Quotes about thing
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“The truth is the kindest thing we can give folks in the end.”

Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811–1896) Abolitionist, author

The Pearl of Orr's Island : A Story of the Coast of Maine (1862).

Truth

“All men desire peace, but very few desire those things that make for peace.”

Thomas à Kempis book The Imitation of Christ

Source: The Imitation of Christ

Men, Peace

“Some old-fashioned things like fresh air and sunshine are hard to beat. In our mad rush for progress and modern improvements let's be sure we take along with us all the old-fashioned things worth while.”

Laura Ingalls Wilder (1867–1957) American children's writer, diarist, and journalist

Source: A Family Collection: Life on the Farm and in the Country, Making a Home; the Ways of the World, a Woman's Role

Fashion, Madness

“Our care of the child should be governed, not by the desire to make him learn things, but by the endeavor always to keep burning within him that light which is called intelligence.”

Maria Montessori (1870–1952) Italian pedagogue, philosopher and physician

Intelligence, Light, Learning

“What a Chimera is man! What a novelty, a monster, a chaos, a contradiction, a prodigy! Judge of all things, an imbecile worm; depository of truth, and sewer of error and doubt; the glory and refuse of the universe.”

Blaise Pascal Pensées

Source: Pensées

Truth, Error, Universe

“The older I get, the more clearly I remember things that never happened.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

“The days began to fly now, and yet each one of them was stretched by renewed expectations and swollen with silent, private experiences. Yes, time is a puzzling thing, there is something about it that is hard to explain.”

Thomas Mann book The Magic Mountain

Source: The Magic Mountain

Time, Flying

“Time crumbles things; everything grows old under the power of Time and is forgotten through the lapse of Time.”

Aristotle (-384–-321 BC) Classical Greek philosopher, student of Plato and founder of Western philosophy

Time

“Comfort can be a dangerous thing. You stick around home all the time where it’s safe and nothing ever changes, and before you know it, you get set in your ways and you quit learning, you quit changing, you don’t grow anymore.”

Frank E. Peretti book Monster

Source: Monster

Way, Home, Learning, Change

“Knowing things is magical, if other people don't know them.”

Terry Pratchett book A Hat Full of Sky

Source: A Hat Full of Sky

People

“Think of many things. Never place your happiness in one person's power. Be just to yourself.”

Vikram Seth A Suitable Boy

Source: A Suitable Boy

Happiness, Thinking, Personality

“A portrait is not a likeness. The moment an emotion or fact is transformed into a photograph it is no longer a fact but an opinion. There is no such thing as inaccuracy in a photograph. All photographs are accurate. None of them is the truth.”

Richard Avedon (1923–2004) American photographer

Truth

“I think the best evenings are when we have messages, things that make us think, but we can also laugh and enjoy each other's company.”

Jane Goodall (1934) British primatologist, ethologist, and anthropologist

Thinking

“Ach, people are always telling us not to do things" said Rob Anybody, "that's how we ken the most interesting things to do.”

Terry Pratchett book Wintersmith

Source: Wintersmith

People

“And what did I think
when I was small
and why did I forget?

And what else will I forget
when I grow older?

And if you forget
is it as if
it never happened?

Will none of the things
you saw or thought or dreamed
matter?”

Sharon Creech book Heartbeat

Source: Heartbeat

Dreams, Thinking, Forgetting

“Tomorrow is always another day to make things right.”

Lauryn Hill (1975) American singer, rapper, songwriter, record producer, actress

“Some idiotic things are well worth doing.”

Richard Ford book Independence Day

Source: Independence Day

“Sanya, Knight of the Cross: Laugh whenever you can. Keeps you from killing yourself when things are bad. That and vodka.”

Jim Butcher book Changes

Source: The Dresden Files, Changes (2010), Chapter 33

“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

World

“The effort to understand the universe is one of the very few things which lifts human life a little above the level of farce and gives it some of the grace of tragedy.”

Steven Weinberg (1933) American theoretical physicist

(1993), Epilogue, p. 155
The First Three Minutes (1977; second edition 1993)

Life, Understanding, Effort, Universe

“Happiness is in the quiet, ordinary things. A table, a chair, a book with a paper-knife stuck between the pages. And the petal falling from the rose, and the light flickering as we sit silent.”

Virginia Woolf book The Waves

Source: The Waves

Happiness, Books, Light

“Good books tell the truth, even when they're about things that never have been and never will be. They're truthful in a different way.”

Stanisław Lem (1921–2006) Polish science fiction author

"Pirx's Tale" in More Tales of Pirx The Pilot (1983)
Context: Oh, I read good books, too, but only Earthside. Why that is, I don't really know. Never stopped to analyze it. Good books tell the truth, even when they're about things that never have been and never will be. They're truthful in a different way. When they talk about outer space, they make you feel the silence, so unlike the Earthly kind — and the lifelessness. Whatever the adventures, the message is always the same: humans will never feel at home out there.

Truth, Books, Way

“Cause when a guy does something stupid once, well that’s because he’s a guy. But if he does the same stupid thing twice, that’s usually to impress some girl.”

Dr. Seuss (1904–1991) American children's writer and illustrator, co-founder of Beginner Books

Stupidity, Guy, Girl

“Whatever anybody says, the most important thing in life is to be happy.”

Orhan Pamuk book The Museum of Innocence

Source: The Museum of Innocence

Life, Happiness

“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, World

“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

World

“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.

World, Thinking

“You don't have to be a fantastic hero to do certain things — to compete. You can be just an ordinary chap, sufficiently motivated to reach challenging goals. The intense effort, the giving of everything you've got, is a very pleasant bonus.”

Edmund Hillary (1919–2008) New Zealand mountaineer

As quoted in 1000 Brilliant Achievement Quotes (2004) by David Deford, p. 4
Source: High Adventure

Motivation, Effort

“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

World, Learning

“The people who really run organizations are usually found several levels down, where it is still possible to get things done.”

Terry Pratchett book Small Gods

Source: Small Gods

People

“In each little life, we can see great truth and beauty, and in each little life we glimpse the way of all things in the universe. If we alow ourselves to be enchanted by the beauty of the ordinary, we begin to see that all things extraordinary.”

Dean Koontz (1945) American author

Source: A Big Little Life: A Memoir of a Joyful Dog

Life, Truth, Beauty, Way

“Aberystwyth (n.)

A nostalgic yearning which is in itself more pleasant than the thing being yearned for.”

Douglas Adams book The Meaning of Liff

Source: The Deeper Meaning of Liff

“Experience is one thing you can't get for nothing.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

“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, World, Understanding, Evil

“The worst thing you can do is nothing.”

Terry Pratchett book Snuff

Source: Snuff

Motivational, Success

“No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth!”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

Life

“Herodotus says, "Very few things happen at the right time, and the rest do not happen at all. The conscientious historian will correct these defects."”

Mark Twain book A Horse's Tale

Acknowledgements
Twain does not quote Herodotus here, he only sums up what he believes to have been Herodotus' approach to the writing of history. Nevertheless, this apocryphal statement is now often quoted as being the very words of Herodotus.
A Horse's Tale (1907)

Time

“It is said that power corrupts, but actually it's more true that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other things than power.”

David Brin book The Postman

Source: The Postman (1985), Section 3, “Cincinnatus”, Chapter 14 (p. 267)
Variant: It is said that power corrupts, but actually it’s more true that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other things than power.
As quoted in Values of the Wise: Humanity's Highest Aspirations (2004) by Jason Merchey, p. 120
This is very similar to the expression by Frank Herbert in Chapterhouse: Dune (1985): "All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible. Such people have a tendency to become drunk on violence, a condition to which they are quickly addicted."
Context: It’s said that “power corrupts,” but actually it’s more true that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other things than power. When they do act, they think of it as service, which has limits. The tyrant, though, seeks mastery, for which he is insatiable, implacable.

“Then your heart is a black, shriveled thing, because you absolutely betray me.”

P. C. Cast book Untamed

Source: Untamed

Heart

“As far as I can tell, the only thing worth looking at in most museums of art is all the schoolgirls on day trips with the art department.”

Banksy pseudonymous England-based graffiti artist, political activist, and painter

Existencilism (2002)

Art

“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

World

“He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it — namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to obtain.”

Mark Twain book The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

Source: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), Ch. 2

Law, Boy

“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, World

“There are no such things as limits to growth, because there
are no limits to the human capacity for intelligence,
imagination, and wonder.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

Imagination, Intelligence

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

E. Lockhart book We Were Liars

Source: We Were Liars

World

“Keep things simple.”

William of Ockham (1285–1349) medieval philosopher and theologian

“Gwendolen, it is a terrible thing for a man to find out suddenly that all his life he has been speaking nothing but the truth. Can you forgive me?”

Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest

Source: The Importance of Being Earnest

Life, Truth, Forgiveness

“The most extraordinary thing about writing is that when you've struck the right vein, tiredness goes. It must be an effort, thinking wrong.”

Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English writer

Thinking, Effort

“Love is ridiculous. But love is also wonderful. And powerful. And Despereaux's love for the Princess Pea would prove, in time, to be all of these things: powerful, wonderful, and ridiculous.”

Kate DiCamillo book The Tale of Despereaux

Source: The Tale of Despereaux

Love, Time, Princess

“You see, Kenny, there are some things you don't even know you know, until you're asked.”

Christopher Isherwood book A Single Man

Source: A Single Man

“but Alice had got so much into the way of expecting nothing but out-of-the-way things to happen, that it seemed quite dull and stupid for life to go on in the common way.”

Lewis Carroll book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Variant: Alice had got so much into the way of expecting nothing but out-of-the-way things to happen, that it seemed quite dull and stupid for life to go on in the common way.
Source: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Life, Stupidity, Way

“There are three things men can do with women: love them, suffer them, or turn them into literature.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Love, Women, Men, Literature

“Yes, I have tricks in my pocket, I have things up my sleeve. But I am the opposite of a stage magician. He gives you illusion that has the appearance of truth. I give you truth in the pleasant disguise of illusion.”

Tennessee Williams The Glass Menagerie

Tom, as Narrator, in Scene One
Source: The Glass Menagerie (1944)

Truth, Appearance

“The most important thing we learn at school is the fact that the most important things can't be learned at school.”

Haruki Murakami book What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

Source: What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

School, Learning

“A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.”

Henry David Thoreau book Walden ou la vie dans les bois

Variant: A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.
Source: Walden

Wise

“Happiness is a very pretty thing to feel, but very dry to talk about.”

Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) British philosopher, jurist, and social reformer

Source: The Panopticon Writings

Happiness, Feeling

“To do the useful thing, to say the courageous thing, to contemplate the beautiful thing: that is enough for one man's life.”

T.S. Eliot (1888–1965) 20th century English author

Source: The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism

Life, Beauty, Courage, Wise

“The thing is, I mean, there’s times when you look at the universe and you think, “What about me?” and you can just hear the universe replying, “Well, what about you?”

Terry Pratchett book Thief of Time

Source: Thief of Time

Thinking, Universe, Time

“Maybe the only thing that hints at a sense of Time is rhythm; not the recurrent beats of the rhythm but the gap between two such beats, the gray gap between black beats: the Tender Interval.”

Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977) Russian-American novelist, lepidopterist, professor

Source: Ada, or Ardor: A Family Chronicle

Sense, Time

“The thing about getting older is that you don't need everything to be possible any more, you just need things to be certain.”

Monica Ali (1967) British writer and novelist

Source: Brick Lane

“Too many things are occurring for even a big heart to hold.”

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright

Heart

“The first thing every mage should learn is that magic makes fools of us. Now you may call yourself a mage. You have learned the most important lesson.”

Tamora Pierce book Melting Stones

Source: Melting Stones

Fools, Learning

“… bookstores, libraries… they're the closest thing I have to a church.”

Jim C. Hines (1974) American writer

Source: Libriomancer

“The political problem of mankind is to combine three things: economic efficiency, social justice and individual liberty.”

John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946) British economist

Justice, Problem

“We are such things as rubbish is made of, so let's drink up and forget it.”

Eugene O'Neill Long Day's Journey into Night

Source: Long Day's Journey Into Night

Drink, Forgetting

“A witch ought never to be frightened in the darkest forest, Granny Weatherwax had once told her, because she should be sure in her soul that the most terrifying thing in the forest was her.”

Terry Pratchett book Wintersmith

Source: Wintersmith

Soul

“There are things which must cause you to lose your reason or you have none to lose”

Viktor E. Frankl book Man's Search for Meaning

Source: Man's Search for Meaning

“I don't want realism. I want magic! Yes, yes, magic! I try to give that to people. I misrepresent things to them. I don't tell the truth, I tell what ought to be the truth. And it that's sinful, then let me be damned for it!”

Tennessee Williams A Streetcar Named Desire

Source: A Streetcar Named Desire

People, Truth

“Because a thing seems difficult for you, do not think it impossible for anyone to accomplish.”

Marcus Aurelius (121–180) Emperor of Ancient Rome

Source: The Meditations of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

Thinking

“Take things as they are. Punch when you have to punch. Kick when you have to kick.”

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

“There's this man who lives in the sky, and he has ten things he doesn't want you to do, and you'll burn for a long time if you do them. But he loves you.”

George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian

Love, Time

“Never make your home in a place. Make a home for yourself inside your own head. You'll find what you need to furnish it- memory, friends you can trust, love of learning, and other such things. That way it will go with you wherever you journey.”

Tad Williams (1957) novelist

Source: Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, The Dragonbone Chair (1988), Chapter 42, “Beneath the Uduntree” (p. 718).
Context: “Never make your home in a place,” the old man had said, too lazy in the spring warmth to do more than wag a finger. “Make a home for yourself inside your own head. You’ll find what you need to furnish it—memory, friends you can trust, love of learning, and other such things.” Morgenes had grinned. “That way it will go with you wherever you journey. You’ll never lack for a home—unless you lose your head, of course...”

Love, Way, Home, Learning