is at every moment alive in us.”
“I have never met a man so ignorant that I could not learn something from him.”
As quoted in The Story of Civilization : The Age of Reason Begins, 1558-1648 (1935) by Will Durant, p. 605
Attributed
“The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.”
Source: Confucius: The Analects
“The power of finding beauty in the humblest things makes home happy and life lovely.”
Variant: The power of finding beauty in the humblest things makes home happy and life lovely.
Foreword (January 1960)
You Learn by Living (1960)
“Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.”
"A Liberal Decalogue" http://www.panarchy.org/russell/decalogue.1951.html, from "The Best Answer to Fanaticism: Liberalism", New York Times Magazine (16/December/1951); later printed in The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell (1969), vol. 3: 1944-1967, pp. 71-2
1950s
Context: The Ten Commandments that, as a teacher, I should wish to promulgate, might be set forth as follows:
1. Do not feel absolutely certain of anything.
2. Do not think it worth while to proceed by concealing evidence, for the evidence is sure to come to light.
3. Never try to discourage thinking for you are sure to succeed.
4. When you meet with opposition, even if it should be from your husband or your children, endeavour to overcome it by argument and not by authority, for a victory dependent upon authority is unreal and illusory.
5. Have no respect for the authority of others, for there are always contrary authorities to be found.
6. Do not use power to suppress opinions you think pernicious, for if you do the opinions will suppress you.
7. Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.
8. Find more pleasure in intelligent dissent that in passive agreement, for, if you value intelligence as you should, the former implies a deeper agreement than the latter.
9. Be scrupulously truthful, even if the truth is inconvenient, for it is more inconvenient when you try to conceal it.
10. Do not feel envious of the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise, for only a fool will think that it is happiness.
“I have feelings too. I am still human. All I want is to be loved, for myself and for my talent.”
“It isn't where you came from; it's where you're going that counts.”
“A thousand Dreams within me softly burn”
“Be yourself. The world worships the original.”
Source: The Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt
“Very few of us are what we seem.”
Source: The Man in the Mist
“The best way to make your dreams come true is to wake up.”
“The only creatures that are evolved enough to convey pure love are dogs and infants.”
Found in Montana Libraries: Volumes 8-14 (1954), p. cxxx http://books.google.com/books?id=PpwaAAAAMAAJ&q=%22more+fairy+tales%22#search_anchor. The story is given as follows: "In the current New Mexico Library Bulletin, Elizabeth Margulis tells a story of a woman who was a personal friend of the late dean of scientists, Dr. Albert Einstein. Motivated partly by her admiration for him, she held hopes that her son might become a scientist. One day she asked Dr. Einstein's advice about the kind of reading that would best prepare the child for this career. To her surprise, the scientist recommended 'Fairy tales and more fairy tales.' The mother protested that she was really serious about this and she wanted a serious answer; but Dr. Einstein persisted, adding that creative imagination is the essential element in the intellectual equipment of the true scientist, and that fairy tales are the childhood stimulus to this quality." However, it is unclear from this description whether Margulis heard this story personally from the woman who had supposedly had this discussion with Einstein, and the relevant issue of the New Mexico Library Bulletin does not appear to be online.
Variant: "First, give him fairy tales; second, give him fairy tales, and third, give him fairy tales!" Found in The Wilson Library Bulletin, Vol. 37 from 1962, which says on p. 678 http://books.google.com/books?id=KfQOAQAAMAAJ&q=einstein#search_anchor that this quote was reported by "Doris Gates, writer and children's librarian".
Variant: "Fairy tales … More fairy tales … Even more fairy tales". Found in Breaking the Magic Spell: Radical Theories of Folk and Fairy Tales by Jack Zipes (1979), p. 1 http://books.google.com/books?id=MxZFuahqzsMC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA1#v=onepage&q&f=false.
Variant: "If you want your children to be brilliant, tell them fairy tales. If you want them to be very brilliant, tell them even more fairy tales." Found in Chocolate for a Woman's Heart & Soul by Kay Allenbaugh (1998), p. 57 http://books.google.com/books?id=grrpJh7-CfcC&q=brilliant#search_anchor. This version can be found in Usenet posts from before 1998, like this one from 1995 http://groups.google.com/group/rec.music.beatles/msg/cec9a9fdf803b72b?hl=en.
Variant: "If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be very intelligent, read them more fairy tales." Found in Mad, Bad and Dangerous?: The Scientist and the Cinema by Christopher Frayling (2005), p. 6 http://books.google.com/books?id=HjRYA3ELdG0C&lpg=PA6&dq=einstein%20%22want%20your%20children%20to%20be%20intelligent%22&pg=PA6#v=onepage&q=einstein%20%22want%20your%20children%20to%20be%20intelligent%22&f=false.
Variant: "If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales." Found in Super joy English, Volume 8 by 佳音事業機構 (2006), p. 87 http://books.google.com/books?id=-HUBKzP8zsUC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA87#v=onepage&q&f=false
Disputed
Context: Fairy tales and more fairy tales. [in response to a mother who wanted her son to become a scientist and asked Einstein what reading material to give him]
“Be less curious about people and more curious about ideas.”
Response to a reporter seeking an interview during a vacation with her husband in Brittany, who mistaking her for a housekeeper, asked her if there was anything confidential she could recount, as quoted in Living Adventures in Science (1972), by Henry Thomas and Dana Lee Thomas
This is stated to be a declaration she often made to reporters, in Madame Curie : A Biography (1937) by Eve Curie Labouisse, as translated by Vincent Sheean, p. 222
Variant: In science, we must be interested in things, not in persons.
Source: A Theory of Justice (1971; 1975; 1999), Chapter II, Section 14, pg. 87-88
Context: Occasionally this reflection is offered as an excuse for ignoring injustice, as if the refusal to acquiesce in injustice is on a par with being unable to accept death. The natural distribution is neither just nor unjust; nor is it unjust that persons are born into society at some particular position. These are simply natural facts. What is just and unjust is the way that institutions deal with these facts.
Context: We may reject the contention that the ordering of institutions is always defective because the distribution of natural talents and the contingencies of social circumstance are unjust, and this injustice must inevitably carry over to human arrangements. Occasionally this reflection is offered as an excuse for ignoring injustice, as if the refusal to acquiesce in injustice is on a par with being unable to accept death. The natural distribution is neither just nor unjust; nor is it unjust that persons are born into society at some particular position. These are simply natural facts. What is just and unjust is the way that institutions deal with these facts. Aristocratic and caste societies are unjust because they make these contingencies the ascriptive basis for belonging to more or less enclosed and privileged social classes. The basic structure of these societies incorporates the arbitrariness found in nature. But there is no necessity for men to resign themselves to these contingencies. The social system is not an unchangeable order beyond human control but a pattern of human action. In justice as fairness men agree to avail themselves of the accidents of nature and social circumstance only when doing so is for the common benefit. The two principles are a fair way of meeting the arbitrariness of fortune; and while no doubt imperfect in other ways, the institutions which satisfy these principles are just.
“It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.”
Frequently misattributed to Marilyn Monroe or Kurt Cobain.
Source: https://books.google.com/books?id=xUtdDnEhkMMC&pg=PT12&lpg=PT12#v=onepage&q&f=false
Source: Autumn Leaves, Philosophical eLibrary, 2012, (Feuillets d'automne, 1941, trans. Jeanine Parisier Plottel)
“I drink to make other people more interesting.”
“I've failed over and over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed.”
“We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.”
“The soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience.”
“Strength does not come from winning.”
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.
“All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.”
Source: Journals of Ralph Waldo Emerson, with Annotations - 1841-1844
“God is in everything I do and all my work glorifies Him.”
“To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else.”
The Letters of Emily Dickinson (1958), edited by Thomas H. Johnson, associate editor Theodora Ward. Quoted in "The Conscious Self in Emily Dickinson's Poetry" by Charles A. Anderson: American Literature, Vol. 31, No. 3 (Nov. 1959), pp. 290-308.
“I would rather walk with a friend in the dark, than alone in the light.”
Variant: Walking with a friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the light.
Source: Phenomenology of Perception
“When you're at the end of your rope, tie a knot and hold on.”
Often paraphrased as "The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts."
Compare: "One of the painful things about our time is that those who feel certainty are stupid, and those with any imagination and understanding are filled with doubt and indecision." B. Russell, New Hopes for a Changing World (1951). Compare also: "The best lack all conviction, while the worst / Are full of passionate intensity." W. B. Yeats, The Second Coming (1919).
See also: Dunning-Kruger effect, Historical Antecedents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect#Historical_antecedents.
1930s, Mortals and Others (1931-35)
“Everywhere I go I find that a poet has been there before me.”
As quoted in In factor of the sensitive man, and other essays (1976 edition) by Anais Nin, p.14
Attributed from posthumous publications
“I went to the worst of bars hoping to get killed but all I could do was to get drunk again.”
“What the mind can conceive and believe, and the heart desire, you can achieve.”
“We can only learn to love by loving.”
The Bell (1958), ch. 19; 2001, p. 219.
Noli me Tangere
Source: Noli Me Tángere
“The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”
Laozi in the Tao Te Ching, Chapter 64
Misattributed, Chinese
“Half the time you think your thinking you’re actually listening”
“All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen.”
“There are no beautiful surfaces without a terrible depth.”
“Avoid using cigarettes, alcohol, and drugs as alternatives to being an interesting person.”
“Books are for people who wish they were somewhere else.”
“The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding.”
On patent controversies regarding the invention of Radio and other things, as quoted in "A Visit to Nikola Tesla" by Dragislav L. Petković in Politika (April 1927); as quoted in Tesla, Master of Lightning (1999) by Margaret Cheney, Robert Uth, and Jim Glenn, p. 73 ISBN 0760710058 </small> ; also in Tesla: Man Out of Time (2001) by Margaret Cheney, p. 230 <small> ISBN 0743215362
“The people who were trying to make this world worse are not taking the day off. Why should I?”
Response, after being asked why he went ahead and performed in the concert "Smile Jamaica", two days after he, his wife and manager were wounded inside his home after an assault by unknown gunmen, thought to be politically motivated (5 December 1976), as quoted in Bob Marley The Father of Music (2010) by Jean-Pierre Hombasch, p. 5
Variant: The people that are trying to make the world worse never take a day off, why should I?
“We cannot direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails.”
“Rare as is true love, true friendship is rarer.”
“Rich people have small TVs and big libraries, and poor people have small libraries and big TVs.”
“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”
Source: Man's Search for Meaning
Source: Letters to a Young Poet
“When I do good I feel good, when I do bad I feel bad, and that's my religion.”
Quoted in 3:439 Herndon's Lincoln (1890), p. 439 http://books.google.com/books?id=rywOAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA439&dq=%22when+i+do+good+i+feel+good%22: Inasmuch as he was so often a candidate for public office Mr. Lincoln said as little about his religious code as possible, especially if he failed to coincide with the orthodox world. In illustration of his religious code I once heard him say that it was like that of an old man named Glenn, in Indiana, whom he heard speak at a church meeting, and who said: "When I do good I feel good, when I do bad I feel bad, and that's my religion."
Posthumous attributions
“The reason I talk to myself is because I’m the only one whose answers I accept.”
“Intelligence plus character-that is the goal of true education.”
Variant: Intelligence plus character — that is the goal of true education.
“Sometimes things fall apart so that better things can fall together.”
Variant: Sometimes good things fall apart so that better things can fall together.
“I must also have a dark side if I am to be whole.”
Variant: Never argue with an idiot. They will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.
“If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”
Sometimes paraphrased as "Liberty is telling people what they do not want to hear."
Variant: Freedom is the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.
Source: Original preface to Animal Farm; as published in George Orwell: Some Materials for a Bibliography (1953) by Ian R. Willison
“Life is the flower for which love is the honey.”
“Educate the children and it won't be necessary to punish the men.”
As quoted in Geary's Guide to the World's Great Aphorists (2007) by James Geary
“We all live with the objective of being happy; our lives are all different and yet the same.”
“Life did not intend to make us perfect. Whoever is perfect belongs in a museum.”
“Creativity is intelligence having fun.”
“We were all at once terribly alone; and alone we must see it through.”
Source: All Quiet on the Western Front
“No man is free who cannot control himself.”
“Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”
Source: 1960s, Strength to Love (1963), Ch. 4 : Love in action, Sct. 3
“If you're losing your soul and you know it, then you've still got a soul left to lose.”
“It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.”
As quoted in Meditations for Women Who Do Too (1991) by Anne Wilson Schaef
