Recommended quotes | Quotes of famous people

“The world's big and I want to have a good look at it before it gets dark.”

John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American naturalist and author

attributed to Muir by Linnie Marsh Wolfe, Son of the Wilderness: The Life of John Muir (1945), page 331
1910s

World

“And into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul.”

John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American naturalist and author

Once again, this is far from Muir's style of writing. The quote does not come up in any search of John Muir's Journals or his published texts on the John Muir Exhibit website. It is most commonly put on t-shirts - never in any scholarly source.
Misattributed

Soul

“No man knows what he can do until he tries.”

Carter G. Woodson book The Mis-Education of the Negro

Source: The Mis-Education of the Negro

“There are two sides to every story and the truth usually lies somewhere in the middle.”

Paul J. Alessi (1968) Actor / Producer

Source: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/10696117836382928/

Truth

“Communication is an essential factor in any type of relationship; friend, romantic, or business.”

Paul J. Alessi (1968) Actor / Producer

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/communication-is-an-essential-factor-in-any-type-of-relationship-friend-romantic-or-business-paul-j-alessi-q--10696117851703955/?mt=login
Source: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1568493/bio?ref_=nm_dyk_qt_sm#quotes

Business , Communication

“But when I know that the glass is already broken, every minute with it is precious.”

Ajahn Chah (1918–1992) thai Buddhist monk

“I'm not perfect. But I'll always be real.”

Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor

Perfection

“I call on you not to hate, because hate does not leave space for a person to be fair and it makes you blind and closes all doors of thinking.”

Saddam Hussein (1937–2006) Iraqi politician and President

Saddam Hussein Farewell Letter http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16368242/ (MSNBC online)
Statement in a farewell letter written to the Iraqi people, written Nov. 5, 2006, released Dec. 27, 2006.

Hate , Thinking , Personality

“You know that my ancestors were the most christian emperors of the great nation of Germany, the catholic kings of Spain, the archdukes of Austria, and the dukes of Burgundy, who all were, until death, faithful sons of the Roman Church...I am therefore resolved to maintain everything which these my forebears have established to the present…and to settle this matter I will use all my dominions and possessions, my friends, my body, my blood, my life, and my soul. It would be a disgrace for you and me, the illustrious and renowned nation of Germany, privileged and pre-eminent as protector and defender of the Catholic faith, if heresy, or even just the suspicion of heresy, and the degradation of the Christian religion were to return to the hearts of men in our time to our perpetual dishonour.”

Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor (1500–1558) Holy Roman Emperor

Diet of Worms (1521)
Source: *Detlef Ploese and Guenther Vogler, eds., Buch der Reformation. Eine Auswahl zeitgenössischer Zeugnisse (1476-1555). Berlin: Union Verlag, 1989, pp. 245-53

Soul , Life , Death , Men

“Tell me where it hurts, she'd say. Stop howling. Just calm down and show me where.

But some people can't tell where it hurts. They can't calm down. They can't ever stop howling.”

Margaret Atwood (1939) Canadian writer

People , Hurt

“[When he saw animals being conveyed to his kitchen] Poor little innocent creatures, if you were reasoning beings and could speak, how you would curse us! For we are the cause of your death, and what have you done to deserve it?”

Richard of Chichester (1197–1253) Bishop of Chichester, Saint

Quoted in Alban Butler, Lives of the Saints, vol. II: April, May, June, Burns & Oates, 1956, p. 24.

Death , Animals

“Faith exalts the human heart, by removing it from the market-place, making it sacred and unexchangeable. Under the jurisdiction of religion our deeper feelings are sacralized, so as to become raw material for the ethical life: the life lived in judgement.”

Roger Scruton (1944–2020) English philosopher

"Avant-garde and Kitsch" (p. 91)
Modern Culture (2000)

Life , Faith , Religion , Feeling

“The first effect of modernism was to make high culture difficult: to surround beauty with a wall of erudition.”

Roger Scruton (1944–2020) English philosopher

"Avant-garde and Kitsch" (p. 85)
Modern Culture (2000)

Beauty

“The first condition of understanding a foreign country is to smell it.”

Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) English short-story writer, poet, and novelist

Understanding , Country

“All the darkness in the world cannot extinguish the light of a single candle.”

Francis of Assisi (1182–1226) Catholic saint and founder of the Franciscan Order

World , Light

“A lot of times people look at the negative side of what they feel they can't do. I always look on the positive side of what I can do.”

Chuck Norris (1940) American martial artist and actor

Time , People , Feeling

“The best way to avoid responsibility is to say, "I've got responsibilities."”

Richard Bach (1936) American spiritual writer

Illusions : The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah (1977)
Source: Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah

Way

“Sanity and happiness are an impossible combination.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Happy , Cute , Happiness

“It's not the size of the dog in the fight; it's the size of the fight in the dog.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Anonymous American proverb; since 1998 this has often been attributed to Mark Twain on the internet, but no contemporary evidence of him ever using it has been located.
Variants:
It is not the size of the dog in the fight that counts, but the fight in the dog that matters.
"Stub Ends of Thoughts" by Arthur G. Lewis, a collection of sayings, in Book of the Royal Blue Vol. 14, No. 7 (April 1911), cited as the earliest known occurrence in The Dictionary of Modern Proverbs, edited by Charles Clay Doyle, Wolfgang Mieder, and Fred R. Shapiro, p. 232
It is not the size of the dog in the fight that counts, but the fight in the dog that wins.
Anonymous quote in the evening edition of the East Oregonian (20 April 1911)
What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight — it's the size of the fight in the dog.
Dwight D. Eisenhower, declaring his particular variant on the proverbial assertion in Remarks at Republican National Committee Breakfast (31 January 1958) http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=11229
Misattributed

Courageous , Attitude , Dogs , Fight

“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Not by Twain, but from Edward Abbey's A Voice Crying In The Wilderness (1989).
Misattributed

Depressing , Heart Touching , Life , Death