Life quotes
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“When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better, too.”
Source: The Alchemist
“Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”
“Keep your eyes on the stars, and your feet on the ground.”
Variant: Look Toward the stars but keep your feet firmly on the ground.
Source: The Greatest American President: The Autobiography of Theodore Roosevelt
“All your life, you will be faced with a choice. You can choose love or hate…I choose love.”
“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.”
Source: Anne Frank's Tales from the Secret Annex
“The best way to predict your future is to create it.”
“Too many of us are not living our dreams because we are living our fears.”
Variant: Too many of us are not living our dreams because we are living out fears.
“you'll miss the best things if you keep your eyes shut”
Source: I Can Read With My Eyes Shut! (1978)
“Keep your face always toward the sunshine – and shadows will fall behind you.”
This has become attributed to both Walt Whitman and Helen Keller, but has not been found in either of their published works, and variations of the quote are listed as a proverb commonly used in both the US and Canada in A Dictionary of American Proverbs (1992), edited by Wolfgang Mieder, Kelsie B. Harder and Stewart A. Kingsbury.
Misattributed
“Life is what you make it. Always has been, always will be.”
“The chief danger in life is that you may take too many precautions.”
“A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life.”
volume I, chapter VI: "The Voyage", page 266 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=284&itemID=F1452.1&viewtype=image; letter to sister Susan Elizabeth Darwin (4 August 1836)
The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin (1887)
Source: The Life & Letters of Charles Darwin
“Life's tragedy is that we get old too soon and wise too late. ”
“Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. ”
As quoted in Blackthink: My Life as Black Man and White Man https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0688011632 (1970)
1970s
“Knowing is not enough, we must apply. Willing is not enough, we must do.”
Source: Walden
“Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve.”
Actually said by Napoleon Hill, Stone later added the line "...with P.M.A." (Positive Mental Attitude) to the end of this quote.
Misattributed
Variant: Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve.
“Life is not always a matter of holding good cards, but sometimes, playing a poor hand well.”
As quoted in Sacred Journey of the Peaceful Warrior (1991) by Dan Millman, p. 78
Life’s not a matter of holding good cards, but sometimes playing a poor hand well.
As quoted in "They Came to Write in Hawai‘i" by Joseph Theroux, in Spirit of Aloha (March/April 2007)
“Success is getting what you want..
Happiness is wanting what you get.”
Variant: Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get.
“Change the way you look at things and the things you look at change.”
“Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.”
Source: The All-Girl Filling Station's Last Reunion
“Always remember that you are absolutely unique. Just like everyone else.”
Variant: Always remember that you are absolutely unique. Just like everyone else.
“A room without books is like a body without a soul.”
Attributed to Cicero in J. M. Braude's Speaker's Desk Book of Quips, Quotes, & Anecdotes (Jaico Pub. House, 1966), p. 52.
Dennis McHenry in a 2011 post at theCAMPVS.com http://thecampvs.com/2011/08/03/cicero-on-books-and-the-soul/ identified a source for the exact form of words in the essay "On the Pleasure of Reading" http://books.google.com/books?id=0YfQAAAAMAAJ&dq=cicero%20%22room%20without%20books%22%20%2B%22contemporary%20review%22&pg=PA240#v=onepage&q&f=false by Sir John Lubbock, published in The Contemporary Review, vol. 49 (1886) https://archive.org/details/contemporaryrev55unkngoog, pp. 240–51 https://archive.org/stream/contemporaryrev55unkngoog#page/n250/mode/2up, in which Lubbock wrote that "Cicero described a room without books as a body without a soul" (p. 241). The same sentence may also be found on p. 61 https://archive.org/stream/thepleasuresofli01lubbuoft#page/60/mode/2up of Lubbock's collection The Pleasures of Life. Part I. 18th edition (London and New York : Macmillan and Co. 1890) https://archive.org/details/thepleasuresofli01lubbuoft, in a lecture titled "A Song of Books". McHenry suggested that Lubbock may have had in mind the words "postea vero quam Tyrannio mihi libros disposuit mens addita videtur meis aedibus" at Cicero, Ad Atticum 4.8, which are translated by E. O. Winstedt on p. 293 https://archive.org/stream/letterstoatticus01ciceuoft#page/292/mode/2up of Cicero: Letters to Atticus I (London : William Heinemann, and New York : G. P. Putnam's Sons 1912) https://archive.org/details/letterstoatticus01ciceuoft "Since Tyrannio has arranged my books, the house seems to have acquired a soul", and by Evelyn Shuckburgh on p. 234 https://archive.org/stream/cu31924012541433#page/n283/mode/2up of The Letters of Cicero. Vol. I. B. C. 68–52 (London : George Bell and Sons 1908) https://archive.org/details/cu31924012541433 "Moreover, since Tyrannio has arranged my books for me, my house seems to have had a soul added to it" (although the Latin word " mens http://athirdway.com/glossa/?s=mens", rendered "soul" by both Winstedt and Shuckburgh, is more usually translated by the English "mind"). D. R. Shackleton Bailey in Cicero's Letters to Atticus (Harmondsworth : Penguin Books 1978), p. 162, translated "And now that Tyrannio has put my books straight, my house seems to have woken to life".
Disputed
Variant: Ut conclave sine libris ita corpus sine anima" A room without books is like a body without a soul
“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
Disputed
Variant: No one can make you feel inferior without your permission.
Source: Sometimes claimed to appear in her book This is My Story, but in The Quote Verifier by Ralph Keyes (2006), Keyes writes on p. 97 that "Bartlett's and other sources say her famous quotation can be found in This is My Story, Roosevelt's 1937 autobiography. It can't. Quotographer Rosalie Maggio scoured that book and many others by and about Roosevelt in search of this line, without success. In their own extensive searching, archivists at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library in Hyde Park, New York, have not been able to find the quotation in This Is My Story or any other writing by the First Lady. A discussion of some of the earliest known attributions of this quote to Roosevelt, which may be a paraphrase from an interview, can be found in this entry from Quote Investigator http://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/03/30/not-inferior/.
“Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.”
Variant: Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.
“I attribute my success to this — I never gave or took any excuse.”
As quoted in The Gigantic Book of Teachers' Wisdom (2007) by Frank McCourt and Erin Gruwell, p. 410
“If you can't do great things, do small things in a great way.”
“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it.”
Context: It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently.
“The day you stop racing, is the day you win the race.”
Quoted often without citation http://www.tagorefoundationinternational.com http://rupkatha.com/V2/n4/11Tagorephilosohy.pdf
Compare this verse verse written by Ellen Sturgis Hooper:
::"I slept, and dreamed that life was Beauty;
I woke, and found that life was Duty."
Disputed
“You'll never do a whole lot unless you're brave enough to try.”
“The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me.”
“Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.”
“These are the days that must happen to you.”
“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”
Often attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt without an original source in her writings, for example in the introduction to It Seems to Me : Selected Letters of Eleanor Roosevelt (2001) by Leonard C. Schlup and Donald W. Whisenhunt, p. 2 http://books.google.com/books?id=UeFWjTMcLZYC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA2#v=onepage&q&f=false. But archivists have not been able to find the quote in any of her writings, see the comment from Ralph Keyes in The Quote Verifier above.
Disputed
“You never really learn much from hearing yourself speak.”
“To do nothing is the way to be nothing.”
“Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.”
Variant: Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.
“I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions.”
“The purpose of life is a life of purpose.”
This quote has been attributed to Mark Twain, but the attribution cannot be verified. The quote should not be regarded as authentic. — Twainquotes http://www.twainquotes.com/Discovery.html
Actually from the 1990 book P. S. I Love You' https://books.google.com/books?id=5OORXU6rlGIC&q=bowlines#v=onepage&q=bowlines&f=false' by H. Jackson Brown.
Misattributed
Jackson, Jim, Walking Together Forever: The Broad Street Bullies, Then and Now
“One man with courage makes a majority.”
However, see also the attributed quote "desperate courage makes One a majority."
Attributed to Jackson by Robert F. Kennedy in his "Foreword" to the "Young Readers Memorial Edition" of John F. Kennedy's Profiles in Courage, and by Ronald Reagan in nominating Robert Bork to the US Supreme Court, this has never been found in Jackson's writings, and there is no record of him having declared it. Somewhat similar statements are known to have been made by others:
A man with God is always in the majority. ~ John Knox
Any man more right than his neighbors constitutes a majority of one. ~ Henry David Thoreau
One on God's side is a majority ~ Wendell Phillips
Misattributed
“We live, not as we wish to, but as we can.”
Lady of Andros, fragment 50.
“In order to be irreplaceable one must always be different.”
As quoted in Coco Chanel : Her Life, Her Secrets (1971) by Marcel Haedrich
Attributed to Watson in: William G. Dickerson (1995) In search of the ultimate practice. p. 19.
“I avoid looking forward or backward, and try to keep looking upward.”
15 January, 1849. As quoted in Elizabeth Gaskell The life of Charlotte Brontë (1870), p. 285
“A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives.”
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)
“I would rather die of passion than of boredom”
Not by van Gogh, but from Emile Zola's novel The Ladies' Paradise (1883)
Misattributed
“Life is like a sewer — what you get out of it depends on what you put into it.”
It's always seemed to me that this is precisely the sort of dynamic, positive thinking that we so desperately need today in these trying times of crisis and universal brouhaha.
Introduction to "We Will All Go Together When We Go"
An Evening (Wasted) With Tom Lehrer (1959)
“I always wanted to be somebody, but I should have been more specific.”
“Sometimes people are beautiful.
Not in looks.
Not in what they say.
Just in what they are.”
Variant: Sometimes people are beautiful.
Not in looks.
Not in what they say.
Just in what they are.
Source: I Am the Messenger
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.
“Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify.”
Variant: Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify.
Source: Walden and Other Writings
“In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity”
“A goal is not always meant to be reached, it often serves simply as something to aim at.”
As translated by Katharine Lyttelton, in Joubert : A Selection from His Thoughts (1899)
Source: Striking Thoughts (2000), p. 121; this likely derives from the observation of Joseph Joubert: The goal is not always meant to be reached, but to serve as a mark for our aim.
“Life is to be lived, not controlled.”
“Mistakes are a fact of life: It is the response to the error that counts.”
“Be miserable. Or motivate yourself. Whatever has to be done, it's always your choice.”
“We can do no great things; only small things with great love.(mother Teresa)”
Source: All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten
“If there is no struggle, there is no progress.”
Variant: Without a struggle, there can be no progress.
“Success is getting what you want; happiness is wanting what you get.”
Variant: When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive-to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.
Source: Meditations
“You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don't try.”
As quoted in Incredible Quotations : 230 Thought-Provoking Quotes with Prompts to Spark Students' Writing, Thinking, and Discussion (1997) by Jacqueline Sweeney
“Life is a lot like jazz - it's best when you improvise.”
“No! Try not. Do, or do not. There is no try.”
Source: The Star Wars Trilogy
“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately…”
“Life is never fair, and perhaps it is a good thing for most of us that it is not.”
“Whether you think you can, or you think you can't — you're right.”
A fragment of Miller's unfinished book on D. H. Lawrence, originally published in the London literary journal Purpose.
Source: Tropic of Capricorn (1939) "Creative Death", p. 2
“The more unintelligent a man is, the less mysterious existence seems to him.”
“Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness.”
Source: 1930s, The Conquest of Happiness (1930)
“Folks are usually about as happy as they make their minds up to be.”
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.
“Go as far as you can see and you will see further.”
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.
“Optimism is the one quality more associated with success and happiness than
any other.”
“Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe it can achieve.”
p.32 -->
Variant: Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve.
Source: Think and Grow Rich: A Black Choice
“Happiness is the feeling that power increases - that resistance is being overcome.”
Source: The Anti-Christ
“Do something wonderful, people may imitate it.”
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.
Source: The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism
