Quotes about wisdom and truth

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“There’s very little places, virtually no places obviously in the corporate media apparatus that you can tell the truth to challenge corporate tyranny and this US imperialist narrative of constant regime change all around the world... It’s a very dangerous and slippery slope that we’re on and I just think it’s time that we take a step back and actually fund the journalists that we want to see...”

Abby Martin (1984) American journalist

Quoted in Curating our reality: Investigative journalist Abby Martin takes aim at US media hegemony, RT.com https://www.rt.com/news/437721-abby-martin-telesur-sanctions/ (5 September 2018)

“Penalties against drug use should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself. Nowhere is this more clear than in the laws against the possession of marijuana in private for personal use.”

Jimmy Carter (1924) American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981)

Message to Congress (2 August 1977)
Presidency (1977–1981), 1977

“I excused myself as soon as I finished eating, and boy did I stuff myself on that meal. I then walked outside onto the beach. The wine had long since gone to my head, making me feel a sense of dizzy invigoration. I started walking along the shore, taking in the magnificence of the gentle, moonlit ocean. It was so… romantic. I kept walking and walking with no destination in mind. The romance of it all filled me with despair and longing. I wanted a girlfriend to experience that moment with me, but no girl wanted to be my girlfriend. The only thing I could do was imagine how heavenly it would be to have a beautiful girl by my side. It is such a shameful tragedy.”

Elliot Rodger (1991–2014) American spree killer

I ended up walking for two hours, and at the end of it I was crying to myself because I felt so sad.
My Twisted World (2014), Thoughts at 19, Longing

“I had never been a violent person in nature, but after building up so much hatred over the years, I realized that I wouldn’t hesitate to kill or even torture my hated enemies if I was given the opportunity.”

Elliot Rodger (1991–2014) American spree killer

My Twisted World (2014), 19-22, UC Santa Barbara, Building to Violence

“This is what the past is for! Every experience God gives us, every person He puts in our lives is the perfect preparation for the future that only He can see.”

Corrie ten Boom book The Hiding Place

Source: The Hiding Place

“It was at that age
that poetry came in search of me.”

Pablo Neruda book Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair

Source: Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair

“Birds born in a cage think flying is an illness.”

Alejandro Jodorowsky (1929) Filmmaker and comics writer

As quoted in Investing with Impact: Why Finance is a Force for Good (2016) by Jeremy Balkin

“The music is not in the notes,
but in the silence between.”

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) Austrian Romantic composer

“The Ageless Wisdom Teachings”

Charles Webster Leadbeater (1854–1934) English theosophist

See Also

“It is never too late to be what you might have been.”

George Eliot (1819–1880) English novelist, journalist and translator

“No tree, it is said, can grow to heaven unless its roots reach down to hell.”

C.G. Jung (1875–1961) Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology

“One of the secrets of a happy life is continous small treats.”

Iris Murdoch (1919–1999) British writer and philosopher

“And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.”

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

This quote is often misattributed to Lincoln. The earliest instance that Quote Investigator could locate was "in an advertisement in 1947 for a book about aging by Edward J. Stieglitz, M.D". The advertisement for “The Second Forty Years” which ran in the Chicago Tribune newspaper read like this: The important thing to you is not how many years in your life, but how much life in your years! (Compare 1947 March 16, Chicago Tribune, “How Long Do You Plan to Live?”, [Advertisement for the book "The Second Forty Years" by Edward J. Stieglitz, M.D.], p. C7, Chicago, Illinois. (ProQuest)). Source of misattribution: It’s Not the Years in Your Life That Count. It’s the Life in Your Years - Abraham Lincoln? Adlai Stevenson? Edward J. Stieglitz? Anonymous? by Quote Investigator on July 14, 2012 http://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/07/14/life-years-count/ To my way of thinking it is not the years in your life but the life in your years that count in the long run. Adlai Stevenson II, Address at Princeton University, "The Educated Citizen" (22 March 1954) http://infoshare1.princeton.edu/libraries/firestone/rbsc/mudd/online_ex/stevenson/adlai1954.html. This has also been paraphrased "What matters most is not the years in your life, but the life in your years" and misattributed to Abraham Lincoln and Mae West. Adlai Stevenson II, "If I Were Twenty-One" in Coronet (December 1955). Misattributed Variant: It is not the years in your life but the life in your years that counts.

“Animals shouldn’t be hunted and nature shouldn’t be disturbed, even destroyed, to benefit the whims of mankind”

Charles Manson (1934–2017) American criminal and musician

“A country is considered the more civilised the more the wisdom and efficiency of its laws hinder a weak man from becoming too weak and a powerful one too powerful.”

Primo Levi book If This Is a Man

If This Is a Man (1947)
Source: If This Is a Man / The Truce

“Keep smiling, because life is a beautiful thing and there's so much to smile about.”

Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962) American actress, model, and singer

“That man is best who sees the truth himself. Good too is he who listens to wise counsel. But who is neither wise himself nor willing to ponder wisdom is not worth a straw.”

Hesiod Greek poet

“Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Source: Meditations

“[Intelligence services] are poor pigs suffering from two mental illnesses: The one disease is because they never get public recognition for what they actually do. This is inevitable, as they have to work in secret. This deformes the soul. The other disease bases on the fact that they have the tendency to believe they understood the national interests of their own country much better than their own government. This latter disease is the reason that I do not trust them.”

Helmut Schmidt (1918–2015) Chancellor of West Germany 1974-1982

DIE ZEIT, 30. August 2007, Zeit.de http://www.zeit.de/2007/36/Interview-Helmut-Schmidt?page=all

“Jews hate nature and the natural order, because it's pure and beautiful, and also because it's bigger and stronger than they are, and they feel that they can not fully control it. Nature's beauty and harmony stands in stark contrast to their squalidness and ugliness, and that makes them hate it all the more. Jews are destroyers. They are anti-humans.”

Bobby Fischer (1943–2008) American chess prodigy, chess player, and chess writer

Radio Interview, February 19 2005 http://www.geocities.jp/bobbby_b/mp3/F_31_2.MP3I studied that first Karpov-Kasparov match for a year and a half before I cracked it, what they were doing, and discovered that it was all prearranged move-by-move. There's no doubt of it in my mind.Now chess is completely dead. It is all just memorization and prearrangement. It’s a terrible game now. Very uncreative. 2000s