“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”
Oscar Wilde book The Soul of Man under Socialism
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.
“It is not heroes that make history, but history that makes heroes.”
Joseph Stalin (1879–1953) General secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
“One man with a gun can control 100 without one.”
Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution
Not found in Lenin's Collected Works. Began to surface on the internet in the mid-1990s.
Misattributed
Variant: One man with a gun can control a hundred without one.
“If the path before you is clear, you’re probably on someone else’s.”
C.G. Jung (1875–1961) Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology
“If slaughterhouses had glass walls, we would all be vegetarian.”
Paul McCartney (1942) English singer-songwriter and composer
Variant: If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be a vegetarian.
“Those who have a 'why' to live, can bear with almost any 'how'.”
Viktor E. Frankl book Man's Search for Meaning
Source: Quoted in Man's Search for Meaning and attributed to Friedrich Nietzsche.
“I feel safe in the midst of my enemies, for the truth is all powerful and will prevail.”
Sojourner Truth (1797–1883) African-American abolitionist and women's rights activist
“So, I love you because the entire universe conspired to help me find you.”
Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist
Source: The Alchemist
“It is not the length of life, but the depth.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet
Ram Dass (1931–2019) American contemporary spiritual teacher and the author of the 1971 book Be Here Now
“No spring, nor summer beauty hath such grace,
As I have seen in one autumnal face.”
John Donne (1572–1631) English poet
No. 9, The Autumnal, line 1
Elegies
Source: The Complete Poetry and Selected Prose
“Life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it.”
John C. Maxwell (1947) American author, speaker and pastor
Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) American writer
Sometimes credited to Jack Kerouac, from his book The Dharma Bums. It is not a quote by Kerouac. It first appeared as a very brief description of The Dharma Bums in Esquire's list of "The 80 Best Books Every Man Should Read" in 2010: http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/books/g96/80-books/?slide=71. It was later copied by Kilburn Hall in his list of 30 "Books and Authors Every Man Should Read" which he first posted online in 2012: https://kilburnhall.wordpress.com/2012/03/17/the-books-and-authors-every-man-should-read/
Misattributed
“Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.”
John Dewey (1859–1952) American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer
This is a paraphrase of an idea that Dewey expressed using other words in My Pedagogic Creed (1897) and Democracy and Education (1916); it is widely misattributed to Dewey as a quotation.
Cf. James William Norman, A Comparison of Tendencies in Secondary Education in England and the United States (New York: Teachers College, Columbia University, 1922), [//books.google.com/books?id=qrmgAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA140 p. 140] (emphasis added): "...there has for years been a strong and growing tendency in the United States under the leadership of Dewey, and more recently of Kilpatrick, to find an educational method correlative of democracy in society with the belief that education is life itself rather than a mere preparation for life, and that practice in democratic living is the best preparation for democracy."
Misattributed
Variant: Education is a social process; education is growth; education is not preparation for life but is life itself.
Marilyn vos Savant (1946) US American magazine columnist, author and lecturer
