Great quotes from wise people

Here I will collect all the best quotes I come across, with updates now and then. You can bookmark this page and also link to it.

Also check out "100 great quotes about motivation and taking action", a very popular post on my blog.

-*-*-*-*-*-*-

"I sometimes think that God, in creating man, overestimated His ability."
- Oscar Wilde

"God made everything out of nothing, but the nothingness shows through."
- Paul Valery

"If God wanted us to fly, He would have given us tickets."
- Mel Brooks

"There cannot be a God because if there were one, I could not believe that I was not He."
- Friedrich Nietzsche

"God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh."
"If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him."
- Voltaire

"If you want to organize anything, assume everybody is absolutely stupid. And assume yourself that you're stupid."
- Bayard Austin

"Character is what you know you are, not what others think you are."
- Marvin Collins and Civia Tamark

"I'm glad I did it. Partly because it was well worth it, but chiefly because I shall never ever have to do it again."
- Mark Twain

"The mother of the year should be a sterilized woman with two adopted children."
- Paul Ehrlich

"It is often safer to be in chains than it is to be free."
- Franz Kafka

"Freedom of choice is what you got – freedom from choice is what you want."
- Devo

"Freedom is the right to tell people what they do not want to hear."
- George Orwell

"There is nothing more evil in the universe than man."
- Robert de Grimston

"The greater the lie, the greater the chance it will be believed."
- Adolf Hitler

"Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your common sense."
- Buddha

"If there weren’t people unafraid to be judged insane by their peers, we’d all still be living in caves."
- Jello Biafra

"The mediocre man augments his worth by belonging to a group; the superior man diminishes it."
- Gustave Le Bon

"Those who have some funds think that the most important thing in the world is love. The poor know it is money."
- Gerald Brenan

"Moralistic preaching from hypocritical parents is worse than useless."
- John A. Sanford

"The road to excess leads to the palace of wisdom...for we never know what is enough until we know what is more than enough."
- William Blake

"Wherever they burn books, they will also, in the end, burn people."
- Heinrich Heine

"Nothing matters very much, and few things matter at all."
- Arthur James

"Pessimists never do anything, they sit in the corner and moan and piss and groan and bitch and complain, but they never do anything. The optimists are the ones who do things. At least I’m trying. I'm an optimist on principle."
- Robert Anton Wilson

"Change is not progress."
- Ragnar Redbeard

"Is it progress if a cannibal uses a fork?"
- Stanislaw J. Lec

"Even making love involves power relations, charged with eroticism...There’s so much pleasure in giving orders; there’s also pleasure in taking them. This pleasure of power – well, there’s a topic for study."
- Foucault

"Formal religion was organized for slaves; it offered them consolation which earth did not provide."
- Elbert Hubbard

"As far as I know, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence."
"The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatsoever that it is not utterly absurd. Indeed, in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible."
- Bertrand Russell

"Americans love and hate sex. Sex sells products, fuels popular novels and Hollywood’s star system. And yet, when this commodification becomes literal, when sexual pleasure is bought and sold, Americans are terrified. Sex professionals bear the burden of this fear. Prostitutes have historically been publicly vilified, leaving them vulnerable to attack, abuse, and harassment from all sides. Yet they never seem to run out of clients."
- P.O.N.Y. (Prostitutes of New York)

"Knowledge is not intelligence."
- Heraclitus

"Women today are not satisfied… they want men, but all they find are little boys."
- Charles Manson

"Women are always attracted to power. I do not think there could ever be a conqueror so bloody that most women would not willingly lie with him in the hope of bearing a son who would be every bit as ferocious as the father."
- Gore Vidal

"I do not like work even when another person does it."
- Mark Twain

"A clever person solves a problem, a wise person avoids it."
- Albert Einstein

"Begin! Only by starting can the impossible become possible."
- Thomas Carlyle

"Pornography is rather like trying to find out about a Beethoven symphony by having somebody tell you about it and perhaps hum a few bars."
- Davies Robertson

"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."
- Albert Einstein

"Do it. Do it right. Do it right now."
- Bobby Riggs

"The significant problems we face cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them."
- Albert Einstein

"You must be the change / You wish to see in the world"
- Gandhi

"Given eight hours to chop down a tree, I would spend six sharpening my axe."
- Abraham Lincoln

"The world doesn't stink. Only sometimes your head is so full of shit."
- Anonym

"If you ask the wrong questions, you will always get the wrong answers."
- Anonym

"If you judge people, you have no time to love them."
- Mother Teresa

"It's hard to beat a person who never gives up."
- Babe Ruth

"Life is a grindstone. Whether it grinds us down or polishes us up depends on us."
- Thomas L. Holdcroft

"We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give."
- Winston Churchill

"Live as if your were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever."
- Gandhi

"Nobody gets to live life backward. Look ahead, that is where your future lies."
- Ann Landers

"Destiny is no matter of chance. It is a matter of choice: it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved."
- William Jennings Bryan

"Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking."
- Albert Einstein

"For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin - real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life."
- Alfred D. Souza

"In the book of life every page has two sides: we human beings fill the upper side with our plans, hopes and wishes, but providence writes on the other side, and what it ordains is seldom our goal."
- Nisami

"Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment."
- Buddha

"It is not length of life, but depth of life."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"In the game of life it's a good idea to have a few early losses, which relieves you of the pressure of trying to maintain an undefeated season."
- Bill Baughan

"Expecting life to treat you well because you are a good person is like expecting an angry bull not to charge because you are a vegetarian."
- Shari R. Barr

"Life is a great big canvas, and you should throw all the paint on it you can."
- Danny Kaye

"And in the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years."
- Abraham Lincoln

"Difficult times have helped me to understand better than before, how infinitely rich and beautiful life is in every way, and that so many things that one goes worrying about are of no importance whatsoever..."
- Isak Dinesen

"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."
- Albert Einstein

"Attack life, it's going to kill you anyway."
- Steven Coallier

"Life isn't worth living unless you're willing to take some big chances and go for broke."
- Eliot Wiggington

"Being on the tightrope is living; everything else is waiting."
- Karl Wallenda

"On life's journey faith is nourishment, virtuous deeds are a shelter, wisdom is the light by day and right mindfulness is the protection by night. If a man lives a pure life, nothing can destroy him."
- Buddha

"In between goals is a thing called life, that has to be lived and enjoyed."
- Sid Caesar

"The best years of your life are the ones in which you decide your problems are your own. You do not blame them on your mother, the ecology or the president. You realize that you control your own destiny."
- Albert Ellis

"Let yourself be open and life will be easier. A spoon of salt in a glass of water makes the water undrinkable. A spoon of salt in a lake is almost unnoticed."
- Buddha

"Your talent is God's gift to you. What you do with it is your gift back to God."
- Leo Buscaglia

"Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die today."
- James Dean

"People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within."
- Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

"The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart."
- Helen Keller

"Dreams come true; without that possibility, nature would not incite us to have them."
- John Updike

"Some men see things as they are and ask why. Others dream things that never were and ask why not."
- George Bernard Shaw

"When you do not know what you are doing and what you are doing is the best - that is inspiration."
- Robert Bresson

"He who knows others is wise, He who knows himself is enlightened."
- Tao Te Ching

"People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered; forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of being selfish with an ulterior motive; be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies; succeed anyway.
If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you; be honest and frank anyway.
What you spend years building, someone would destroy overnight; build anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, there may be jealousy; be happy anyway.
The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow; do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough; give the world the best you have got anyway.
You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God; it was never between you and them anyway."
- Mother Theresa

"The tragedy of life is not that it ends so soon, but that we wait so long to begin it."

"Never take life seriously. Nobody gets out alive anyways."

"Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow."

"Adopt the pace of nature, her secret is patience."

"Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes."

"Maybe this world is another planet's hell!"

"Being beaten is often a temporary condition, giving up is what makes it permanent."

"Birds sing after a storm, why shouldn't we?"

"The philosophy of the rich versus the poor is this: The rich invest their money and spend what is left; the poor spend their money and invest what's left."

"It's what you learn after you know it all that counts."

"Failing to plan means planning to fail. What are your goals?"

"There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as if everything is."

"Never talk defeat. Use words like hope, belief, faith, victory."

"In the practical use of our intellect, forgetting is as important as remembering."

"Failure is delay, not defeat.

-*-*-*-*-*-*-

Oscar Wilde on women:

"All women become like their mothers, that is their tragedy; no man does, that is his."

"Never trust a woman who tells you her real age; a woman who tells you that would tell you anything."

"Women are meant to be loved, not understood."

"A woman will flirt with anyone in the world, so long as other women are looking on."

"Women can discover everything except the obvious."

"If a woman wants to hold a man, she has merely to appeal to the worst in him."

"Crying is the refuge of plain women and the ruin of pretty ones."

"If you really want to know what a woman means, which is dangerous, always look at her but never listen."

"For fascinating women, sex is a challenge; for others, it is merely a defence."

100 great quotes about motivation and taking action

Here are 100 great quotes I found about motivation and action. Personally I take from these that you have to start doing it, whatever it is you want to do. And if you don't know what you want, it's time to find out. :)

Also check out my collection of quotes, it's another popular post on my blog. You can bookmark both pages and also link to them.

-*-*-*-*-*-*-

1. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a habit.

- Aristotle

2. The best way out is always through.
- Robert Frost

3. Do not wait to strike till the iron is hot; but make it hot by striking.
- William B. Sprague

4. Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.
- Albert Einstein

5. Whether you think you can or think you can't, you're right.
- Henry Ford

6. I know for sure that what we dwell on is who we become.
- Oprah Winfrey

7. I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.
- Michael Jordan

8. You must be the change you want to see in the world.
- Mahatma Gandhi

9. What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.
- Goethe

10. You can get everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want.
- Zig Ziglar

11. Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.
- Mahatma Gandhi

12. Desire is the starting point of all achievement, not a hope, not a wish, but a keen pulsating desire which transcends everything.
- Napoleon Hill

13. Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.
- Truman Capote

14. Vision without action is daydream. Action without vision is nightmare.
- Japanese Proverb

15. In any situation, the best thing you can do is the right thing; the next best thing you can do is the wrong thing; the worst thing you can do is nothing.
- Theodore Roosevelt

16. If you keep saying things are going to be bad, you have a chance of being a prophet.
- Isaac B. Singer

17. Success consists of doing the common things of life uncommonly well.
- Unknown

18. Keep on going and the chances are you will stumble on something, perhaps when you are least expecting it. I have never heard of anyone stumbling on something sitting down.
- Charles F. Kettering, Engineer and Inventor

19. Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
- Mark Twain

20. Losers visualize the penalties of failure. Winners visualize the rewards of success.
- Unknown

21. Some succeed because they are destined. Some succeed because they are determined.
- Unknown

22. Experience is what you get when you don't get what you want.
- Dan Stanford

23. Setting an example is not the main means of influencing others; it is the only means.
- Albert Einstein

24. A happy person is not a person in a certain set of circumstances, but rather a person with a certain set of attitudes.
- Hugh Downs

25. If you're going to be able to look back on something and laugh about it, you might as well laugh about it now.
- Marie Osmond

26. Remember that happiness is a way of travel, not a destination.
- Roy Goodman

27. If you want to test your memory, try to recall what you were worrying about one year ago today.
- E. Joseph Cossman

28. What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

29. We judge of man's wisdom by his hope.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

30. The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up.
- Mark Twain

31. Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter.
- Mark Twain

32. Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it's time to pause and reflect.
- Mark Twain

33. Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.
- Mark Twain

34. The surest way not to fail is to determine to succeed.
- Richard B. Sheridan

35. Take the first step in faith. You don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.
- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

36. Act or accept.
- Unanonymous

37. Many great ideas go unexecuted, and many great executioners are without ideas. One without the other is worthless.
- Tim Blixseth

38. The world is more malleable than you think and it's waiting for you to hammer it into shape.
- Bono

39. Sometimes you just got to give yourself what you wish someone else would give you.
- Dr Phil

40. Motivation is a fire from within. If someone else tries to light that fire under you, chances are it will burn very briefly.
- Stephen R. Covey

41. People become really quite remarkable when they start thinking that they can do things. When they believe in themselves they have the first secret of success.
- Norman Vincent Peale

42. Whenever you find whole world against you just turn around and lead the world.
- Anonymous

43. Being defeated is only a temporary condition; giving up is what makes it permanent.
- Marilyn vos Savant, Author and Advice Columnist

44. I can't understand why people are frightened by new ideas. I'm frightened by old ones.
- John Cage

45. Setting an example is not the main means of influencing others; it is the only means.
- Albert Einstein

46. The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is that little extra.
- Unknown

47. The best way to predict the future is to create it.
- Unknown

48. Anyone can do something when they WANT to do it. Really successful people do things when they don't want to do it.
- Dr. Phil

49. There are two primary choices in life: to accept conditions as they exist, or accept the responsibility for changing them.
- Dr. Denis Waitley

50. Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.
- Sir Winston Churchill

51. Success seems to be connected with action. Successful people keep moving. They make mistakes but don't quit.
- Conrad Hilton

52. Attitudes are contagious. Make yours worth catching.
- Unknown

53. Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.
- John Wooden

54. There are only two rules for being successful. One, figure out exactly what you want to do, and two, do it.
- Mario Cuomo

55. Sooner or later, those who win are those who think they can.
- Richard Bach

56. Vision doesn't usually come as a lightening bolt. Rather it comes as a slow crystallization of life challenges that we one day recognize as a beautiful diamond with great value to ourselves and others.
- Dr. Michael Norwood

57. Success is a state of mind. If you want success, start thinking of yourself as a success.
- Dr. Joyce Brothers

58. Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.
- Samuel Beckett

59. Flops are a part of life's menu and I've never been a girl to miss out on any of the courses.
- Rosalind Russell

60. Cause change and lead. Accept change and survive. Resist change and die.
- Ray Norda, Chairman, Novell

61. Winners lose much more often than losers. So if you keep losing but you're still trying, keep it up! You're right on track.
- Matthew Keith Groves

62. An idea can turn to dust or magic, depending on the talent that rubs against it.
- Bill Bernbach

63. An obstacle is often a stepping stone.
- Prescott

64. Life is trying things to see if they work
- Ray Bradbury

65. If you worry about yesterday's failures, then today's successes will be few.
- Anonymous

66. Life is 10% what happens to us and 90% how we react to it.
- Dennis P. Kimbro

67. We are all inventors, each sailing out on a voyage of discovery, guided each by a private chart, of which there is no duplicate. The world is all gates, all opportunities.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

68. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

69. In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.
- Thomas Jefferson

70. I think and think for months and years. Ninety-nine times, the conclusion is false. The hundredth time I am right.
- Albert Einstein

71. Where the willingness is great, the difficulties cannot be great.
- Machiavelli.

72. Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.
- Mahatma Gandhi

73. You are what you think about all day long.
- Dr. Robert Schuller

74. What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

75. Success is not to be measured by the position someone has reached in life, but the obstacles he has overcome while trying to succeed.
- Booker T. Washington

76. Talent is formed in solitude, character in the bustle of the world.
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

77. To avoid criticism do nothing, say nothing, be nothing.
- Elbert Hubbard

78. If you want to make your dreams come true, the first thing you have to do is wake up.
- J.M. Power

79. By working faithfully eight hours a day you may eventually get to be boss and work twelve hours a day
- Robert Frost

80. I've learned that no matter what happens, or how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow.
- Maya Angelou

81. The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.
- William James

82. When I hear somebody sigh, ‘Life is hard,' I am always tempted to ask, ‘Compared to what?'
- Sydney Harris

83. Don't let life discourage you; everyone who got where he is had to begin where he was.
- Richard L. Evans

84. In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: It goes on.
- Robert Frost

85. You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you stop to look fear in the face.
- Eleanor Roosevelt

86. Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.
- Seneca

87. Do first things first, and second things not at all.
- Peter Drucker.

88. The only people who find what they are looking for in life are the fault finders.
- Foster's Law

89. Defeat is not bitter unless you swallow it.
- Joe Clark

90. I am an optimist. It does not seem too much use being anything else.
- Winston Churchill

91. Positive anything is better than negative thinking.
- Elbert Hubbard

92. People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

93. Those who wish to sing, always find a song.
- Swedish Proverb

94. If you're going through hell, keep going.
- Winston Churchill

95. The sun shines and warms and lights us and we have no curiosity to know why this is so; but we ask the reason of all evil, of pain, and hunger, and mosquitoes and silly people.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

96. Life is a shipwreck but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats.
- Voltaire

97. Enduring habits I hate…. Yes, at the very bottom of my soul I feel grateful to all my misery and bouts of sickness and everything about me that is imperfect, because this sort of thing leaves me with a hundred backdoors through which I can escape from enduring habits.
- Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, 1882

98. There is no education like adversity.
- Disraeli

99. He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.
- Friedrich Nietzsche

100. Adversity introduces a man to himself.
- Author Unknown