Quotes about the world

A collection of quotes on the topic of travel, wisdom, war, hunger.

Best quotes about the world

Claude Monet photo
Patrice Lumumba photo

“No one is perfect in this imperfect world.”

Patrice Lumumba (1925–1961) Congolese Prime Minister, cold war leader, executed

Congo, My Country

Dmitri Mendeleev photo
Billy Graham photo
Oscar Wilde photo

“We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

Source: The Duchess of Padua

Jim Carrey photo

“Communication, hardest thing in the world.”

Jim Carrey (1962) Canadian-American actor, comedian, and producer

Jim Carrey's Unnatural Act (1991)
Context: Communication, hardest thing in the world. Y'know, I can look at you guys, I can communicate to you all night, but, one-on-one, I'm terrible. It's just, there's certain things about communicating that really bother me. Like whenever I meet somebody new I say, "Hi! How are you!" Most of the time when people hear that they'll say, "Good! And yourself?", or "Fine! Thank you very much!" But sometimes they like to surprise you, "I've got no dream, man! I'm all dead inside!"

Friedrich Dürrenmatt photo
Jean Cocteau photo

“Be yourself. The world worships the original.”

Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, boxing manager and filmmaker
Martin Luther photo

“If you want to change the world, pick up your pen and write.”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

Quotes about the world

José Baroja photo
José Baroja photo
José Baroja photo

“In the end, finding the Truth will always be tiring in a world full of appearances.”

José Baroja (1983) Chilean author and editor

Source: Klairet Levy, R. Interview to José Baroja. http://letras.mysite.com/jbar050923.html

José Baroja photo
José Baroja photo

“The person on foot realizes that there is no misery in cities like Madrid or Barcelona, ​​first world cities that, I think, have lost the heart that Latin Americans still have.”

José Baroja (1983) Chilean author and editor

Source: https://www.peruinforma.com/entrevista-cultural-al-escritor-chileno-jose-baroja/

José Baroja photo

“I believe that academics do not flow naturally with this world, since, many times, the Academy, from those all-knowing egos, which are not lacking, turns the literary into a mere object lacking spirit.”

José Baroja (1983) Chilean author and editor

Source: Fuente: https://portal.ucm.cl/noticias/academico-la-ucm-presento-segunda-antologia-hijo-perra-otros-cuentos

Bob Marley photo

“Only once in your life, I truly believe, you find someone who can completely turn your world around. You tell them things that you’ve never shared with another soul and they absorb everything you say and actually want to hear more. You share hopes for the future, dreams that will never come true, goals that were never achieved and the many disappointments life has thrown at you. When something wonderful happens, you can’t wait to tell them about it, knowing they will share in your excitement. They are not embarrassed to cry with you when you are hurting or laugh with you when you make a fool of yourself. Never do they hurt your feelings or make you feel like you are not good enough, but rather they build you up and show you the things about yourself that make you special and even beautiful. There is never any pressure, jealousy or competition but only a quiet calmness when they are around. You can be yourself and not worry about what they will think of you because they love you for who you are. The things that seem insignificant to most people such as a note, song or walk become invaluable treasures kept safe in your heart to cherish forever. Memories of your childhood come back and are so clear and vivid it’s like being young again. Colours seem brighter and more brilliant. Laughter seems part of daily life where before it was infrequent or didn’t exist at all. A phone call or two during the day helps to get you through a long day’s work and always brings a smile to your face. In their presence, there’s no need for continuous conversation, but you find you’re quite content in just having them nearby. Things that never interested you before become fascinating because you know they are important to this person who is so special to you. You think of this person on every occasion and in everything you do. Simple things bring them to mind like a pale blue sky, gentle wind or even a storm cloud on the horizon. You open your heart knowing that there’s a chance it may be broken one day and in opening your heart, you experience a love and joy that you never dreamed possible. You find that being vulnerable is the only way to allow your heart to feel true pleasure that’s so real it scares you. You find strength in knowing you have a true friend and possibly a soul mate who will remain loyal to the end. Life seems completely different, exciting and worthwhile. Your only hope and security is in knowing that they are a part of your life.”

Bob Marley (1945–1981) Jamaican singer, songwriter, musician

“I strongly believe that, as a citizen of the world, any person has the right to learn”

Sukavich Rangsitpol (1935) Thai politician

Education for All People and Education for Life

Marilyn Monroe photo
Yuzuru Hanyu photo

“Well, I’m being portrayed as the challenger, but I’m always chasing after other skaters’ strengths, and I’m always seeking to challenge other skaters. So, I always see myself as a challenger, and nothing really has changed between this season’s World Championships and last season’s.”

Yuzuru Hanyu (1994) Japanese figure skater (1994-)

Annotation: Hanyu's being asked what difference it makes for him to go into the 2020 World Championships as a challenger after being the considered favorite for the title in recent years.
CBC interview with Scott Russell
Original: (ja) えっと、まあ、チャレンジャーっていうことを言われますけど、でもいつも他のスケーターの良いところを追いかけてるし、他のスケーターに対してチャレンジしたいなって思ってるし、だからいつも自分はチャレンジャーだと思っていて、だから今シーズンの世界選手権でも先シーズンの世界選手権でも何も変わらないかなって思います。

Hatake Kakashi photo
Tom Hiddleston photo
Marek Żukow-Karczewski photo

“Sensitiveness to beauty of the world continues, and efforts to preserve it were also made in the past.”

Marek Żukow-Karczewski (1961) Polish historian, journalist and opinion journalist

Enchanted by beauty (three forgotten relations), "Aura" 1, 1998-01, p. 17-19. http://yadda.icm.edu.pl/yadda/element/bwmeta1.element.agro-article-d2f0773c-592e-4250-8f73-558234a9140e?q=3c417fdf-4051-4e84-83b2-9eb4fc33b1e0$1&qt=IN_PAGE

John Lennon photo
Charles Bukowski photo

“The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts while the stupid one are full of confidence.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Variant: The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence.

Robert Baden-Powell photo

“If you have ever seen the play Peter Pan you will remember how the pirate chief was always making his dying speech because he was afraid that possibly when the time came for him to die he might not have time to get it off his chest. It is much the same with me, and so, although I am not at this moment dying, I shall be doing so one of these days and I want to send you a parting word of goodbye.

Remember, it is the last you will ever hear from me, so think it over.

I have had a most happy life and I want each one of you to have as happy a life too.

I believe that God put us in this jolly world to be happy and enjoy life. Happiness doesn't come from being rich, nor merely from being successful in your career, nor by self-indulgence. One step towards happiness is to make yourself healthy and strong while you are a boy, so that you can be useful and so can enjoy life when you are a man.

Nature study will show you how full of beautiful and wonderful things God has made the world for you to enjoy. Be contented with what you have got and make the best of it. Look on the bright side of things instead of the gloomy one.

But the real way to get happiness is by giving out happiness to other people. Try and leave this world a little better than you found it and when your turn come to die, you can die happy in feeling that at any rate you have not wasted your time but have done your best. "Be Prepared" in this way, to live happy and to die happy - stick to your Scout promise always - even after you have ceased to be a boy - and God help you do it.”

Robert Baden-Powell (1857–1941) lieutenant-general in the British Army, writer, founder and Chief Scout of the Scout Movement
Lionel Messi photo
Tupac Shakur photo
Hatake Kakashi photo
Cornelius Keagon photo
Cornelius Keagon photo
Rick Riordan photo
Jane Goodall photo
Corrie ten Boom photo
Eduardo Galeano photo
Harry Styles photo

“How can you say young girls don't get it? They're our future. Our future doctors, lawyers, mothers, presidents, they kind of keep the world going.”

Harry Styles (1994) English singer, songwriter, and actor

Interview by Cameron Crowe in Rolling Stone (18 April 2017) http://www.rollingstone.com/music/features/harry-styles-opens-up-about-famous-flings-honest-new-lp-w476928
Context: Who's to say that young girls who like pop music – short for popular, right? – have worse musical taste than a 30-year-old hipster guy? That's not up to you to say. Music is something that's always changing. There's no goal posts. Young girls like the Beatles. You gonna tell me they're not serious? How can you say young girls don't get it? They're our future. Our future doctors, lawyers, mothers, presidents, they kind of keep the world going. Teenage-girl fans – they don't lie. If they like you, they're there. They don't act 'too cool.' They like you, and they tell you. Which is sick.

Robert Baden-Powell photo

“Leave this world a little better than you found it.”

Robert Baden-Powell (1857–1941) lieutenant-general in the British Army, writer, founder and Chief Scout of the Scout Movement

Baden-Powell's Last Message (1941)

Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Rosa Parks photo
Adolf Hitler photo
Mehmed II photo
Francis of Assisi photo
Jane Goodall photo
Adolf Hitler photo

“Those who want to live, let them fight, and those who do not want to fight in this world of eternal struggle do not deserve to live.”

Variant: He who would live must fight. He who doesn't wish to fight in this world, where permanent struggle is the law of life, has not the right to exist.
Source: Mein Kampf

Janusz Korczak photo
Marilyn Manson photo
Dolly Parton photo

“Its hard to be a diamond in a rhinestone world.”

Dolly Parton (1946) American singer-songwriter and actress
Freddie Mercury photo
Edward Bouchet photo
Harry Styles photo
Hildegard of Bingen photo
Carl Sagan photo

“Consider again that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar", every "supreme leader", every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there — on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.
It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.”

Source: Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space (1994), p. 8, Supplemental image at randi.org http://www.randi.org/images/122801-BlueDot.jpg

Bill Gates photo
Tupac Shakur photo

“I'm not saying I'm gonna change the world, but I guarantee that I will spark the brain that will change the world.”

Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor

Posthumous attributions, Tupac: Resurrection (2003)

Freddie Mercury photo

“You can have everything in the world and still be the loneliest man. And that is the most bitter type of loneliness, success has brought me world idolisation and millions of pounds. But it's prevented me from having the one thing we all need: A loving, ongoing relationship.”

Freddie Mercury (1946–1991) British singer, songwriter and record producer

As quoted in "Rock On Freddie" (1985) http://www.queenarchives.com/index.php?title=Freddie_Mercury_-_XX-XX-1985_-_Unknown.

Otto von Bismarck photo

“I am firmly convinced that Spain is the strongest country of the world. Century after century trying to destroy herself and still no success”

Otto von Bismarck (1815–1898) German statesman, Chancellor of Germany

A Spanish politician in a political meeting said it for the first time and attributed to Bismarck https://es.wikiquote.org/wiki/Discusi%C3%B3n:Otto_von_Bismarck
Misattributed

Malala Yousafzai photo
Matka Tereza photo
Oscar Wilde photo

“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”

The Soul of Man Under Socialism (1891)
Context: With the abolition of private property, then, we shall have true, beautiful, healthy Individualism. Nobody will waste his life in accumulating things, and the symbols for things. One will live. To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.

Bruce Lee photo
Osamu Dazai photo
Tupac Shakur photo
Osamu Dazai photo
Jane Goodall photo
Malala Yousafzai photo

“One child, one teacher, one book and one pen can change the world.”

Malala Yousafzai (1997) Pakistani children's education activist

UN speech, June 2013
Context: So let us wage a glorious struggle against illiteracy, poverty and terrorism, let us pick up our books and our pens, they are the most powerful weapons. One child, one teacher, one book and one pen can change the world. Education is the only solution.

Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Karl May photo
Adolf Hitler photo

“While the Zionists try to make the rest of the World believe that the national consciousness of the Jew finds its satisfaction in the creation of a Palestinian state, the Jews again slyly dupe the dumb Goyim. It doesn't even enter their heads to build up a Jewish state in Palestine for the purpose of living there; all they want is a central organisation for their international world swindler, endowed with its own sovereign rights and removed from the intervention of other states: a haven for convicted scoundrels and a university for budding crooks.
It is a sign of their rising confidence and sense of security that at a time when one section is still playing the German, French-man, or Englishman, the other with open effrontery comes out as the Jewish race.”

1920s, Zweites Buch (1928)
Source: Mein Kampf
Context: Jewry is a Folk with a racial core that is not wholly unitary. Nevertheless, as a Folk, it has special intrinsic characteristics which separate it from all other Folks living on the globe. Jewry is not a religious community, but the religious bond between Jews; rather is in reality the momentary governmental system of the Jewish Folk. The Jew has never had a territorially bounded State of his own in the manner of Aryan States. Nevertheless, his religious community is a real State, since it guarantees the preservation, the increase and the future of the Jewish Folk. But this is solely the task of the State. That the Jewish State is subject to no territorial limitation, as is the case with Aryan States, is connected with the character of the Jewish Folk, which is lacking in the productive forces for the construction and preservation of its own territorial State.

Jawaharlal Nehru photo

“We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm and adventure. There is no end to the adventures that we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open.”

Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964) Indian lawyer, statesman, and writer, first Prime Minister of India

As quoted in Building A Life Of Value : Timeless Wisdom to Inspire and Empower Us (2005) by Jason A. Merchey, p. 74

Fernando Pessoa photo

“The feelings that hurt most, the emotions that sting most, are those that are absurd: the longing for impossible things, precisely because they are impossible; nostalgia for what never was; the desire for what could have been; regret over not being someone else; dissatisfaction with the world's existence. All these half-tones of the soul's consciousness create a raw landscape within us, a sun eternally setting on what we are.”

Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935) Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic, translator, publisher and philosopher

Os sentimentos que mais doem, as emoções que mais pungem, são os que são absurdos – a ânsia de coisas impossíveis, precisamente porque são impossíveis, a saudade do que nunca houve, o desejo do que poderia ter sido, a mágoa de não ser outro, a insatisfação da existência do mundo. Todos estes meios tons da consciencia da alma criam em nós uma paisagem dolorida, um eterno sol-pôr do que somos.
The Book of Disquietude, trans. Richard Zenith, text 196

Patti Smith photo
Marie Curie photo
Bob Marley photo

“Don't gain the world and lose your soul
Wisdom is better than silver and gold.”

Bob Marley (1945–1981) Jamaican singer, songwriter, musician

Zion Train
Uprising (1979)

Jimi Hendrix photo

“When the power of love overcomes love of power the world will know peace.”

Jimi Hendrix (1942–1970) American musician, singer and songwriter

This quote has been attributed to Hendrix on the internet, and is flatly denied to have ever been said by him, without presenting any evidence as to why, beyond such unsupported, derisive and denigrative statements such as the author rants about others making in "WHAT HENDRIX NEVER SAID : They Don't Want to Know What He Really Said and Demand a Slacker Fantasy Instead" (22 March 2010) by Michael Fairchild, at rockprophecy.com http://www.rockprophecy.com/hendrix_quotes_hoax.html. Whether or not he ever spoke them, they are very similar to those reportedly of British Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone, quoted in The Forbes Book of Business Quotations (1997) edited by Edward C. Goodman and Ted Goodman, p. 639: "We look forward to the time when the Power of Love will replace the Love of Power. Then will our world know the blessings of peace." A similar quotation he provides of Sri Chinmoy predates any currently located source of either the Hendrix or Gladstone attributions, yet he accuses Chinmoy of simple plagiarism of Gladstone (or "Gladwell" at one point). From Chinmoy's book My Heart Shall Give A Oneness-Feast (1993) he quotes: "My books, they all have only one message: the heart's Power Of Love must replace the mind's Love Of Power. If I have the Power Of Love, then I shall claim the whole World as my own … World Peace can be achieved when the Power Of Love replaces the Love Of Power." An even earlier statement of Chinmoy is found in Meditations: Food For The Soul (1970): "When the power of love replaces the love of power, man will have a new name: God."
Disputed
Variant: When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.

Leonard Cohen photo
Anne McCaffrey photo
Hunter S. Thompson photo
Janusz Korczak photo
Selena Gomez photo

“We lit the whole world up before we blew up/I still don’t know just how we screwed it up.”

Selena Gomez (1992) American singer and actress

about the relationship with Justin Bieber.

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk photo

“Peace at, Peace in the World.”

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1881–1938) Turkish army officer, revolutionary, and the first President of Turkey

Maxim which became the motto of the Republic of Turkey; quoted in many sources including, Atatürk (1963) by Uluğ İğdemir, p. 200; and Small Nations and Great Powers: A Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict in the Caucasus (2000) by Svante E. Cornell, p. 287

Joseph Goebbels photo
Meryl Streep photo

“I no longer have patience for certain things, not because I’ve become arrogant, but simply because I reached a point in my life where I do not want to waste more time with what displeases me or hurts me. I have no patience for cynicism, excessive criticism and demands of any nature. I lost the will to please those who do not like me, to love those who do not love me and to smile at those who do not want to smile at me. I no longer spend a single minute on those who lie or want to manipulate. I decided not to coexist anymore with pretense, hypocrisy, dishonesty and cheap praise. I do not tolerate selective erudition nor academic arrogance. I do not adjust either to popular gossiping. I hate conflict and comparisons. I believe in a world of opposites and that’s why I avoid people with rigid and inflexible personalities. In friendship I dislike the lack of loyalty and betrayal. I do not get along with those who do not know how to give a compliment or a word of encouragement. Exaggerations bore me and I have difficulty accepting those who do not like animals. And on top of everything I have no patience for anyone who does not deserve my patience.”

Meryl Streep (1949) American actress

Misattributed to Meryl Streep (and widely disseminated on the Internet as of August/September 2014), this quote is allegedly a translation of a text by the author José Micard Teixeira, the original of which begins (in Portuguese): "Já não tenho paciência para algumas coisas, não porque me tenha tornado arrogante..."
Misattributed

Alan Rickman photo

“Actors are agents of change. A film, a piece of theater, a piece of music, or a book can make a difference. It can change the world.”

Alan Rickman (1946–2016) English film, television and stage actor

Interview: Alan Rickman on "Nobel Son" http://www.ifc.com/2008/12/alan-rickman-on-nobel-son by Aaron Hillis, IFC.com (4 December 2008)

Zayn Malik photo

“(on "I Don't Get Down Like That" the Swedish group Play pop song) There comes a day when you realise turning the page is the best feeling in the world, because you realise there is so much more to the book than the page you were stuck on.”

Zayn Malik (1993) British singer

As himself talking about it being a yearbook, on 2017-05-10, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/music/artists/nobodys-reached-out--zayn-maliks-best-quotes/zayn-malik-in-quotes3/

Ahmad Shah Massoud photo
Nikola Tesla photo

“I am unwilling to accord to some small−minded and jealous individuals the satisfaction of having thwarted my efforts. These men are to me nothing more than microbes of a nasty disease. My project was retarded by laws of nature. The world was not prepared for it.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

About the role of J. Pierpont Morgan, and the failure of Tesla's "World System" project
My Inventions (1919)
Context: He had the highest regard for my attainments and gave me every evidence of his complete faith in my ability to ultimately achieve what I had set out to do. I am unwilling to accord to some small−minded and jealous individuals the satisfaction of having thwarted my efforts. These men are to me nothing more than microbes of a nasty disease. My project was retarded by laws of nature. The world was not prepared for it. It was too far ahead of time, but the same laws will prevail in the end and make it a triumphal success.

Kobe Bryant photo
Emma Watson photo

“How can we affect change in the world when only half of it is invited or feel welcome to participate in the conversation?”

Emma Watson (1990) British actress and model

"Emma Watson HeForShe Speech at the United Nations | UN Women 2014" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0Dg226G2Z8,
UN Speech on the HeForShe campaign (2014)

Freddie Mercury photo
Rick Riordan photo

“We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein we err, and greatly err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendor and travail of the earth.”

Henry Beston (1888–1968) American writer

Source: The Outermost House, 1928, p. 25: Ch 2
Source: The Outermost House: A Year of Life On The Great Beach of Cape Cod
Context: We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. Remote from universal nature, and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creature through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion. We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein we err, and greatly err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours they moved finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.

David Attenborough photo
Nikola Tesla photo

“What we now want is closer contact and better understanding between individuals and communities all over the earth, and the elimination of egoism and pride which is always prone to plunge the world into primeval barbarism and strife… Peace can only come as a natural consequence of universal enlightenment…”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

My Inventions (1919)
Context: While I have not lost faith in its potentialities, my views have changed since. War can not be avoided until the physical cause for its recurrence is removed and this, in the last analysis, is the vast extent of the planet on which we live. Only though annihilation of distance in every respect, as the conveyance of intelligence, transport of passengers and supplies and transmission of energy will conditions be brought about some day, insuring permanency of friendly relations. What we now want most is closer contact and better understanding between individuals and communities all over the earth and the elimination of that fanatic devotion to exalted ideals of national egoism and pride, which is always prone to plunge the world into primeval barbarism and strife. No league or parliamentary act of any kind will ever prevent such a calamity. These are only new devices for putting the weak at the mercy of the strong.

Lewis Carroll photo

“Who in the world am I? Ah, that's the great puzzle.”

Variant: But if I’m not the same, the next question is, ‘Who in the world am I?’ Ah, that’s the great puzzle!
Source: Alice in Wonderland

Marilyn Monroe photo
Arthur Conan Doyle photo
Patañjali photo