“Forgiveness is the final form of love.”
“Only the dead are safe; only the dead have seen the end of war.”
Attributed to Plato by General Douglas MacArthur, earliest source found is work of George Santayana who doesn't attribute it to anyone. Plato and his dialogues by Bernard SUZANNE, "Frequently Asked Questions about Plato : Did Plato write "Only the dead have seen the end of war"?" http://plato-dialogues.org/faq/faq008.htm
Source: Soliloquies in England and Later Soliloquies (1922), "Tipperary"
As quoted in Secrets of Superstar Speakers: Wisdom from the Greatest Motivators of Our Time (2000) by Lilly Walters, p. 96
Variant: What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.
Isaac Asimov's Book of Science and Nature Quotations (1988), edited with Jason A. Shulman, p. 281
General sources
“A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.”
Variant: A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.
Source: Walden
Source: The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism
“It is love, not reason, that is stronger than death.”
Variant: Love stands opposed to death. It is love, not reason, that is stronger than death.
Source: The Magic Mountain (1924), Ch. 6; variant translation: It is love, not reason, that is stronger than death. Only love, not reason, gives sweet thoughts. And from love and sweetness alone can form come: form and civilization.
Context: Love stands opposed to death. It is love, not reason, that is stronger than death. Only love, not reason, gives kind thoughts.
“Nurture your mind with great thoughts, for you will never go any higher than you think.”
“All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then Success is sure.”
Mark Twain's Notebook, 1887
Letter to Cordelia Welsh Foote (Cincinnati), 2 December 1887. Letter reprinted http://www.twainquotes.com/Success.html in Benjamin De Casseres's When Huck Finn Went Highbrow https://www.worldcat.org/title/when-huck-finn-went-highbrow/oclc/2514292 (1934)
“Attention is vitality. It connects you with others. It makes you eager. Stay eager.”
Not by Twain, but from Edward Abbey's A Voice Crying In The Wilderness (1989).
Misattributed
“Once you choose hope, anything's possible.”
“no expectations, no disappointments!”
Sleeping with Strangers
“I have decided to stick to love… Hate is too great a burden to bear.”
Source: A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches
“The will-to-live becomes the will-to-power.”
Source: (1932), p.1
“Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.”
Has been attributed to Seneca since the 1990s (eg. Gregory K. Ericksen, (1999), Women entrepreneurs only: 12 women entrepreneurs tell the stories of their success, page ix.). Other books ascribe the saying to either Darrell K. Royal (former American football player, born 1924) or Elmer G. Letterman (Insurance salesman and writer, 1897-1982). However, it is unlikely either man originated the saying. A version that reads "He is lucky who realizes that luck is the point where preparation meets opportunity" can be found (unattributed) in the 1912 The Youth's Companion: Volume 86. The quote might be a distortion of the following passage by Seneca (who makes no mention of "luck" and is in fact quoting his friend Demetrius the Cynic):<blockquote>"The best wrestler," he would say, "is not he who has learned thoroughly all the tricks and twists of the art, which are seldom met with in actual wrestling, but he who has well and carefully trained himself in one or two of them, and watches keenly for an opportunity of practising them." — Seneca, On Benefits, vii. 1 http://thriceholy.net/Texts/Benefits4.html</blockquote>
Disputed
“Rules are for the guidance of wise men and the obedience of fools.”
Brickhill 1954, p. 44. Note: (also quoted as "...for the obedience of fools and the guidance of wise men.") In Reach for the Sky, this quote is attributed to Harry Day, the Royal Flying Corps First World War fighter ace.
Vol. I; CCCXXII
Lacon (1820)
“One word
Frees us of all the weight and pain of life:
That word is love.”
Source: Oedipus at Colonus, Line 1616–18
“To live is to not know that one is living”
Diary (20 April, 1930), quoted in Afinado desconcerto (2002), p. 262
Context: Sometimes I start looking at the mirror and examining myself, feature by feature: eyes, mouth, shape of the forehead, eyelids curve, the face line... And this vulgar and hideous-looking, grotesque and miserable amalgam, would it know how to do verses? Oh, no! There is something else … but what? After all, why think? To live is to not know that one is living... Why don't I forget that I am living... to live?
“Time ripens all things. No man is born wise. Bishops are made of men and not of stones.”
Source: Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605–1615), Part II (1615), Book III, Ch. 33. Note: "Time ripens all things" is the translator's interpolation and does not appear in the original Spanish text.
“It's not how hard you hit. It's how hard you get hit…and keep moving forward.”
The Last Lecture (2008)
“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams. ”
“And just maybe I'm to blame for all I've heard, but I'm not sure.”
“Every day may not be good… but there's something good in every day.”
“Nothing is impossible, the word itself says: «I'm possible!»”
“Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise. ”
“I am not, I will not be.
I have not, I will not have.”
That frightens all the childish
And extinguishes fear in the wise.
§ 26
Major attributed works, Ratnāvalī (Precious Garland)
“Love does not consist of gazing at each other, but in looking together in the same direction.”
“Wise men speak because they have something to say; Fools because they have to say something.”
“Great acts are made up of small deeds.”
“Nine-tenths of wisdom is being wise in time.”
“The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.”
Variant: True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing.
“God gave us the gift of life; it is up to us to give ourselves the gift of living well.”
“The opportunity of your life, it's you.”
Original: (it) L'occasione della tua vita, sei tu.
Source: prevale.net
“Only the wisest and stupidest of men never change.”
“There are three constants in life… Change, Choice and Principles.”
“The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common.”
As reported by Quoteinvestigator on January 11, 2011 http://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/01/11/what-lies-within/ the quote appeared in “Meditations in Wall Street” (1940) by Wall Street trader Henry Stanley Haskins, "a Wall Street trader with a checkered background. The phrase was misattributed because the true author's name was initially withheld. In addition, the assignment of the maxim to a more prestigious individual, e.g., Emerson or Thoreau, made it more attractive and more believable as a nugget of wisdom." Emerson made a number of similar statements — in "The American Scholar," for example, he says "Give me insight into to-day, and you may have the antique and future worlds" — which probably increased the likelihood of misattribution.
Misattributed
Variant: What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.
Variant: What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.
“If my mind can conceive it; and my heart can believe it — then I can achieve it.”
Similar to a quote by Jesse Jackson, which is in turn a modification of a quote by Napoleon Hill: "Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve."
Misattributed
Source: The Soul of a Butterfly: Reflections on Life's Journey
“The simple things are also the most extraordinary things, and only the wise can see them.”
Variant: simple things are the most valuable and only wise people appreciate them".
Source: The Alchemist
“Love will find a way through paths where wolves fear to prey.”
“The shortness of life, so often lamented, may be the best thing about it.”
“To be or not to be. That's not really a question.”
“Sometimes it's about playing a poor hand well.”
Source: The Goldfinch
“The time is always right to do what’s right.”
Speech delivered in Finney Chapel at Oberlin College (22 October 1964), as reported in "When MLK came to Oberlin" by Cindy Leise, The Chronicle-Telegram (21 January 2008) http://chronicle.northcoastnow.com/2008/01/21/when-mlk-came-to-oberlin/
1960s
Variant: The time is always right to do what’s right.
“Someone's sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.”
Statement of January 1991, as quoted in Of Permanent Value: The Story of Warren Buffett (2007) by Andrew Kilpatrick
“Despite the forecast, live like it's spring.”
“Common sense is genius dressed in its working clothes.”
“Sometimes you can't see yourself clearly until you see yourself through the eyes of others.”
“The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn”
“Life is a dream for the wise, a game for the fool, a comedy for the rich, a tragedy for the poor.”
“Life is 10 percent what you make it
and 90 percent how you take it.”
“People never learn anything by being told, they have to find out for themselves.”
Source: Veronika Decides to Die
“He who knows best knows how little he knows.”
“Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.”
"Dreams," from the anthology Golden Slippers: An Anthology of Negro Poetry for Young Readers, ed. Arna Bontemps (1941)
“Don't waste your time with explanations: people only hear what they want to hear.”
“Love isn't an act, it's a whole life.”
Source: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
“Maybe that's what life is… a wink of the eye and winking stars.”
Letter to Alan Harrington (23 April 1949) published in Kerouac: Selected Letters: Volume 1 1940-1956 (1996)
Source: Selected Letters, 1940-1956
“I prefer the folly of enthusiasm to the wisdom of indifference.”
J'ai toujours préféré la folie des passions à la sagesse de l'indifférence.
Pt. II, ch. 4
The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard (1881)
Variant: I prefer the errors of enthusiasm to the wisdom of indifference.
“The secret of life, though, is to fall seven times and to get up eight times.”
Introduction, p. xi.
Source: The Alchemist (1988)
Context: I ask myself: are defeats necessary?
Well, necessary or not, they happen. When we first begin fighting for a dream, we have no experience and make mistakes. The secret of life, though, is to fall seven times and to get up eight times.
Variant: Love yourself first and everything else falls into line. Your really have to love yourself to get anything done in this world.
“Change your thoughts and you can change the world.”
As quoted in Back on Track : How to Straighten Out Your Life When It Throws You a Curve (1997) by Deborah Norville, p. 201
Variant: Change your thoughts and you change your world.
“What do you want meaning for? Life is desire, not meaning.”
Source: My Life In Pictures
“Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise; seek what they sought.”
“To improve is to change, so to be perfect is to have changed often.”
Winston Churchill (June 23, 1925), His complete speeches, 1897–1963, edited by Robert Rhodes James, Chelsea House ed., vol. 4 (1922–1928), p. 3706. During a debate with Philip Snowden, 1st Viscount Snowden.
Often misquoted as: To improve is to change, to be perfect is to change often.
Early career years (1898–1929)
LOVE (1972)
Variant: Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest accomplishment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.
Part III, Ch. 2: Personality http://books.google.com/books?id=zev1dMhB7C4C&q=Toleration+"is+the+greatest+gift+of+the+mind+it+requires+the+same+effort+of+the+brain+that+it+takes+to+balance+oneself+on+a+bicycle"&pg=PA295#v=onepage
The Story of My Life (1903)
“Life is pain. Anyone who says otherwise is selling something.”
Variant: Life is pain, highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something.
Source: The Princess Bride
“The excursion is the same when you go looking for your sorrow as when you go looking for your joy.”
“Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?”
“All human wisdom is contained in these words: Wait and hope!”
Also: Until the day when God shall deign to reveal the future to man, all human wisdom is summed up in these two words,— "Wait and hope".
Chapter 117 http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Count_of_Monte_Cristo/Chapter_117
Variant: All human wisdom is contained in these two words - Wait and Hope
Source: The Count of Monte Cristo (1845–1846)
Variant: It is one of the beautiful compensations of life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.
“I've got a great ambition to die of exhaustion rather than boredom.”
“All serious daring starts from within.”
Source: On Writing (2002)
“Love takes off the masks we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.”
