Source: Seriously... I'm Kidding
“The excursion is the same when you go looking for your sorrow as when you go looking for your joy.”
“Anyone who loves in the expectation of being loved in return is wasting their time.”
Source: The Devil and Miss Prym
“Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?”
Attributed to John Stuart Mill in The Phrenological Journal and Science of Health, Vol. LXXXV (September 1887), p. 170
Disputed
“Even if you are on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.”
Variant: Even if you are on the right track, you will get run over if you just sit there.
“A quitter never wins-and-a winner never quits.”
Variant: A quitter never wins and a winner never quits.
Source: Think and Grow Rich: The Landmark Bestseller - Now Revised and Updated for the 21st Century
“All serious daring starts from within.”
Source: On Writing (2002)
“Those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.”
Everybody's Political What's What? (ebook, must be borrowed) https://openlibrary.org/books/OL24979564M/Everybody's_political_what's_what (1944), Chapter XXXVII: Creed and Conduct, p. 330
1940s and later
Variant: Progress is impossible without change; and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.
Context: Progress is impossible without change; and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything. Creeds, articles, and institutes of religious faith ossify our brains and make change impossible. As such they are nuisances, and in practice have to be mostly ignored.
Misattributed
Source: thought to be Gibson's words as a result of Twitter attribution decay, despite repeated disavowals. https://twitter.com/#!/GreatDismal/status/144940064990961664 https://twitter.com/#!/GreatDismal/status/144941061578559488 https://twitter.com/#!/GreatDismal/status/144941447936884736 https://twitter.com/#!/GreatDismal/status/171091202161131520. The source, according to Gibson, is Steven Winterburn https://twitter.com/greatdismal/status/119133581598666752 https://twitter.com/5tevenw/status/73091190475595776. However, Steven Winterburn is NOT the original creator of that quote. The original quote is the creation of Twitter account holder "@debihope" https://twitter.com/debihope?lang=en. See research by quoteinvestigator http://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/10/25/diagnose/.
As quoted in The Leadership Secrets of Colin Powell (2003) by Oren Harari, p. 164.
2000s
Variant: Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.
“Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement; nothing can be done without hope.”
Optimism (1903)
Variant: Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement
“Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.”
“There is geometry in the humming of the strings. There is music in the spacings of the spheres.”
As quoted in the preface of the book entitled Music of the Spheres by Guy Murchie (1961)
The Golden Verses
“Never take life seriously. Nobody gets out alive anyway”
“I never learned from a man who agreed with me.”
“I don’t like to share my personal life… it wouldn’t be personal if I shared it.”
“This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.”
“We are like islands in the sea, separate on the surface but connected in the deep.”
“Let no one persuade you by word or deed to do or say whatever is not best for you.”
As quoted in Divine Harmony: The Life and Teachings of Pythagoras by John Strohmeier and Peter Westbrook. (1999)
The Golden Verses
Context: Many words befall men, mean and noble alike; do not be astonished by them, nor allow yourself to be constrained.
If a lie is told, bear with it gently.
But whatever I tell you, let it be done completely.
Let no one persuade you by word or deed to do or say whatever is not best for you.
“Life is very interesting… in the end, some of your greatest pains, become your greatest strengths.”
Variant: In the end, some of your greatest pains become your greatest strengths.
“Make the most of yourself…. for that is all there is of you.”
“Failure will never overtake me if my determination to succeed is strong enough.”
“Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place.”
“If a victory is told in detail, one can no longer distinguish it from a defeat.”
Act 1
The Devil and the Good Lord (1951)
“You may be hurt if you love too much, but you will live in misery if you love too little.”
Source: Napoleon Hill's Positive Action Plan: 365 Meditations For Making Each Day a Success
“Live for each second without hesitation”
“The whole secret of a successful life is to find out what is one's destiny to do, and then do it.”
“Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose.”
“Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.”
Variant: Our greatest glory consists not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.
Source: The Citizen of the World, Or, Letters from a Chinese Philosopher, Residing in London, to His Friends in the Country, by Dr. Goldsmith
“Be silent or let thy words be worth more than silence.”
“If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude.”
“Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm”
Attribution debunked in Langworth's Churchill by Himself. The earliest close match located by the Quote Investigator is from the 1953 book How to Say a Few Words by David Guy Powers.
Misattributed
Variant: Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.
Source: 1953, How to Say a Few Words by David Guy Powers, Quote p. 109, Doubleday & Company, Garden City, New York. Referenced by Quote Investigator http://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/06/28/success
Oh, the Places You'll Go! (1990)
Source: Oh, The Places You'll Go!
“The oldest, shortest words— "yes" and "no"— are those which require the most thought.”
As quoted in Numerology for Relationships: A Guide to Birth Numbers (2006) by Vera Kaikobad, p. 78
“Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is faced.”
Also appears in Jodi Picoult book Small Great Things
Source: In 1962 James Baldwin penned an essay titled “As Much Truth As One Can Bear” in “The New York Times Book Review”.
Context: We are the generation that must throw everything into the endeavor to remake America into what we say we want it to be. Without this endeavor, we will perish. ... Not everything that is faced can be changed; but nothing can be changed until it is faced.
“There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.”
The alchemist, p. 141.
Variant: There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.
Source: The Alchemist (1988)
“Aging is not 'lost youth' but a new stage of opportunity and strength.”
“Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood.”
“You will never change your life until you change something you do daily.”
Source: The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth: Live Them and Reach Your Potential
“Choose rather to be strong in soul than in body.”
"Pythagorean Ethical Sentences From Stobæus" (1904)
Choose rather to be strong of soul than strong of body.
As quoted in Florilegium, I.22, as translated in Dictionary of Quotations (1906) by Thomas Benfield Harbottle, p. 396
Florilegium
“The best way to predict your future is to create it”
“Some people are old at 18 and some are young at 90. Time is a concept that humans created.”
“The moment of change is the only poem.”
“Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You.”
Variant: There is no one alive who
is Youer than You!
Source: Happy Birthday to You!
“Friendship improves happiness, and abates misery, by doubling our joys, and dividing our grief”
BBC (1979); reported in John Blundell, Margaret Thatcher: A Portrait of the Iron Lady (2008), page 193.
First term as Prime Minister
It Takes A Village, January 1996
White House years (1993–2000)
“Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.”
No known citation to Thoreau's works. First found, uncredited, in the 1940s in the variant "Success usually comes to those who are too busy to look for it", p. 711, Locomotive Engineers Journal, Volume 76, 1942. Google Books http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=N6GZAAAAIAAJ&q=%22Success+usually+comes+to+those+who+are+too+busy%22&dq=%22Success+usually+comes+to+those+who+are+too+busy%22&lr=&as_drrb_is=b&as_minm_is=0&as_miny_is=1900&as_maxm_is=0&as_maxy_is=1980&as_brr=0
Misattributed
“Integrity is doing the right thing, even when no one is watching.”
Not found in Lewis's works.
"Integrity means doing the right thing at all times, without hesitation" is found in a 1943 syndicated newspaper column. Elsie Robinson, "Listen, World!" https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/58360960/, Evening News (Harrisburg, PA), 1943-02-24, p. 10.
"Integrity means doing the right thing even when no one is there to judge" is found (unattributed) in the 1965 Journal of Clinical Psychology https://books.google.com/books?id=9rm1AAAAIAAJ&dq=%22integrity%22+%22doing+the+right+thing%22&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=%22doing+the+right+thing%22.
The quote became attributed to C.S. Lewis by 2012 https://books.google.com/books?id=XH-1TURLaf4C&pg=PT154&dq=integrity+%22even+when%22+%22c+s+lewis%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi6x9XznoTKAhUKymMKHdoKCKoQ6AEIHTAA#v=onepage&q=integrity%20%22even%20when%22%20%22c%20s%20lewis%22&f=false.
Misattributed
“The business of business is business.”
Widely attributed to Milton Friedman, and sometimes cited as being in his work Capitalism and Freedom (1962) this is also attributed to Alfred P. Sloan, sometimes with citation of a statement of 1964, but sometimes with attestations to his use of it as a motto as early as 1923.
Disputed
“They can because they think they can.”
Source: Translations, The Aeneid of Virgil (1866), Book V, p. 153
“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.”
Variant on aphorism "Study as if you were to live forever. Live as if you were to die tomorrow" pre-dating Gandhi, variously attributed to Isidore of Seville (c. 560 – 636), in FPA Book of Quotations (1952) by Franklin Pierce Adams, to Edmund Rich (1175–1240) in American Journal of Education (1877), or to Alain de Lille in Samuel Smiles's Duty https://books.google.com/books?id=33UzAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA363&dq=live+die+tomorrow+learn+forever&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjd3s_2m57MAhWFMGMKHe-sAl8Q6AEIHDAA#v=onepage&q=live%20die%20tomorrow%20learn%20forever&f=false (1881).
The 1995 book "The good boatman: a portrait of Gandhi," states that Gandhi subscribed "to the view that a man should live thinking he might die tomorrow but learn as if he would live forever."
In his 2010 Boyer lecture Glyn Davis (Professor of Political Science and Vice-Chancellor of Melbourne University) attributes the quote to Desiderius Erasmus. "He [Erasmus] reworked Pliny to urge 'live as if you are to die tomorrow, study as if you were to live forever'. Many students obey the first clause - the best heed both."
There is a similar quote by Johann Gottfried Herder: "Mensch, genieße dein Leben, als müssest morgen du weggehn; Schone dein Leben, als ob ewig du weiletest hier." ["Man, enjoy your life as if you were to depart tomorrow; spare your life as if you were to linger here forever."] (Zerstreute Blätter, 1785).
Disputed
According to The Quote Investigator http://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/04/17/butterfly/, "the earliest instance of this saying was crafted by the enigmatic “L” for “The Daily Crescent” newspaper in New Orleans [in June 1848]. ... The linkage to Henry David Thoreau is unsupported."
Misattributed
“All our dreams can come true — if we have the courage to pursue them.”
Source: How to Be Like Walt : Capturing the Magic Every Day of Your Life (2004), Ch. 3 : Imagination Unlimited, p. 63; Unsourced variant: All your dreams can come true if you have the courage to pursue them.
“What lies behind us and what lies before us are but tiny matters compared to what lies within us.”
Source: Meditations in Wall Street (1940), p. 131
“The business of business is business.”
Widely attributed to Friedman, and sometimes cited as being in his work Capitalism and Freedom (1962) this is also attributed to Alfred P. Sloan, sometimes with citation of a statement of 1964, but sometimes with attestations to his use of it as a motto as early as 1923.
Disputed
Gandhi: His Life and Message for the World (1954), by Louis Fischer, p. 177
Mahatma Gandhi to Rajkumari Amrit Kaur, August 29, 1947 https://www.gandhiheritageportal.org/ghp_booksection_detail/Ny0yMzUtMg==#page/258/mode/2up. In Letters to Rajkumari Amrit Kaur. 1st edition (April, 1961), p. 246
Posthumous publications (1950s and later)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/06/07/clinton-concession-speech_n_105842.html, Washington D.C., June 7, 2008
Presidential campaign (January 20, 2007 – 2008)
“That it will never come again
Is what makes life so sweet.”
Quoting Emily Dickinson; The Poems of Emily Dickinson http://books.google.gr/books?id=LoH2SXEnnoEC&dq=, 3:1171, no. 1741
Source: Contact (1985), Chapter 22 (p. 393)
“The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.”
1990s, Long Walk to Freedom (1995)
1963, Address at the Free University of Berlin
Source: The Feminine Mystique (1963), Ch. 14 "A New Life Plan for women".
"The Indian Jugglers"
Table Talk: Essays On Men And Manners http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/TableHazIV.htm (1821-1822)
As quoted in Gems of Thought: Being a Collection of More Than a Thousand Choice Selections, Or Aphorisms, from Nearly Four Hundred and Fifty Different Authors, and on One Hundred and Forty Different Subjects (1888). p. 97 by Charles Northend
As quoted in Edison & Ford Quote Book (2003) edited by Edison & Ford Winter Estates.
Date unknown
“There is no knowledge that is not power.”
Old Age
1870s, Society and Solitude (1870)
“Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people.”
Though Rickover quoted this, he did not claim to be the author of the statement. Using 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..." — It has sometimes been attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt, but without definite citation.
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
Misattributed
“The most powerful relationship you will ever have is the relationship with yourself.”
Source: Life, the Truth, and Being Free (2010), p. 96
This is presented as a statement of 1877, as quoted in From Telegraph to Light Bulb with Thomas Edison (2007) by Deborah Headstrom-Page, p. 22.
1800s
“Learn as if you were to live forever; live as if you were to die tomorrow.”
They Call Me Coach (1972)
“The big lesson in life, baby, is never be scared of anyone or anything.”
The Way You Wear Your Hat (1997)
“The more man meditates upon good thoughts, the better will be his world and the world at large.”
Attributed to Confucius in Out of the Blue: Delight Comes Into Our Lives (1996) by Mark Victor Hansen, Barbara Nichols, and Patty Hansen, p. 93
Attributed
“Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive.”
As quoted in A Small Drop of Ink: A Collection of Inspirational and Moving Quotations of the Ages (2003) by Linda Pendleton.
“A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out.”
Attributed
This quote is commonly attributed to Churchill, but appears in the "Red Herrings: False Attributions" appendix of Churchill by Himself : The Definitive Collection of Quotations (2008) by Richard Langworth, without citation as to where it originates.
In American Character, a 1905 address by Brander Matthews, a similar quotation is attributed to L. P. Jacks ( link http://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015059451156?urlappend=%3Bseq=238).
""Our civilization is a perilous adventure for an uncertain prize... Human society is not a constructed thing but a human organization... We are adopting a false method of reform when we begin by operations that weaken society, either morally or materially, by lower its vitality, by plunging it into gloom and despair about itself, by inducing the atmosphere of the sick-room, and then when its courage and resources are at a low ebb, expecting it to perform some mighty feat of self-reformation... Social despair or bitterness does not get us anywhere... Low spirits are an intellectual luxury. An optimist is one who sees an opportunity in every difficulty. A pessimist is one who sees a difficulty in every opportunity... The conquest of great difficulties is the glory of human nature." L. P. Jacks, quoted in American character, by Brander Matthews, 1906
Misattributed
Variant: A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.
“Fame is not the glory; virtue is the goal, and Fame only a messenger to bring more to the fold.”
Degrees: Thought Capsules and Micro Tales (1989)
“Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.”
From "Self-Portrait" (1972)
Truman Capote: Conversations (1987)
“When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hang on.”
The earliest citation yet found does not attribute this to Roosevelt, but presents it as a piece of anonymous piece folk-wisdom: "When one reaches the end of his rope, he should tie a knot in it and hang on" ( LIFE magazine (3 April 1919), p. 585 http://hdl.handle.net/2027/wu.89063018576?urlappend=%3Bseq=65).
Misattributed
Variant: When you come to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.
“Don't waste your tremendous voice writing messages in the sand.”
Speaking at Bringing the Circle Together.
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”
Misattributed
Variant: We are what we repeatedly do, therefore excellence is not an act, but a habit.
Source: Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy: The Lives and Opinions of the World's Greatest Philosophers (1926), reprinted in Simon & Schuster/Pocket Books, 1991, ISBN 0-671-73916-6], Ch. II: Aristotle and Greek Science; part VII: Ethics and the Nature of Happiness: "Excellence is an art won by training and habituation: we do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have these because we have acted rightly; 'these virtues are formed in man by his doing the actions'; we are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit: 'the good of man is a working of the soul in the way of excellence in a complete life... for as it is not one swallow or one fine day that makes a spring, so it is not one day or a short time that makes a man blessed and happy'" (p. 76). The quoted phrases within the quotation are from the Nicomachean Ethics, Book II, 4; Book I, 7. The misattribution is from taking Durant's summation of Aristotle's ideas as being the words of Aristotle himself.
“They can because they think they can.”
Possunt, quia posse videntur.
Source: Aeneid (29–19 BC), Book V, Line 231 (tr. John Conington)
“A man's mind stretched to a new idea never goes back to its original dimensions.”
Also reported as "One's mind" instead of "A man's mind", and "can never go back" or "never regains" instead of "never goes back"; most likely properly attributed to Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
Misattributed
“You just can’t beat the person who never gives up”
In "Bat It Outǃ" https://books.google.com/books?id=IEEEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA14&lpg=PA14&dq=%22you+just+can%27t+beat+the+person+who+never+gives+up%22+rotarian&source=bl&ots=AH8Z2KbO5c&sig=jxgpb2trmAXRSvZi1xmAmDc3e68&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjuo4XD6Z7dAhURZd8KHfOkBokQ6AEwB3oECAcQAQ#v=onepage&q=%22you%20just%20can't%20beat%20the%20person%20who%20never%20gives%20up%22%20rotarian&f=false by George Herman ('Babe') Ruth, in The Rotarian (July 14, 1940), pp. 12-14
Context: One more point: A good player never stops until he's actually out, running as hard for first base on the almost-certain-to-be-caught fly or grounder as he would if he were sprinting the 100-yard dash. If Henry Ford hadn't kept going in the early days despite ridicule, we would never have seen the Ford car. It's been much the same with almost every great man you could name. He kept plugging when everybody said his chances of making first base were nil. You just can’t beat the person who never gives up.
