Explorez des citations, expressions et dictons anglais bien connus et utiles. Citations en anglais avec traductions.
“Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.”
“Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.”
In answer to a question asked by the editors of Youth, a journal of Young Israel of Williamsburg, NY. Quoted in the New York Times, June 20, 1932, pg. 17 http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F40617F83B5A13738DDDA90A94DE405B828FF1D3
Unsourced variant: Only a life in the service of others is worth living.
1930s
Variante: I believe in one thing—that only a life lived for others is a life worth living.
“Don't waste your love on somebody, who doesn't value it.”
Source: Romeo and Juliet
“The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one.”
The Note Book of Elbert Hubbard (1927)
Variante: The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one.
“I dream my painting, and then I paint my dream.”
As quoted in Marry Your Muse: Making a Lasting Commitment to Your Creativity (1997) by Jan Phillips, p. 176
Undated
“Some are born to sweet delight, Some are born to endless night.”
“Sometimes the soul takes pictures of things it has wished for, but never seen.”
“It is sad not to be loved, but it is much sadder not to be able to love.”
To a Young Writer
“Preparation for tomorrow is hard work today.”
“Happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue.”
Man's Search for Meaning
Variante: But happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue.
“Choice, not chance, determines your destiny.”
“Being entirely honest with oneself is a good exercise.”
Letter to Wilhelm Fliess (15 October 1897), as quoted in Origins of Psychoanalysis
1890s
“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”
Nous sommes tous dans le caniveau, mais certains d'entre nous regardent les étoiles.
Lord Darlington, Act III
Source: Lady Windermere's Fan (1892)
“I am good, but not an angel. I do sin, but I am not the devil. I am just a small girl in a big world trying to find someone to love.”
Je suis bon, mais pas un ange. Je pèche, mais ne suis pas le diable. Je ne suis qu'une petite fille dans un monde immense qui essaie de se trouver quelqu'un à aimer.
“The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes.”
Source: The Hound of the Baskervilles
“Never allow someone to be your priority while allowing yourself to be their option.”
“Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.”
Ne sous-estimez jamais le pouvoir des gens stupides lorsqu’ils se regroupent en grands nombres.
“It may have been in pieces, but I gave you the best of me.”
Variante: Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone we find it with another.
Source: Love and Living
“Mistakes are always forgivable, if one has the courage to admit them.”
“To lead an orchestra, you must turn your back on the crowd”
“Where words fail, music speaks.”
“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving.”
Letter to his son Eduard (5 February 1930), as quoted in Walter Isaacson, Einstein: His Life and Universe (2007), p. 367
1930s
“Live in the moment. Moments make history.”
Source: This Is Gonna Hurt: Music, Photography, And Life Through The Distorted Lens Of Nikki Sixx
“I'm not afraid of storms, for I'm learning how to sail my ship.”
Amy, in Ch. 44 : My Lord and Lady
Variante: I am not afraid of storms for I am learning how to sail my ship.
Source: Little Women (1868)
“The best preparation for tomorrow is doing your best today.”
Source: P.S. I Love You
“A life without love is like a tree without fruit.”
Source: Doctor Sleep
“Perhaps a man really dies when his brain stops, when he loses the power to take in a new idea.”
Source: Coming Up for Air, Part 3, Ch. 1
Variante: If your actions create a legacy that inspires others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more, then, you are an excellent leader.
“The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.”
Le fou pense qu'il est sage, mais le sage lui-même sait qu’il est fou.
Touchstone, Act V, scene i
Source: As You Like It (1599–1600)
“I use bits and pieces of others [sic] personalities to form my own.”
Source: Journals (2002), p. 95
“You're only as young as the last time you changed your mind.”
As quoted in Office Yoga : Simple Stretches for Busy People (2000) by Darrin Zeer, p. 52
“Your friend is the man who knows all about you, and still likes you.”
Votre ami est celui qui sait tout de vous, et qui vous aime quand même.
Variante: A friend is one who knows you and loves you just the same.
Source: The Note Book of Elbert Hubbard (1927), p. 112.
“There are all kinds of love in this world but never the same love twice.”
Il y a toutes sortes d'amour dans ce monde mais jamais deux fois le même amour.
“You will not be good teachers if you focus only on what you do and not upon who you are.”
“Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea.”
Les femmes et les chats ne feront que ce qui leur plaît, et les hommes et les chiens doivent se détendre et s'habituer à cette idée..
Time Enough for Love (1973)
“Knowing what's right doesn't mean much unless you do what's right.”
“We can't stop living because other people are dead.”
Source: Frostbite
“You get in life what you have the courage to ask for.”
“Do not wait; the time will never be "just right."”
Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at your command, and better tools will be found as you go along.
Source: Think and Grow Rich (1938), p. 127
“Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it.”
“The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury.”
VI, 6
Variante: The best revenge is not to be like your enemy.
Source: Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book VI
“When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.”
This has commonly been attributed to Orwell but has not been found in any of his writings. Quote Investigator http://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/11/07/rough-men/ found the earliest known appearance in a 1993 Washington Times essay by Richard Grenier: "As George Orwell pointed out, people sleep peacefully in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf." The absence of quotation marks indicates Grenier was using his own words to convey Orwell's opinion; thus it may have originated as a paraphrase of his statement in "Notes on Nationalism" https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwelnat.htm (May 1945): "Those who "abjure" violence can only do so because others are committing violence on their behalf." There are also similar sentiments expressed in an essay which Orwell wrote on Rudyard Kipling, quoting from one of Kipling's poems: "Yes, making mock o' uniforms that guard you while you sleep." In the same essay Orwell also wrote of Kipling: "He sees clearly that men can only be highly civilized while other men, inevitably less civilized, are there to guard and feed them."
Misattributed
Variante: 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)
“A man who won't die for something is not fit to live.”
Variante: If a man hasn’t found something he will die for, he isn’t fit to live.
Source: The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr.
“Wisdom is not a product of schooling but of the lifelong attempt to acquire it.”
From the same 24 March 1954 letter as above, p. 44
Attributed in posthumous publications, Albert Einstein: The Human Side (1979)
Reported in Patti Denys, Mary Holmes, Animal Magnetism: At Home With Celebrities & Their Animal Companions (1998), p. 106
Source: Jane Goodall: 40 Years at Gombe
“I didn't lie! I just created fiction with my mouth!”
“The secret of a happy marriage remains a secret.”
"Forbes" - Vol. 166, Page 156, de Bertie Charles Forbes - Forbes Inc., 2000
“The best way to cheer yourself is to try to cheer someone else up.”
Variant of this quote "The best way to cheer yourself is to cheer somebody else up." is misattributed to Albert Einstein.
Source: According Quote Investigator Mark Twain did write a version of this saying in a personal notebook in 1896, and it was published by 1935 in “Mark Twain’s Notebook”. https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/12/21/cheer-somebody/
“Maybe the target nowadays is not to discover what we are but to refuse what we are.”
Source: "The Subject and Power" (1982), p. 785
“The only regret I will have in dying is if it is not for love.”
Source: Love in the Time of Cholera
“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
Source: I Have a Dream: Writings and Speeches That Changed the World
“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.”
“It's far better to be unhappy alone than unhappy with someone — so far.”
Variante: It's far better to be unhappy alone than unhappy with someone — so far.
Source: On Being Blonde (2007), p. 52
“Live, love, laugh, leave a legacy.”
“Never bend your head. Hold it high. Look the world straight in the eye.”
Variante: The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart.
Variante: The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen, nor touched... but are felt in the heart.
“Music is the space between the notes.”
As quoted in Turning Numbers into Knowledge: Mastering the Art of Problem Solving (2001) by Jonathan G. Koomey, p. 96; since at least 2010 similar statements are also sometimes attributed to Mozart, and a similar remark, apparently one of Ben Jonson, is quoted in "Notes to Cynthia's Revels, in The Works of Ben Jonson: With Notes Critical and Explanatory, and a Biographical Memoir (1875), edited by William Gifford, Vol. 2, in notes to p. 223, on p. 551: Division, in music, is "the space between the notes of music, or the dividing of the tones."
Unsourced variants:
Music is the silence between the notes.
The music is not in the notes, but in the silence between.
The music is not in the notes, but in the silence between them.
Variante: Music is the space between the notes.
“We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.”
Variante: You must give up the life you planned in order to have the life that is waiting for you.
“Thank you for the tragedy. I need it for my art.”
“What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies.”
Variante: A friend is one soul abiding in two bodies.
Variante: Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.
Source: The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, p. 188; also reported in various sources as:
Friendship is a single soul dwelling in two bodies.
A true friend is one soul in two bodies.
Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.
What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies.
“It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.”
“One is loved because one is loved. No reason is needed for loving.”
Source: The Alchemist (1988), p. 128
Illusions : The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah (1977)
Source: Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah
“Never mistake knowledge for wisdom. One helps you make a living; the other helps you make a life.”
Ne confondez jamais la connaissance avec la sagesse. L'un vous aide à gagner votre vie; l'autre vous rend pauvre.
“In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks.”
Dans chaque promenade avec la nature, chacun reçoit bien plus que ce qu'il cherche.
"Mormon Lilies", San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin (part 4 of the 4 part series "Notes from Utah") dated July 1877, published 19 July 1877; reprinted in Steep Trails (1918), chapter 9
1870s
“Better to die on one's feet than to live on one's knees.”
“If you're gonna be two-faced at least make one of them pretty.”
“Silence is worse; all truths that are kept silent become poisonous.”
Source: Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Posthumous attributions, Tupac: Resurrection (2003)
Variante: You grow, we all grow, we're made to grow. You either evolve or disappear.
“We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell.”
Source: The Duchess of Padua
