“Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending. ”
“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)
“In the depth of winter, I finally learned that there was within me an invincible summer.”
“I always wanted to be somebody, but I should have been more specific.”
“One day your life will flash before your eyes. Make sure it's worth watching.”
“To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong.”
Variant: To live a creative life we must first lose the fear of being wrong.
“Give every day the chance to become the most beautiful day of your life.”
“In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity”
Speech given at Harrow School, Harrow, England, October 29, 1941. Quoted in Churchill by Himself (2008), ed. Langworth, PublicAffairs, 2008, p. 23
The Second World War (1939–1945)
Source: Never Give In!: The Best of Winston Churchill's Speeches
Context: Never give in — never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.
“Be Yourself. Everyone Else Is Already Taken.”
Anonymous advertising copywriter for Menards chain of hardware stores (2000), according to Quote Investigator http://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/01/20/be-yourself
Misattributed
“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.
Letter to Isham Reavis (5 November 1855)
1850s
Context: If you are resolutely determined to make a lawyer of yourself, the thing is more than half done already. It is but a small matter whether you read with anyone or not. I did not read with anyone. Get the books, and read and study them till you understand them in their principal features; and that is the main thing. It is of no consequence to be in a large town while you are reading. I read at New Salem, which never had three hundred people living in it. The books, and your capacity for understanding them, are just the same in all places.... Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed, is more important than any other one thing.
“Life is to be lived, not controlled.”
“Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why so few engage in it.”
Source: As quoted in "My Philosophy of Industry" an interview of Ford by Fay Leone Faurote, The Forum, Vol. 79, No. 4 (April 1928), p. 481;
also in "Thinking Is Hardest Work, Therefore Few Engage in It", San Francisco Chronicle (13 April 1928), p. 25;
both articles are cited as the primary sources of other variants which later arose, in https://quoteinvestigator.com/2016/04/05/so-few "Thinking Is the Hardest Work There Is, which Is the Probable Reason Why So Few Engage In It" in Quote Investigator (5 April 2016)
“Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.”
“To accomplish great things we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.”
Variant: To accomplish great things, we must dream as well as act.
Source: Discours de réception, Séance De L'académie Française (introductory speech at a session of the French Academy), 24th December 1896, on Ferdinand de Lesseps' work on the Suez Canal.
Context: To accomplish great things we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.
“Be miserable. Or motivate yourself. Whatever has to be done, it's always your choice.”
“If there is no struggle, there is no progress.”
Variant: Without a struggle, there can be no progress.
“Do not wait to strike till the iron is hot; but make it hot by striking.”
“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
“Determine that the thing can and shall be done, and then we shall find the way.”
Speech in the House of Representatives (20 June 1848)
1840s
“As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others.”
Source: The Winner Stands Alone
“Change is inevitable. Growth is optional.”
“No! Try not. Do, or do not. There is no try.”
Source: The Star Wars Trilogy
“The important thing is not to stop questioning.”
Old Man's Advice to Youth: "Never Lose a Holy Curiosity," http://books.google.com/books?id=dlYEAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PP1&dq=Life%2C%202%20May%201955&pg=PA61#v=onepage&q=Life,%202%20May%201955&f=false LIFE magazine (2 May 1955) statement to William Miller, p. 64.
1950s
Context: The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existence. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery each day. Never lose a holy curiosity. … Don't stop to marvel.
“At the end of the day, we can endure much more than we think we can.”
Source: Following the Equator (1897), Ch. LXII
“Life isn't as serious as my mind makes it out to be.”
Variant: Life isn't as serious as the mind makes it out to be.
Source: A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose
“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.
“I'd rather regret the things I've done than regret the things I haven't done.”
Variant: I'd rather regret the things that I have done than the things that I have not.
Variant: Id rather regret the things that I have done than the things that I have not done.
Source: Secrets of the Millionaire Mind: Mastering the Inner Game of Wealth
“Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.”
In his letter to Theo, from The Hague, 22 October 1882, http://www.webexhibits.org/vangogh/letter/11/237.htm
1880s, 1882
“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
“The successful warrior is the average man, with laser-like focus.”
Variant: The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say no to almost everything.
Helen Adams Keller (p. 60. Helen Keller's Journal: 1936-1937, Doubleday, Doran & company, inc., 1938)
“Happiness is the feeling that power increases - that resistance is being overcome.”
Source: The Anti-Christ
“To be a great champion you must believe you are the best. If you’re not, pretend you are.”
As quoted in Secrets of Superstar Speakers: Wisdom from the Greatest Motivators of Our Time (2000) by Lilly Walters, p. 96
Variant: What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.
“You can, you should, and if you’re brave enough to start, you will.”
Source: On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
“With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts.”
“If you’re going through hell, keep going.”
Source: The Nightingale
“Nurture your mind with great thoughts, for you will never go any higher than you think.”
“They can because they think they can.”
Aeneid (29–19 BC), Book V
No published occurrence of such an attribution has yet been located prior to one in Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre — Band 3 http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/2411/pg2411.html by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Disputed
Variant: Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do.
“If you obey all of the rules, you miss all of the fun.”
Variant: If you obey all the rules, you miss all the fun
“The secret of success in life is for a man to be ready for his opportunity when it comes.”
“Once you choose hope, anything's possible.”
“no expectations, no disappointments!”
Sleeping with Strangers
Variant: Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.
“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.”
"Helen and Teacher: The Story of Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan Macy", Joseph P. Lash (1980) http://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/04/21/together/
As quoted in The Subconscious Diet : It's Not What You Put in Your Mouth; It Is What You Put in Your Mind (2005) by Hugh B. Sanders, p. 104 <!-- also quoted in The First Step : A Peek at the Real World (2006) by Gudmundur O. Sigurdarson, p. 41 -->
Context: Success means doing the best we can with what we have. Success is the doing, not the getting — in the trying, not the triumph. Success is a personal standard — reaching for the highest that is in us — becoming all that we can be. If we do our best, we are a success. Success is the maximum utilization of the ability that you have.
“You are stronger than you seem,
Braver than you believe,
and smarter than you think you are.”
Variant: You are braver than you believe,
Stronger than you seem,
And smarter than you think(:
Source: Winnie-the-Pooh
“Forgive, O Lord, my little jokes on Thee
And I'll forgive Thy great big one on me.”
"Forgive, O Lord," In the Clearing (1962)
First published in the Harvard Alumni Bulletin (12 November 1960), p. 157 http://books.google.com/books?id=9J_lAAAAMAAJ&q=%22Forgive+O+Lord+my+little+jokes+on+Thee+And+I'll+forgive+Thy+great+big+one+on+me%22&pg=PA157#v=onepage
1960s
Variant: Forgive, O Lord, my little jokes on Thee And I'll forgive Thy great big one on me.
“Motivation gets you going and habit gets you there.”
“Every strike brings me closer to the next home run.”
As quoted in Weird Ideas That Work : 11 1/2 practices for promoting, managing, and sustaining innovation (2001) by Robert I. Sutton, p. 95
Used in the Apple "Think Different" marketing campaign and sometimes attributed to Kerouac on the internet, perhaps because it evokes his famous quote from On the Road: "The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!"" The original script was actuality written by Rob Siltanen with participation of Lee Clow. In "The Real Story Behind Apple's 'Think Different' Campaign" in Forbes (14 December 2011) http://www.forbes.com/sites/onmarketing/2011/12/14/the-real-story-behind-apples-think-different-campaign/ Rob Siltanen states: "I wrote everything..." "I shared my scripts with Lee, and he thought they were good. He made a couple tweaks..."
Misattributed
“Knowing trees, I understand the meaning of patience. Knowing grass, I can appreciate persistence.”
Countryman: A Summary of Belief, Lippincott, 1965, p. 99
“Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people.”
Some evidence for Henry Buckle (1821-1862) as the source: see p.33 quotation https://books.google.com/books?id=2moaAAAAYAAJ&q=buckle#v=snippet&q=buckle&f=false
There are many published incidents of this as an anonymous proverb since at least 1948, and as a statement of Eleanor Roosevelt since at least 1992, but without any citation of an original source. It is also often attributed to Admiral Hyman G. Rickover but, though Rickover quoted this, he did not claim to be the author of it; in "The World of the Uneducated" in The Saturday Evening Post (28 November 1959), he prefaces it with "As the unknown sage puts it..."
Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, and little minds discuss people.
In this form it was quoted as an anonymous epigram in A Guide to Effective Public Speaking (1953) by Lawrence Henry Mouat
New York times Saturday review of books and art, 1931: ...Wanted, the correct quotation and origin of this expression: Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people...
Several other variants or derivatives of the expression exist, but none provide a definite author:
Great minds discuss ideas, mediocre minds discuss events, small minds discuss personalities.
Great minds discuss ideas
Average minds discuss events
Small minds discuss people
Small minds discuss things
Average minds discuss people
Great minds discuss ideas
...Be less curious about people and more curious about ideas. (Marie Curie, undated (died 1934), as quoted in Living Adventures in Science by Henry and Dana Lee Thomas, 1972)
...Some professor of psychology who has been eavesdropping for years makes the statement that "The best minds discuss ideas; the second in ranking talk about things; while the third group, or the least in mentality, gossip about people"… (Hardware age, Volume 123, 1929)
...He now reports that, "the best minds discuss ideas; the second ranking talks about things; while the third and lowest mentality – starved for ideas – gossips about people." (Printers' Ink, Volume 139, Issue 2, 1927, p. 87)
...It has been said long ago that there were three classes of people in the world, and while they are subject to variation, for elemental consideration they are useful. The first is that large class of people who talk about people; the next class are those who talk about things; and the third class are those who discuss ideas... (H. J. Derbyshire, "Origin of mental species", 1919)
...Mrs. Conklin points out certain bad conversational habits and suggests good ones, quoting Buckle's classic classification of talkers into three orders of intelligence — those who talk about nothing but persons, those who talk about things and those who discuss ideas... (review of Mary Greer Conklin's book Conversation: What to say and how to say it in The Continent, Jan. 23, 1913, p. 118)
...[ Henry Thomas Buckle's ] thoughts and conversations were always on a high level, and I recollect a saying of his which not only greatly impressed me at the time, but which I have ever since cherished as a test of the mental calibre of friends and acquaintances. Buckle said, in his dogmatic way: "Men and women range themselves into three classes or orders of intelligence; you can tell the lowest class by their habit of always talking about persons, the next by the fact that their habit is always to converse about things; the highest by their preference for the discussion of ideas"… (Charles Stewart, "Haud immemor. Reminescences of legal and social life in Edinburgh and London. 1850-1900", 1901, p. 33 http://www.mocavo.com/Haud-Immemor-by-Charles-Stewart-Reminiscences-of-Life-in-Edinburgh-and-London-1850-1900/608008/13?browse=true#63).
Disputed
“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”
No published occurrence of such an attribution has yet been located prior to one in Wisdom Through the Ages : Book Two (2003) by Helen Granat, p. 225; this was used as an early slogan at Apple Computer in 1984, but the earliest occurence yet located is in The Recognitions (1955) by William Gaddis, p. 457:
Stop being so God Damn humble … You know God damn well that … that humility is defiance … simplicity today is sophisticated … simplicity is the ultimate sophistication today.
Disputed
Apple Inc. "Think different" advertising company.
2000s
This quotation, often attributed on the Internet to Plato, cannot be found in any of Plato's writings, nor can it be found in any published work anywhere until recent years. If it really were a quotation by Plato, then some author in the recorded literature of the last several centuries would have mentioned that quote, but they did not. The sentiment isn't new, however. The ancient Roman Seneca, in his work on "Morals," quoted an earlier Roman writer, Lucretius (who wrote about the year 50 B.C.), as saying "we are as much afraid in the light as children in the dark." (Seneca was paraphrasing a longer passage by Lucretius from De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things), Book II, lines 56 et seq.)
Misattributed
“Know what to Do. And do it Yourself.”
Quotations from Gurudev’s teachings, Chinmya Mission Chicago
“To avoid criticism, say nothing, do nothing, be nothing.”
Glenn
Liebman
Hockey Shorts: 1,001 of the games funniest one liners
1996
70, 113 & 229
Contemporary Books
0-8092-3351-7
“The important thing is to be nothing.”
1960's, Conversations with Samuel Beckett and Bram van Velde' (1965 - 1969)
“Because I loved myself, I was loved.”
Becoming Light: Poems New and Selected (1991)
“The best way to predict the future is to invent it.”
Alan Kay (1971) at a 1971 meeting of PARC http://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/09/27/invent-the-future/
Similar remarks are attributed to Peter Drucker and Dandridge M. Cole.
Cf. Dennis Gabor, Inventing the Future (1963): "The future cannot be predicted, but futures can be invented."
Nigel Calder reviewed Gabor's book and wrote, "we cannot predict the future, but we can invent it..."
1970s
“The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.”
Not by Shakespeare, but from Finding Your Strength in Difficult Times: A Book of Meditations, a 1993 self-help book by David S. Viscott.
Misattributed
Source: http://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/06/16/purpose-gift/
“When you give up junk, you give up a way of life.”
Junkie (1953)
Context: When you give up junk, you give up a way of life. I have seen junkies kick and hit the lush and wind up dead in a few years. Suicide is frequent among ex-junkies. Why does a junky quit junk of his own will? You never know the answer to that question. No conscious tabulation of the disadvantages and horrors of junk gives you the emotional drive to kick. The decision to quit junk is a cellular decision, and once you have decided to quit you cannot go back to junk permanently any more than you could stay away from it before.
“There is only one way to avoid criticism: do nothing, say nothing and be nothing.”
Misattributed
Source: Elbert Hubbard, Little Journeys to the Homes of American Statesmen (1898), p. 370 http://hdl.handle.net/2027/osu.32435065322687?urlappend=%3Bseq=458: "If you would escape moral and physical assassination, do nothing, say nothing, be nothing—court obscurity, for only in oblivion does safety lie." Other versions of the saying were repeated in several of Hubbard's later writings.
“We can see other people's behaviour, but not their experience.”
Ch. 1 : Experience as evidence http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/en/laing.htm
The Politics of Experience (1967)
Context: Even facts become fictions without adequate ways of seeing "the facts". We do not need theories so much as the experience that is the source of the theory. We are not satisfied with faith, in the sense of an implausible hypothesis irrationally held: we demand to experience the "evidence".
We can see other people's behaviour, but not their experience. This has led some people to insist that psychology has nothing to do with the other person's experience, but only with his behaviour.
The other person's behaviour is an experience of mine. My behaviour is an experience of the other. The task of social phenomenology is to relate my experience of the other's behaviour to the other's experience of my behaviour. Its study is the relation between experience and experience: its true field is inter-experience.
“Others can stop you temporarily — you are the only one who can do it permanently.”
Source: See You at the Top (2000), p. 164
Context: You might occasionally feel that some people are standing in the way and slowing your progress, but in reality the biggest person standing in your way is you. Others can stop you temporarily — you are the only one who can do it permanently.
“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams. ”
As quoted in How to Stop Worrying and Start Living (1944; 1948) by Dale Carnegie; though Roosevelt has sometimes been credited with the originating the expression, "Damned if you do and damned if you don't" is set in quote marks, indicating she herself was quoting a common expression in saying this. Actually, this saying was coined back even earlier, 1836, by evangelist Lorenzo Dow in his sermons about ministers saying the Bible contradicts itself, telling his listeners, "… those who preach it up, to make the Bible clash and contradict itself, by preaching somewhat like this: 'You can and you can't-You shall and you shan't-You will and you won't-And you will be damned if you do-And you will be damned if you don't.' "
