“Sweat saves blood, blood saves lives, but brains saves both.”
Erwin Rommel (1891–1944) German field marshal of World War II
Wise Quotes About Life
A collection of quotes on the topic of life, beauty, deep, peaceful.
Best wise quotes about life
“It is never too late to be what you might have been.”
George Eliot (1819–1880) English novelist, journalist and translator
“I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become.”
C.G. Jung (1875–1961) Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology
Variant: I am not what happens to me. I choose who I become.
“Believe you can and you're halfway there.”
Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States
“Love is like war: easy to begin but very hard to stop.”
H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer
Source: Heliogabalus
“How people treat you is their karma; how you react is yours.”
Wayne W. Dyer (1940–2015) American writer
“Do one thing every day that scares you.”
Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States
“The secret of getting ahead is getting started.”
Agatha Christie (1890–1976) English mystery and detective writer
“You will always love, and you will always be loved.”
Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray
Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray
“Life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it.”
John C. Maxwell (1947) American author, speaker and pastor
Wise Quotes About Life
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry book The Little Prince
Voici mon secret. Il est très simple: on ne voit bien qu'avec le cœur. L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux.
Variant translations: Here is my secret. It is very simple: one sees well only with the heart. The essential is invisible to the eyes.
The essential things in life are seen not with the eyes, but with the heart.
Le Petit Prince (1943)
“Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.”
Aristotle (-384–-321 BC) Classical Greek philosopher, student of Plato and founder of Western philosophy
“Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.”
Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher
Attributed on the internet but not found in print prior to an attribution in Aero Digest, Vols. 58–59, 1949, p. 115 https://books.google.com/books?id=q2ofAQAAMAAJ&dq=%22Life+is+simple%22+but+we+insist+on+making+it+complicated&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=%22Life+is+simple%22+ <br class="br">Misattributed, Not Chinese
“If you don’t like the road you’re walking, start paving another one.”
Dolly Parton (1946) American singer-songwriter and actress
“Action may not always bring happiness, but there is no happiness without action.”
William James (1842–1910) American philosopher, psychologist, and pragmatist
“Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead.”
Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer
Variant: Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead.
“The secret to getting ahead is getting started.”
Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist
“Count your age by friends, not years. Count your life by smiles, not tears.”
John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter
“Sometimes you will never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory.”
Dr. Seuss (1904–1991) American children's writer and illustrator, co-founder of Beginner Books
Georges Duhamel in THE HEART'S DOMAIN (1919). As it was composed in French, the wording in English may vary in translation. Theodore Geisel / Dr. Seuss was born in 1904, and would have been about 15 years old at the time that it was published. The full text can be found at the link below: We do not know the true value of our moments until they have undergone the test of memory. Like the images the photographer plunges into a golden bath, our sentiments take on color; and only then, after that recoil and that trans-figuration, do we understand their real meaning and enjoy them in all their tranquil splendor.
Misattributed
Jack London (1876–1916) American author, journalist, and social activist
The Bulletin, San Francisco, California, December 2, 1916, part 2, p. 1.
Also included in Jack London’s Tales of Adventure, ed. Irving Shepard, Introduction, p. vii (1956)
“In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life — It goes on.”
Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet
As quoted in The Harper Book of Quotations (1993) edited by Robert I. Fitzhenry, p. 261
General sources
Variant: In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on.
“Do not take life too seriously – you will never get out of it alive.”
Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher fue el escritor del jarron azul
Source: A Thousand & One Epigrams: Selected from the Writings of Elbert Hubbard (1911), p. 74
“Every one is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.”
Mark Twain book Following the Equator
Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar, Ch. LXVI
Following the Equator (1897)
James Baldwin book Nobody Knows My Name
"In Search of a Majority: An Address" (Feb 1960); reprinted in Baldwin, "Nobody Knows My Name: More Notes of a Native Son" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobody_Knows_My_Name (1961)
“If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people.”
Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English writer
"The Leaning Tower", lecture delivered to the Workers' Educational Association, Brighton (May 1940)
The Moment and Other Essays (1948)
“Action may not always bring happiness but there is no happiness without action.”
Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister
Books, Coningsby (1844), Lothair (1870)
Variant: Action may not always bring happiness; but there is no happiness without action.
Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity
As quoted in Journal of France and Germany (1942–1944) by Gilbert Fowler White, in excerpt published in Living with Nature's Extremes: The Life of Gilbert Fowler White (2006) by Robert E. Hinshaw, p. 62. From the context http://books.google.com/books?id=_2qfZRp9SeEC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA62#v=onepage&q&f=false it seems that White did not specify whether he had heard Einstein himself say this or whether he was repeating a quote that had been passed along by someone else, so without a primary source the validity of this quote should be considered questionable.<br>Some have argued that elsewhere Einstein defined a "miracle" as a type of event he did not believe was possible—Einstein on Religion by Max Jammer (1999) quotes on p. 89 from a 1931 conversation Einstein had with David Reichinstein, where Reichinstein brought up philosopher Arthur Liebert's argument that the indeterminism of quantum mechanics might allow for the possibility of miracles, and Einstein replied that Liebert's argument dealt "with a domain in which lawful rationality [determinism] does not exist. A 'miracle,' however, is an exception from lawfulness; hence, there where lawfulness does not exist, also its exception, i.e., a miracle, cannot exist." ("Dort, wo eine Gesetzmässigkeit nicht vorhanden ist, kann auch ihre Ausnahme, d.h. ein Wunder, nicht existieren." D. Reichenstein, Die Religion der Gebildeten (1941), p. 21). However, it is clear from the context that Einstein was stating only that miracles cannot exist in a domain (quantum mechanics) where lawful rationality does not exist. He did not claim that miracles could never exist in any domain. Indeed, Einstein clearly believed, as seen in many quotations above, that the universe was comprehensible and rational, but he also described this characteristic of the universe as a "miracle". In another example, he is quoted as claiming belief in a God, "Who reveals Himself in the lawful harmony of the world." <br class="br">As quoted in From Yale to Jail: The Life Story of a Moral Dissenter (1993) by David T. Dellinger, p. 418 <br class="br">Disputed <br class="br">Variant: There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle. <br class="br">Variant: There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.
“Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.”
Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States
“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”
Aristotle book Metaphysics
Attributed to Aristotle in Lowell L. Bennion, Religion and the Pursuit of Truth http://books.google.gr/books?id=2HPUAAAAMAAJ&q=, Deseret Book Company, 1959, p. 52, and in American Opinion, Volume 24 http://books.google.gr/books?id=irofAQAAMAAJ&q=, Robert Welch, Inc., 1981, p. 23. Possibly a discombobulation http://publicnoises.blogspot.fi/2009/02/aristotle-and-accuracy.html of the Nicomachean Ethics Book I, 1094b.24 quote above. <br class="br">Disputed <br class="br">Source: Metaphysics
“You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”
Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States
Source: You Learn by Living (1960), p. 29–30
Context: You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, "I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along." … You must do the thing you think you cannot do.
Audre Lorde book The Cancer Journals
The Cancer Journals, Special Edition, Aunt Lute Books, San Francisco, CA, 1997, p. 13.
“There are two great days in a person's life - the day we are born and the day we discover why.”
William Barclay (1907–1978) Church of Scotland minister and academic
“There is no remedy for love but to love more.”
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist
Variant: The only remedy for love is to love more.
“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.
Marie Curie (1867–1934) French-Polish physicist and chemist
As quoted in Our Precarious Habitat (1973) by Melvin A. Benarde, p. v
“Let no man pull you so low as to hate him.”
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement
Source: A Knock at Midnight: Inspiration from the Great Sermons of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.
The quote is mistakenly attributed to the author
“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.
“Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it.”
Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher
Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet
Shared on her Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/MayaAngelou/posts/10150251846629796, July 4, 2011
“Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood.”
Marie Curie (1867–1934) French-Polish physicist and chemist
As quoted in Our Precarious Habitat (1973) by Melvin A. Benarde, p. v
Context: Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.
“Honesty is the first chapter of the book wisdom.”
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America
“Try to be a rainbow in someone's cloud.”
Maya Angelou book Letter to My Daughter
Variant: Be a rainbow in somebody else's cloud.
Source: Letter to My Daughter
“A friend is someone who gives you total freedom to be yourself.”
Jim Morrison (1943–1971) lead singer of The Doors
“Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.”
Aristotle (-384–-321 BC) Classical Greek philosopher, student of Plato and founder of Western philosophy
“Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.”
Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity
In answer to a question asked by the editors of Youth, a journal of Young Israel of Williamsburg, NY. Quoted in the New York Times, June 20, 1932, pg. 17 http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F40617F83B5A13738DDDA90A94DE405B828FF1D3 <br class="br">Unsourced variant: Only a life in the service of others is worth living. <br class="br">1930s <br class="br">Variant: I believe in one thing—that only a life lived for others is a life worth living.
“The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one.”
Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher fue el escritor del jarron azul
The Note Book of Elbert Hubbard (1927)
Variant: The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one.
“Choice, not chance, determines your destiny.”
Aristotle (-384–-321 BC) Classical Greek philosopher, student of Plato and founder of Western philosophy
“Life is the art of drawing without an eraser.”
John W. Gardner (1912–2002) American politician
Quoted in Matthew M. Radmanesh, Cracking the Code of Our Physical Universe, p. 269.
“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving.”
Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity
Letter to his son Eduard (5 February 1930), as quoted in Walter Isaacson, Einstein: His Life and Universe (2007), p. 367
1930s
“A life without love is like a tree without fruit.”
Stephen King book Doctor Sleep
Source: Doctor Sleep
“The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.”
William Shakespeare As You Like It
Touchstone, Act V, scene i
Source: As You Like It (1599–1600)
“Your friend is the man who knows all about you, and still likes you.”
Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher fue el escritor del jarron azul
Variant: A friend is one who knows you and loves you just the same.
Source: The Note Book of Elbert Hubbard (1927), p. 112.
John Quincy Adams (1767–1848) American politician, 6th president of the United States (in office from 1825 to 1829)
“You get in life what you have the courage to ask for.”
Oprah Winfrey (1954) American businesswoman, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist
“Wisdom is not a product of schooling but of the lifelong attempt to acquire it.”
Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity
From the same 24 March 1954 letter as above, p. 44
Attributed in posthumous publications, Albert Einstein: The Human Side (1979)
“Luck is when opportunity meets preparation.”
Denzel Washington (1954) actor, screenwriter, director, producer
“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.”
Aristotle (-384–-321 BC) Classical Greek philosopher, student of Plato and founder of Western philosophy
“Never bend your head. Hold it high. Look the world straight in the eye.”
Helen Keller (1880–1968) American author and political activist
Helen Keller (1880–1968) American author and political activist
Variant: The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart.
Variant: The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen, nor touched... but are felt in the heart.
“You cannot swim for new horizons until you have courage to lose sight of the shore.”
William Faulkner (1897–1962) American writer
“We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.”
Joseph Campbell (1904–1987) American mythologist, writer and lecturer
Variant: You must give up the life you planned in order to have the life that is waiting for you.
“Never mistake knowledge for wisdom. One helps you make a living; the other helps you make a life.”
Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States
“The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.”
William James (1842–1910) American philosopher, psychologist, and pragmatist
Source: 1890s, The Principles of Psychology (1890), Ch. 22
“No-one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
Red Symons (1949) Australian broadcaster and musician
Attributed quotes
“Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable.”
Neil Gaiman (1960) English fantasy writer
The character "Rose Walker" in The Sandman #65
Context: Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses. You build up a whole armor, for years, so nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life... You give them a piece of you. They didn't ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like 'maybe we should be just friends' or 'how very perceptive' turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a body-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. Nothing should be able to do that. Especially not love. I hate love.
“All you need is the plan, the road map, and the courage to press on to your destination.”
Earl Nightingale (1921–1989) American motivational speaker
“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”
Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism
Variant: Life can only be understood going backward, but must be lived going forward.
“Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.”
Will Durant (1885–1981) American historian, philosopher and writer
Source: The Story of Philosophy: The Lives and Opinions of the World's Greatest Philosophers
“Whoso loves
Believes the impossible.”
Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861) English poet, author
Book V. <br class="br"> Aurora Leigh http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/barrett/aurora/aurora.html (1857) <br class="br">Variant: Whoso loves<br>Believes the impossible.
Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States
Foreword (January 1960)
You Learn by Living (1960)
“It isn't where you came from; it's where you're going that counts.”
Ella Fitzgerald (1917–1996) American jazz singer
“It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.”
André Gide (1869–1951) French novelist and essayist
Frequently misattributed to Marilyn Monroe or Kurt Cobain.
Source: https://books.google.com/books?id=xUtdDnEhkMMC&pg=PT12&lpg=PT12#v=onepage&q&f=false
Source: Autumn Leaves, Philosophical eLibrary, 2012, (Feuillets d'automne, 1941, trans. Jeanine Parisier Plottel)
“I've failed over and over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed.”
Michael Jordan (1963) American retired professional basketball player and businessman
“All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet
Source: Journals of Ralph Waldo Emerson, with Annotations - 1841-1844
“The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”
Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher
Laozi in the Tao Te Ching, Chapter 64
Misattributed, Chinese
“Dieting is the only game where you win when you lose!”
Karl Lagerfeld (1933–2019) German fashion designer
“Every day may not be good…
but there's something good in every day”
Alice Morse Earle (1851–1911) American historian
“Creativity is intelligence having fun.”
Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity
Johnny Cash (1932–2003) American singer-songwriter
Variant: You build on failure. You use it as a stepping sone. Close the door on the past. You don't try to forget the mistakes, but you don't dwell on it. You don't let it have any of your energy, or any of your time, or any of your space.
“There is another world, but it is in this one.”
Paul Éluard (1895–1952) French poet
Il y a assurément un autre monde, mais il est dans celui-ci...
Œuvres complètes, vol. 1, Gallimard, 1968.
“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/ <br class="br">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. <br class="br">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. <br class="br">Adlai Stevenson II, "If I Were Twenty-One" in Coronet (December 1955). <br class="br">Misattributed <br class="br">Variant: It is not the years in your life but the life in your years that counts.
Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States
Source: You Learn by Living (1960), p. 29–30
Context: You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, "I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along." … You must do the thing you think you cannot do.
“We may encounter many defeats but we must not be defeated.”
Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet
“We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.”
Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
“It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”
Paulo Coelho book Manuscript Found in Accra
Manuscript Found in Accra (2012), Love has always passed me by
“Each person must live their life as a model for others.”
Rosa Parks (1913–2005) African-American civil rights activist
“Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.”
Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism
Attributed to Kierkegaard in a number of books, the earliest located on Google Books being the 1976 book Jack Kerouac: Prophet of the New Romanticism by Robert A. Hipkiss, p. 83 http://books.google.com/books?id=g_JaAAAAMAAJ&q=%22problem+to+be+solved%22#search_anchor. In the 1948 The Hibbert Journal: Volumes 46-47 the quote is referred to as "the famous Kierkegaardian slogan" on p. 237 http://books.google.com/books?id=UuDRAAAAMAAJ&q=%22the+famous+Kierkegaardian+slogan+life+is+not+a+problem+to+be+solved%22#search_anchor, which may be intended to suggest the phrase is Kierkegaard-esque rather than being something written by Kierkegaard. In reality this seems to be a slightly altered version of the quote "The mystery of life is not a problem to be solved; it is a reality to be experienced" which appeared in the 1928 book The Conquest of Illusion by Jacobus Johannes Leeuw, p. 9 http://books.google.com/books?id=OFdVAAAAMAAJ&q=%22not+a+problem+to+be+solved%22#search_anchor. <br class="br">Misattributed
“It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light.”
Aristotle (-384–-321 BC) Classical Greek philosopher, student of Plato and founder of Western philosophy
“Some succeed because they are destined to, but most succeed because they are determined to.”
Henry Van Dyke (1852–1933) American diplomat
Thomas Szasz (1920–2012) Hungarian psychiatrist
"Personal Conduct" http://books.google.com/books?id=IYOcAQAAQBAJ&q=%22The+stupid+neither+forgive+nor+forget+the+na%C3%AFve+forgive+and+forget+the+wise+forgive+but+do+not+forget%22&pg=PA177#v=onepage, p. 51. http://openlibrary.org/works/OL15151528W/The_Second_Sin <br class="br">The Second Sin (1973)
“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”
Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
Attributed to Winston Churchill in The Prodigal Project : Book I : Genesis (2003) by Ken Abraham and Daniel Hart, p. 224 and other places, though no source attribution is given. It actually derives from an advertising campaign for Budweiser beer in the late 1930s.
Misattributed
Variant: Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.
Source: http://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/09/03/success-final/
“Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to reform.”
Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist
Alternate (also Twain's): Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.
Source: Mark Twain's Notebook (1935), p. 393