Quotes about the world
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“My desire to live is as intense as ever, and though my heart is broken, hearts are made to be broken: that is why God sends sorrow into the world.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

Source: The Complete Letters of Oscar Wilde

God, Heart

“The swan who goes on living in its parents' tree will die; this is why those who are beautiful and talented bear the burden of finding their own way in the world.”

Arthur Golden (1956) American novelist

Beauty, Way, Parent, Tree

“Which side of the blade is sharper? The lie or the truth? It all seems irrelevant when your jugular is sliced open and you’re lying in a pool of blood for the whole world to see.”

Nikki Sixx (1958) American musician

Truth, Lie, Lying

“Veil after veil of thin dusky gauze is lifted, and by degrees the forms and colours of things are restored to them, and we watch the dawn remaking the world in its antique pattern.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

“Better keep yourself clean and bright; you are the window through which you must see the world.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

“… no-one is finally dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away… The span of someone's life, they say, is only the core of their actual existence.”

Terry Pratchett book Reaper Man

Source: Reaper Man

Life, Dead

“Writing, the art of communicating thoughts to the mind through the eye, is the great invention of the world… enabling us to converse with the dead, the absent, and the unborn, at all distances of time and space.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

Source: Speeches And Letters Of Abraham Lincoln, 1832 1865

Art, Communication, Time, Dead

“My mission in life is to make everybody as uneasy as possible. I think we should all be as uneasy as possible, because that's what the world is like.”

Edward Gorey (1925–2000) American writer, artist, and illustrator

Source: Ascending Peculiarity: Edward Gorey on Edward Gorey

Life, Thinking

“The world is my world: this is manifest in the fact that the limits of language (of that language which alone I understand) mean the limits of my world.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) Austrian-British philosopher

1920s, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1922)
Context: This remark provides the key to the problem, how much truth there is in solipsism. For what the solipsist means is quite correct; only it cannot be said, but makes itself manifest. The world is my world: this is manifest in the fact that the limits of language (of that language which alone I understand) mean the limits of my world. (5.62)

Understanding

“The more you think about it, the more amazing the everyday world of human beings becomes: most of it doesn't actually exist at all.”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

Thinking

“It seemed unthinkable for me to leave the world forever before I had produced all that I felt called upon to produce”

Ludwig Van Beethoven (1770–1827) German Romantic composer

“All through your life your soul takes care of you… your soul is alive and awakened, gathering, sheltering and guiding your ways and days in the world. In effect, your soul is your secret shelter.”

John O'Donohue (1956–2008) Irish writer, priest and philosopher

Source: Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom

Life, Secret, Way, Soul

“It is in the brain, and the brain only, that the great sins of the world take place”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

“I say quite deliberately that the Christian religion, as organized in its churches, has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

"The Emotional Factor"Religion is based, I think, primarily and mainly upon fear.
Often paraphrased as "The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world."
1920s, Why I Am Not a Christian (1927)
Context: You find as you look around the world that every single bit of progress of humane feeling, every improvement in the criminal law, every step toward the diminution of war, every step toward better treatment of the colored races, or even mitigation of slavery, every moral progress that there has been in the world, has been consistently opposed by the organized churches of the world. I say quite deliberately that the Christian religion, as organized in its churches, has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world.

Religion

“Poetry is a way of looking at the world for the first time.”

W.S. Merwin (1927–2019) American poet

Way, Time

“You deserve the best, the very best, because you are one of the few people in this lousy world who are honest to themselves, and that is the only thing that really counts.”

Frida Kahlo (1907–1954) Mexican painter

People

“I USHERED SOULS INTO THE NEXT WORLD. I WAS THE GRAVE OF ALL HOPE. I WAS THE ULTIMATE REALITY. I WAS THE ASSASSIN AGAINST WHOM NO LOCK WOULD HOLD.
"Yes, point taken, but do you have any particular skills?”

Terry Pratchett book Mort

Source: Mort

Hope, Soul, Reality

“He smiled understandingly-much more than understandingly. It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced--or seemed to face--the whole eternal world for an instant, and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just as far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself, and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby

Source: The Great Gatsby

Life, Smile, Hope, Time

“The most frightening thing in the world is to discover the abnormal in that which is closest to us.”

Kóbó Abe (1924–1993) Japanese writer, playwright, photographer and inventor

“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

Fiction, The Call of Cthulhu (1926)
Context: The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.

Thinking

“The world is not respectable; it is mortal, tormented, confused, deluded forever; but it is shot through with beauty, with love, with glints of courage and laughter; and in these, the spirit blooms timidly, and struggles to the light amid the thorns.”

George Santayana (1863–1952) 20th-century Spanish-American philosopher associated with Pragmatism

Love, Beauty, Courage, Laughter

“There's real poetry in the real world. Science is the poetry of reality”

Richard Dawkins (1941) English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author

The Enemies of Reason, "Slaves to Superstition" [1.01], 13 August 2007, timecode 00:38:16ff
The Enemies of Reason (August 2007)
Variant: Science is the poetry of reality.
Context: The word 'mundane' has come to mean boring and dull, and it really shouldn't. It should mean the opposite because it comes from the latin 'mundus', meaning the world, and the world is anything but dull; the world is wonderful. There's real poetry in the real world. Science is the poetry of reality.

Reality, Science

“However much we are affected by the things of the world, however deeply they may stir and stimulate us, they become human for us only when we can discuss them with our fellows. Whatever cannot become the object of discourse - the truly sublime, the truly horrible or the uncanny - may find human voice through which to sound into the world, but it is not exactly human. We humanize what is going on in the world and in ourselves only by speaking of it, and in the course of speaking of it we learn to be human.”

Hannah Arendt book Men in Dark Times

Source: Men in Dark Times

Learning

“Let me tell you what I think of bicycling. I think it has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world. I stand and rejoice every time I see a woman ride by on a wheel.”

Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906) American women's rights activist

Women, Thinking, Time

“To see evil and call it good, mocks God. Worse, it makes goodness meaningless. A word without meaning is an abomination, for when the word passes beyond understanding the very thing the word stands for passes out of the world and cannot be recalled.”

Stephen R. Lawhead book Arthur

Source: Arthur

God, Understanding, Evil

“Confusion is a good state to be in. It means you are looking, constantly looking. People ask me, "Why do you confuse us like this?" I want you to understand, if you can be confused by anybody, it means you do not know. If you are fanatical, you cannot be confused. Or if you are realized, you cannot be confused. Between ignorance and enlightenment is a very thin line. But they are worlds apart.”

Sadhguru (1957) Yogi, mystic, visionary and humanitarian

Source: Of Mystics & Mistakes

People, Understanding

“I grew, a happy, healthy child in a bright world of illustrated books, clean sand, orange trees, friendly dogs, sea vistas and smiling faces.”

Vladimir Nabokov book Lolita

Source: Lolita

Happiness, Books, Smile, Dogs

“When someone leaves you once, you expect it to happen again. Eventually you stop getting close enough to people to let them become important to you, because then you don't notice when they drop out of your world.”

Jodi Picoult (1966) Author

Source: Leaving Time

People

“Wherever you turn, you can find someone who needs you. Even if it is a little thing, do something for which there is no pay but the privilege of doing it. Remember, you don't live in a world all of your own.”

Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) French-German physician, theologian, musician and philosopher

“The love of a single heart can make a world of difference.”

Immaculée Ilibagiza (1972) Rwandan writer

Source: Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust

Love, Heart

“The burden of this world is too great for one man to bear, and the world’s sorrow too heavy for one heart to suffer.”

Oscar Wilde book A House of Pomegranates

Source: A House of Pomegranates

Suffering, Heart

“It has been said that the great events of the world take place in the brain. It is in the brain, and the brain only, that the great sins of the world take place also.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

“THAT’S MORTALS FOR YOU, Death continued. THEY’VE ONLY GOT A FEW YEARS IN THIS WORLD AND THEY SPEND THEM ALL IN MAKING THINGS COMPLICATED FOR THEMSELVES. FASCINATING.”

Terry Pratchett book Mort

Source: Mort

Death

“It is not difference that dominates the world, but the obliteration of difference by mimetic reciprocity, which itself, being truly universal, shows the relativism of perpetual difference to be an illusion.”

René Girard (1923–2015) French historian, literary critic, and philosopher of social science

Source: The One by Whom Scandal Comes

Universe

“Things are messed up in the world, that’s all.”

E. Lockhart book We Were Liars

Source: We Were Liars

“The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it — and the glow from that fire can truly light the world.
And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.
My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

"In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility — I welcome it." is one of seven quotes inscribed on the walls at the gravesite of John F. Kennedy at Arlington National Cemetery.
"The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it — and the glow from that fire can truly light the world." is one of seven quotes inscribed on the walls at the gravesite of John F. Kennedy at Arlington National Cemetery.
"And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man." is one of seven quotes inscribed on the walls at the gravesite of John F. Kennedy at Arlington National Cemetery.
It has been reported at various places on the internet that in JFK's Inaugural address, the famous line "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country", was inspired by, or even a direct quotation of the famous and much esteemed writer and poet Khalil Gibran. Gibran in 1925 wrote in Arabic a line that has been translated as:
::Are you a politician asking what your country can do for you or a zealous one asking what you can do for your country?
::If you are the first, then you are a parasite; if the second, then you are an oasis in a desert.
However, this translation of Gibran is one that occurred over a decade after Kennedy's 1961 speech, appearing in A Third Treasury of Kahlil Gibran (1975) edited by Andrew Dib Sherfan, and the translator most likely drew upon Kennedy's famous words in expressing Gibran's prior ideas. For a further discussion regarding the quote see here.
1961, Inaugural Address
Context: In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility — I welcome it. I do not believe that any of us would exchange places with any other people or any other generation. The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it — and the glow from that fire can truly light the world.
And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.
My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.

Faith, Freedom, Light, Country

“You just wait. I'm going to be the biggest Chinese Star in the world.”

Bruce Lee (1940–1973) Hong Kong-American actor, martial artist, philosopher and filmmaker

Star, Waiting

“You can be betrayed in your sleep. The whole world can tilt while you're dreaming of butterflies.”

Alice Hoffman book The Ice Queen

Source: The Ice Queen

Dreams, Sleep

“Representation of the world, like the world itself, is the work of men; they describe it from their own point of view, which they confuse with absolute truth.”

Simone de Beauvoir book The Second Sex

Source: The Second Sex

Men, Truth

“Happiness depends more upon the internal frame of a person’s own mind, than on the externals in the world.”

George Washington (1732–1799) first President of the United States

Happiness, Dependency, Personality

“I do not exist to impress the world. I exist to live my life in a way that will make me happy.”

Richard Bach (1936) American spiritual writer

Source: Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah

Life, Happiness, Way

“I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved.”

Viktor E. Frankl book Man's Search for Meaning

Source: Man's Search for Meaning

“Honest, open communication is the only street that leads us into the real world… We then begin to grow as never before. And once we are on this road, happiness cannot be far away.”

John Powell (1645–1713) American Jesuit priest

Source: Will the Real Me Please Stand Up?: 25 Guidelines for Good Communication

Happiness, Communication

“I must be lean & write & make worlds beside this to live in.”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

“The wreckage of stars - I built a world from this wreckage.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

Source: Dithyrambs of Dionysus

Star

“Like many isolated people, they were wrapped up in themselves and not too interested in the world outside.”

V.S. Naipaul A Bend in the River

Source: A Bend in the River

People

“Don't think about making women fit the world -- think about making the world fit women.”

Gloria Steinem (1934) American feminist and journalist

Women, Thinking

“It was awkward, revisiting a world you have never seen before: like coming home, after a long journey, to someone else’s house.”

Umberto Eco book The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana

Source: The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana

Home, Housing

“the world is not a pleasant place to be without someone to hold and be held by.”

Nikki Giovanni (1943) American writer and academic

“The proletarians have nothing to loose but their chains. They have a world to win.”

Karl Marx book The Communist Manifesto

Section 4, paragraph 11 (last paragraph)
Variant translation: Workers of the world, unite!
The Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848)
Variant: The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.
WORKING MEN OF ALL COUNTRIES, UNITE!
Source: The Communist Manifesto
Context: The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.
WORKING MEN OF ALL COUNTRIES, UNITE!

“Action is movement with intelligence. The world is filled with movement. What the world needs is more conscious movement, more action.”

B.K.S. Iyengar (1918–2014) Indian yoga teacher and scholar

Source: Light on Life

Intelligence

“There is a world elsewhere.”

William Shakespeare Coriolanus

Source: Coriolanus

“The greatest miracle that God can do today is to take an unholy man out of an unholy world and make him holy, then put him back into that unholy world and keep him holy in it.”

Leonard Ravenhill (1907–1994) British writer

God

“It's only through sheer force and luck that she's yet to take over the world.”

Julia Quinn (1970) American novelist

Source: Romancing Mister Bridgerton: The Epilogue II

“Because it proves that you don't need much to change the entire world for the better. You can start with the most ordinary ingredients. You can start with the world you've got.”

Catherine Ryan Hyde (1955) American writer

Source: Pay It Forward

Change

“At one and the same time, therefore, society is everything and society is nothing. Society is the most powerful concoction in the world and society has no existence whatsoever”

Virginia Woolf book Orlando: A Biography

Source: Orlando

Time

“Audrey gave more than she ever got. The whole world is going to miss her.”

Steven Spielberg (1946) American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur

“The world is the closed door. It is a barrier. And at the same time it is the way through.

Two prisoners whose cells adjoin communicate with each other by knocking on the wall. The wall is the thing which separates them but it is also their means of communication. … Every separation is a link.”

Simone Weil book Gravity and Grace

Source: Gravity and Grace

Way, Communication, Time

“Sleep is the most moronic fraternity in the world, with the heaviest dues and the crudest rituals. It is a mental torture I find debasing… I simply cannot get used to the nightly betrayal of reason, humanity, genius.”

Vladimir Nabokov book Speak, Memory

Source: Speak, Memory

Sleep, Betrayal

“Then the world will be for the common people, and the sounds of happiness will reach the deepest springs. Ah! Come! People of every land, how can you not be roused.”

Karl Marx book The Communist Manifesto

Source: The Communist Manifesto

Happiness, People, Spring

“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of the infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far.”

H.P. Lovecraft book The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories

Source: The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories

Thinking, Sea

“I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.”

Sylvia Plath book The Bell Jar

"Mad Girl's Love Song" http://www.angelfire.com/tn/plath/madgirl.html (1953) from Collected Poems (1981) <br class="br">Variant: I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead; I lift my eyes and all is born again. <br class="br">Source: The Bell Jar

Dead