170 Of The Best Quotes Of All Time

By Maxime Lagacé

Maxime is the founder of WisdomQuotes. He has been collecting quotes since 2004. His goal? To help you develop a calm and peaceful mind. Learn more about him on his about page.

Please enjoy 170 of the best quotes of all time. These are my favorite ones in all wisdomquotes.com’s collection, the ones I will be sharing with my sons when they’ll be older. It covers topics like life, happiness, success, love, and lots more. Hope you’ll love them as much as I do.

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Be who you were created to be and you will set the world on fire. Catherine of Siena

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Take up the battle, take it up. It’s yours. This is your life, this is your world. Maya Angelou

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Doctors won’t make you healthy. Nutritionists won’t make you slim. Teachers won’t make you smart. Gurus won’t make you calm. Mentors won’t make you rich. Trainers won’t make you fit. Ultimately, you have to take responsibility. Save yourself. Naval Ravikant

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You will not get what you want, you will get what you need. Maxime Lagacé

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The future belongs to people who can think, hustle, and create. Ed Latimore

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The best fighter is never angry. Lao Tzu

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We have somehow conned ourselves into the notion that this moment is ordinary. Alan Watts

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Only that you do the right thing, nothing else matters. Marcus Aurelius

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All of us are alive because someone took care of us when we were small. Aaron Thier

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Life could be limitless joy, if we would only take it for what it is, in the way it is given to us. Leo Tolstoy

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Expect nothing. Live frugally on surprise. Alice Walker (Revolutionary Petunias)

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The greatest gift you ever give is your honest self. Fred Rogers

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Too many people believe that everything must be pleasurable in life, which makes them constantly search for distractions and short-circuits the learning process. Robert Greene (Mastery)

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The closer you are to the truth, the more silent you become inside. Naval Ravikant

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Understand: the future belongs to groups that are fluid, fast, and nonlinear. Robert Greene

See also: positive quotes, change and growth quotes, strength quotes

The Best Quotes Of All Time

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best quotes inspired minority triumphs over inert masses napoleon bonaparte wisdom people silhouette

The inspired minority triumphs over the inert masses. Napoleon Bonaparte

If you are always trying to be normal, you will never know how amazing you can be. Maya Angelou

What you are being challenged by may be the very thing you’ve been waiting for. Iyanla Vanzant

Extreme people get extreme results. Sam Altman

Never worry about being obsessive. I like obsessive people. Obsessive people make great art. Susan Sontag

Sing the song that only you can sing, write the book that only you can write, build the product that only you can build… live the life that only you can live. Naval Ravikant

One of the main reasons people fall short of their potential is they care more about looking good than getting better. Excellence is the product of high aspirations and low ego. Adam Grant

Our ambition should not be to win but to play with our full effort. Our intention is not to be thanked or recognized, but to help and to do what we think is right. Our focus is not on what happens to us but on how we respond. In this, we will find contentment and resilience. Ryan Holiday (Daily Stoic)

The only Zen you’ll find on mountain tops is the Zen you bring up there with you. Alan Watts

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Do what is right, not what is easy nor what is popular. Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)

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The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are. Joseph Campbell

You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think. Marcus Aurelius

A man when he has done a good act, does not call out for others to come and see, but he goes on to another act, as a vine goes on to produce again the grapes in season. Marcus Aurelius

It just seems clear to me that as long as we are all here, it’s pretty clear that the struggle is to share the planet, rather than divide it. Alice Walker

In the age of instant gratification, those who can endure discomfort are the most free. Alex Sauer

The mediocre man consumes. The ordinary man seeks. The great man creates. The superior man does the right thing. Maxime Lagacé

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The day a man becomes superior to pleasure, he will also be superior to pain. Seneca

As soon as we free ourselves from the mirage of hurrying time, we are alive again, as in childhood, to the ecstasies of ordinary life. Alan Watts

My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati: that one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely bear merely what is necessary, still less conceal it… but love it. Friedrich Nietzsche

He is the man who can have tragedy in his heart and comedy in his head. G.K. Chesterton (Tremendous Trifles)

Listening is where love begins: listening to ourselves and then to our neighbors. Fred Rogers

Our society is much more interested in information than wonder, in noise rather than silence… And I feel that we need a lot more wonder and a lot more silence in our lives. Fred Rogers

First stop lying, then start speaking the truth. Jordan Peterson

I only ask to be free, the butterflies are free. Charles Dickens

To be calm is the highest achievement of the self. Zen proverb (See also: zen quotes)

Part 2. The Best Quotes That Are…

The Most Famous Best Quotes (Nietzsche, Emerson, Keller, etc.)

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This is your life and it’s ending one minute at a time. Tyler Durden (Fight Club)

Love the sinner and hate the sin. Augustine of Hippo

You have power over your mind, not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength. Marcus Aurelius

My favorite things in life don’t cost any money. It’s really clear that the most precious resource we all have is time. Steve Jobs

Live your life as though your every act were to become a universal law. Immanuel Kant

I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble. Helen Keller

What I’m looking for is not out there, it is in me. Helen Keller

It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or by demons, heaven or hell. Buddha

Gossip dies when it reaches the ears of a wise and secure person. Wesley Snipes

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Only by saying no that you can concentrate on the things that are really important. Steve Jobs

You never really learn much from hearing yourself speak. George Clooney

You know what the issue is with this world? Everyone wants a magical solution to their problem, and everyone refuses to believe in magic. Alice in Wonderland

There is no hurry, and in a way there is no future. It is all here – so take it easy, take your time, and get acquainted with it. Alan Watts

The salvation of mankind depends upon independent thinkers directing their thoughts rightly. Ralph Waldo Emerson

If I’d followed all the rules, I’d never have gotten anywhere. Marilyn Monroe

You’re only given a little spark of madness; you mustn’t lose it. Robin Williams

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The Best Short Quotes

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One-liners, best short quotes, sayings, thoughts and captions for your bio, social status, self-talk, motto, mantra, signs, posters, wallpapers, backgrounds.
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A true man hates no one. Napoleon Bonaparte

Be uncommon. Michael Medici

Everything is my fault. Tom Bilyeu

Above all, try something. Franklin D. Roosevelt

Stay humble or be humbled. Unknown

It’s weird not to be weird. John Lennon

Beauty will save the world. Fyodor Dostoevsky (The Idiot)

Happiness is not the point. Mark Manson

The thing that doesn’t fit is the thing that is most interesting. Richard Feynman

Freedom lies in being bold. Robert Frost

Whatever you feel you become. Osho

Existence wants you to be you. Osho

Don’t explain your philosophy. Embody it. Epictetus

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Only the autodidacts are free. Nassim Nicholas Taleb

What worries you, masters you. John Locke

Great intellects are skeptical. Friedrich Nietzsche

I am responsible for what I see. Gabby Bernstein

Don’t settle, and don’t struggle. Naval Ravikant

Solitude is the school of genius. Edward Gibbon

The right time is always right now. Casey Neistat

Inner peace is the ultimate luxury. Carlos Del Valle

To understand is to know what to do. Ludwig Wittgenstein

The soul is awakened through service. Erica Jong

The things you own end up owning you. Chuck Palahniuk

Patience is the greatest of all virtues. Cato the Elder

Things worth having are worth waiting for. Paulo Coelho

The world just wants your authentic truth. Gabby Bernstein

The shadows are as important as the light. Charlotte Brontë

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Live the life you want other people to live. Naval Ravikant

The struggle ends when the gratitude begins. Neale Donald Walsch

Conquer yourself and the world lies at your feet. Augustine of Hippo

Be tolerant with others and strict with yourself. Marcus Aurelius

Getting over yourself offers exponential returns. Shane Parrish (See also: fs.blog if you want to become wiser)

Defensiveness is weakness. Vulnerability is strength. Justin Kan

I’m proud of you. I hope that you are proud of you too. Fred Rogers

Being poor is not having too little, it is wanting more. Seneca

Never lose hope, my heart. Miracles dwell in the invisible. Rumi

As far as your self-control goes, as far goes your freedom. Marie Von Ebner-Eschenbach

More short quotes

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The Best And Most Inspirational Quotes

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best quotes shut your eyes travel emily dickinson wisdom quotes

To shut your eyes is to travel. Emily Dickinson

What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make. Jane Goodall

Angels can fly because they can take themselves lightly. G.K. Chesterton (Orthodoxy)

There is no strength without adversity and no change without courage. Maya Angelou

A person is the product of their dreams. So make sure to dream great dreams. And then try to live your dream. Maya Angelou

Your greatest struggles become your greatest victories. Joe De Sana

The one thing that you have that nobody else has is you. Your voice, your mind, your story, your vision. So write and draw and build and play and dance and live as only you can. Neil Gaiman

Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can’t see from the center. Big, undreamed-of things – the people on the edge see them first. Kurt Vonnegut

What if people thought about their life not in terms of what they’ve accomplished or accumulated or experienced, but in terms of the effects they’ve had on others. Neil Strauss

Shoot for the top, always. You know you’ll never make it, but what’s the fun if you don’t shoot for the top? Ursula K. Le Guin

Look closely at the present you are constructing: it should look like the future you are dreaming. Alice Walker

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Great things are not accomplished by those who yield to trends and fads and popular opinion. Jack Kerouac

Get a move on…Don’t worry whether anyone will give you credit for it…Be satisfied with even the smallest progress, and treat the outcome of it all as unimportant. Marcus Aurelius

Don’t bend; don’t water it down; don’t try to make it logical; don’t edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly. Franz Kafka

As human beings, our job in life is to help people realize how rare and valuable each one of us really is, that each of us has something that no one else has – or ever will have – something inside that is unique to all time. It’s our job to encourage each other to discover that uniqueness and to provide ways of developing its expression. Fred Rogers

From the time you were very little, you’ve had people who have smiled you into smiling, people who have talked you into talking, sung you into singing, loved you into loving. Let’s take some time to think of those extra special people. Fred Rogers

If you have the courage to put your intellectual integrity before your reputation, nothing can break you. Nassim Nicholas Taleb

A man who really wants to be free has to accept immense responsibilities. He cannot dump his responsibilities on anybody else. Osho

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You create yourself moment to moment. You are not born as a fixed entity, but only as a infinite potentiality. Osho

You really can change the world if you care enough. Marian Wright Edelman

Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Stephen Hawking

What if everything you are going through is preparing you for what you asked for. Justin Perry

See also: patience quotes

The Best And Funniest Quotes

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best quotes heaven interesting people missing friedrich nietzsche wisdom group people silhouette

In heaven, all the interesting people are missing. Friedrich Nietzsche

If someone says you’re weird, say “thank you”. Ellen DeGeneres

You will never reach your destination if you stop and throw stones at every dog that barks. Winston Churchill

The cucumber is bitter? Then throw it out. There are brambles in the path? Then go around. That’s all you need to know. Marcus Aurelius

The public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything, except what is worth knowing. Oscar Wilde

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Rich people plan for three generations. Poor people plan for Saturday night. Gloria Steinem

Virtue is what you do when nobody is looking. The rest is marketing. Nassim Nicholas Taleb

I have great faith in fools – self-confidence my friends will call it. Edgar Allan Poe (Marginalia)

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The Best Deep Quotes

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best quotes see candles light must take into dark place ursula le guin wisdom

To see a candle’s light one must take it into a dark place. Ursula K. Le Guin

If you are living for the weekend you are already dead. Bill Masur

You wanna fly, you got to give up the shit that weighs you down. Toni Morrison (Song of Solomon)

Try to exclude the possibility of suffering which the order of nature and the existence of free wills involve, and you find that you have excluded life itself. C.S. Lewis (The Problem of Pain)

One of the most perilous illusions is that your real life has not yet begun, that your present existence is a mere prelude to some idyllic future. This idyll is a mirage that will fade as you approach, revealing the prelude you hurried through was in fact the one to your death. G.S. Bhogal (twitter.com)

Sometimes people don’t want to hear the truth because they don’t want their illusions destroyed. Friedrich Nietzsche

Cling to certainty, if it makes you feel better. Just be aware that what you’re clinging to is the opposite of life. Neil Strauss

The avoidance of suffering is a form of suffering. The avoidance of struggle is a struggle. Hiding what is shameful is itself a form of shame. Mark Manson (See also: pain quotes)

Not being able to govern events, I govern myself, and apply myself to them, if they will not apply themselves to me. Michel de Montaigne

The first and best victory is to conquer self. To be conquered by self is, of all things, the most shameful and objectionable. Plato

I will permit no man to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him. Booker T. Washington

You will continue to suffer if you have an emotional reaction to everything that is said to you. True power is sitting back and observing everything with logic. If words control you that means everyone else can control you. Breathe and allow things to pass. Bruce Lee (See also this article for source)

People are living just to impress. They must be really very poor inside, because only people suffering from inferiority complex want to impress others. A really superior person never compares himself with anybody else. Osho

Love the hand that fate deals you and play it as your own, for what could be more fitting? Marcus Aurelius

We spend far more time doing what’s easy than doing what’s right. Shane Parrish

Failure hurts but passes quickly. Regret hurts forever. Shane Parrish

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Anything of quality has gone through a distillation process. @AmuseChimp

If you are easily provoked you are easily controlled. The Stoic Emperor

Finding information is easier than ever. Filtering information is harder than ever. We are bombarded with irrelevant data and unsolicited stimulation. Choosing what to ignore is as important as choosing what to pay attention to. The Stoic Emperor

Stop following the crowd. They’re lost. Aaron Will (twitter.com)

It is a lot better to walk alone than with a crowd going in the wrong direction. Unknown

We are slaves to distraction, incessantly active, and are ever striving to become. Jiddu Krishnamurti

When the self is not occupied with its own becoming there is an unpremeditated clarity, a deep ecstasy. Jiddu Krishnamurti

It is preoccupation with possession, more than anything else, that prevents men from living freely and nobly. Bertrand Russell

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The things that we understand, create silence. The things that we do not, create emotion. Kapil Gupta

We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all we need to make us happy is something to be enthusiastic about. Charles Kingsley

Don’t feel entitled to anything you didn’t sweat and struggle for. Marian Wright Edelman

Take your life in your own hands, and what happens? A terrible thing: no one to blame. Erica Jong

There is no security for those who seek it outside of themselves. Byron Katie

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The Best And Wisest Quotes (Words of Wisdom)

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Hoping for the best, prepared for the worst, and unsurprised by anything in between. Maya Angelou

Don’t handicap your children by making their lives easy. Robert Heinlein

I want to age like sea glass. Smoothed by tides but not broken. I want my hard edges to soften. I want to ride the waves and go with the flow. I want to catch a wave and let it carry me to where I belong. I want to be picked up and held gently by those who delight in my well earned patina and appreciate the changes I went through to achieve that beauty. I want to enjoy the journey and always remember that if you give the ocean something breakable it will turn it into something beautiful. I want to age like sea glass. Unknown

One day, you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again. C.S. Lewis (The Chronicles of Narnia)

The person asking the questions is sometimes more valuable than the person providing the answers. Shane Parrish

You have to be willing to look like an idiot in the short term to look like a genius in the long term. Shane Parrish

The cleverest of all, in my opinion, is the man who calls himself a fool at least once a month. Fyodor Dostoevsky

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The most expensive way to pay for anything is with time. Brian Norgard

The modern mind is overstimulated and the modern body is understimulated and overfed. Meditation, exercise, and fasting restore an ancient balance. Naval Ravikant

The amateur avoids boredom, pain, discomfort, loneliness, fear. The wise keeps going no matter what. Maxime Lagacé

Do you wish to be great? Then begin by being. Do you desire to construct a vast and lofty fabric? Think first about the foundations of humility. The higher your structure is to be, the deeper must be its foundation. Augustine of Hippo

When you go through life with preferences but don’t let your happiness depend on any one of them, then you’re awake. Anthony de Mello

If a man can reduce his needs to zero, he is truly free: there is nothing that can be taken from him; nothing can hurt him. John Boyd

If you live according to nature, you will never be poor. If you live according to opinion, you will never be rich. Epicurus

What is rare is not raw talent, skill, or even confidence, but humility, diligence, and self-awareness. Ryan Holiday

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The stupider you are, the smarter you think you are, and vice versa. Richard Feynman

There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all. Peter F. Drucker

For water continually dropping will wear hard rocks hollow. Plutarch

He who subdues his temper vanquishes his greatest enemy. Publilius Syrus

Those who are wise won’t be busy, and those who are too busy can’t be wise. Lin Yutang

He who stands on tiptoe doesn’t stand firm. He who rushes ahead doesn’t go far. Lao Tzu

More wisdom quotes

Part 3. Conclusion

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One day, in retrospect, the years of struggle will strike you as the most beautiful. Sigmund Freud

My religion is to live and die without regret. Milarepa

The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit. Nelson Henderson

Call to action: Read The 10 Most Important Things to Simplify in Your Life

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Author Bio

maxime lagace

Maxime Lagacé started collecting quotes in 2004 after he lost his girlfriend in a car accident.

In search of meaning, he dived in the self-improvement world, psychology and trail running.

Books, blogs, quotes and nature became his guide.

He started journaling, reflecting, writing his thoughts, feelings and quotes.

His goal was to understand his pain, his depression, his fears, his lack of motivation and inspiration.

He finished his software engineering degree in 2007 at the École de Technologie Supérieure de Montréal.

A few years later, he started his first website to share his love of quotes.

Maxime is a father of two, husband, and INFJ.

Other notable interests of Maxime are health (mental and physical), meditation, bananas, SEO, human potential, and education.

You can find him on X, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube.

Last update

February 9, 2023

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