It has been over a year since I published my collection of 60 very best quotes, and it still remains one of the most popular pages on this website. I thought it was time for a sequel, including great quotes that were left out of the first collection or have been recently discovered. Enjoy!
Wisdom and Inspirational Quotes
1. It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.
2. Eighty percent of success is showing up.
3. I respect faith, but doubt is what gets you an education.
4. The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance; it is the illusion of knowledge.
5. The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.
6. If you don’t make mistakes, you’re not working on hard enough problems. And that’s a big mistake.
7. You can never get enough of what you don’t really need.
8. Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
9. Do not confuse motion and progress. A rocking horse keeps moving but does not make any progress.
10. I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.
11. Tomorrow is often the busiest day of the week.
12. Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.
13. There is a great difference between worry and concern. A worried person sees a problem, and a concerned person solves a problem.
14. It is easier to fight for one’s principles than to live up to them.
15. I hear: I forget / I see: I remember / I do: I understand
16. Discipline is just choosing between what you want now and what you want most.
17. The very best thing you can do for the whole world is to make the most of yourself.
18. Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment.
19. When I do good, I feel good; when I do bad, I feel bad, and that is my religion.
20. Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.
Humor Quotes
21. If it weren’t for my lawyer, I’d still be in prison. It went a lot faster with two people digging.
22. Acquaintance, n.: A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to.
23. I like long walks, especially when they are taken by people who annoy me.
24. The difference between death and taxes is death doesn’t get worse every time Congress meets.
25. You know you’re getting old when you stop to tie your shoelaces and wonder what else you could do while you’re down there.
26. Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana.
27. Those are my principles. If you don’t like them I have others.
28. Somewhere on this globe, every ten seconds, there is a woman giving birth to a child. She must be found and stopped.
29. Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur. (Whatever is said in Latin sounds profound.)
30. The most remarkable thing about my mother is that for thirty years she served the family nothing but leftovers. The original meal has never been found.
31. The tooth fairy teaches children that they can sell body parts for money.
32. My friends tell me I have an intimacy problem. But they don’t really know me.
33. I don’t deserve this award, but I have arthritis and I don’t deserve that either.
34. I always wanted to be somebody, but now I realize I should have been more specific.
35. If God wanted us to fly, He would have given us tickets.
36. If I only had a little humility, I’d be perfect.
37. When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up reading.
38. The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.
39. Hofstadter’s Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter’s Law.
40. Honest criticism is hard to take, particularly from a relative, a friend, an acquaintance, or a stranger.
Otherwise Interesting Quotes
41. Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school.
42. Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon.
43. Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
44. A genius! For 37 years I’ve practised fourteen hours a day, and now they call me a genius!
45. There is nobody so irritating as somebody with less intelligence and more sense than we have.
46. The bad news is time flies. The good news is you’re the pilot.
47. The little I know I owe to my ignorance.
48. The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
49. In God we trust; all others bring data.
50. The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.
51. Never argue with a fool, onlookers may not be able to tell the difference.
52. My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular.
53. Simple, clear purpose and principles give rise to complex and intelligent behavior. Complex rules and regulations give rise to simple and stupid behavior.
54. Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.
55. In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.
56. The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.
57. Before you go and criticize the younger generation, just remember who raised them.
58. Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.
59. It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.
60. A conclusion is the place where you got tired thinking.
If you enjoyed this collection, check the original selection of 60 very best quotes or browse the full collection (which has just been updated with over 500 quotes).
What are you favorite ones out of the collection above? Do you have a favorite quote of yours that isn’t in this list? I’d love to hear in the comments!
I LOVE quotes and therefore I LOVE this post. Thanks so much for sharing these with us. They are awesome!
Nice collection of quotes. I really like the one about faith vs education and how education creates doubt.
“I respect faith, but doubt is what gets you an education.”
I think you misunderstood, its the other way around,
that doubt get you an education.
fx: if you doubt that the universe really was made by God, you will become curious=get an education.
really doubt is what created our society, if we all had blind faith in God, we wouldn’t be as informed as we are today, perhaps we wouldn’t even be able to read these quotes!
if anyone disagree, i’d love to discuss it:
thit.d.h@hotmail.com
it’s altogether very possible he was referring to more than one quote, but thanks for over-explaining.
Hey lucianop,
Please add these quotes too – Theses inspires me a lot ;-
1.I thinks, Therefor I am
– Descartes
2.If someone has done it – You can do it
If no one had done it – You must do it
– Japanese proverb
I have never heard that Japanese proverb — and I love it! Thanks for sharing — adding to my collection right away!
Heres one quote that always gave me hope, happiness, and success:
Fight with your head, think with your heart.
Quotes are like powerful mental seeds, once planted in the fertile soil of our minds they can continue to grow for years.
Great work Luciano ! Gotta make space for another bookmark in my bookmarks toolbar.
Having come back from some serious illnesses; heart transplant and stroke. I remember this one insprational quote that kept me going during my extensive recoveries.
Simply”, I’m looking forward to looking back on all of this.” and “Slow ans steady wins the race.” I am walking and talking to this day.
Great words of wisdom indeed.
L.
Hi Luciano: Love all these quotes. My favorite is this one: “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.” —Oscar Wilde
I’m going to steal some of your humorous quotes for my squidoo lens “Laughter Arsenal”.
I am also fond of quotes that are half-humorous/half-inspirational, and that one is a perfect example of that.
And yes, of course, feel free to steal the quotes — after all, I’ve been stealing them from a long time, haven’t I?
And, in case anyone is interested, here’s Marelisa’s Squidoo Lens link: Laughter Arsenal.
Luciano, I love these quotes! They gave me plenty of Twitter fodder (of course, with links to this post.) Keep ‘em coming!
those are good
i’ll have to share these with a friend of mine.
Gentle FYI…I think #8 is either Anthony Robbins or a Neuro Linguistic Programming(NLP) Pre-supposition?
warmly,
Nelson
Nelson, everyone,
Tracking down if quotes are correctly attributed is amazingly hard. I do my best to give proper credit, but sometimes quotes are so widely misattributed that is nearly impossible to track down the correct source. The problem is particularly bad when it comes to authority figures (especially Einstein).
If you or anyone can point me to a reliable source for disputing the quotes’ authors, let me know and I’ll be glad to investigate.
Luciano;
I’m a screenwriter/writer so I tend to see these all the time.
Anthony Robbins has this quote #8 in his book, Awaken The Giant Within.
warmly,
Nelson
I researched more and found a discussion on the origin of quote #8: Who is it that first said that…”, which lead me to the Wikiquote page that solves the mystery:
Rita Mae Brown, Sudden Death (Bantam Books, New York, 1983), p. 68.
I’m updating the post with the correct author. Thanks!
Insightful & Hilarious. Great roundup, Luciano
The one about criticizing today’s youth is by far the most factual quote in the lot. Kind of scary if you think about it. It is sort of like the government; don’t criticize them because you put them there in the first place.
Insightful quote by Picasso about computers, considering he died in 1973.
Yes, good point — that makes the quote even more beautiful, doesn’t it? Let’s just hope it’s not yet another widely-misattributed quote… I researched a bit more looking for evidence refuting this quote’s authorship, but couldn’t find any.
Computers have been around for years before he died…
I also have been devoted to quotes. Quotes generally can be very dull just because there are so many. Some are trite, stale, overlap or are reworded may different times. There are also some very wise words passed on down through many centuries. Some of these, if contemplated and fixed in the mind, can alter our lives in a very positive manner.
Nice topic. Nice Site Luciano
My Antidepressant: Accept yourself as you are. Accept others as they are.
Ken
Hey Luciano! I love your original quotes post, and I love this one as well. I have both bookmarked for reference in the future. Thanks for putting this together!
I would like to submit the following quote for consideration to be included. “Do not presume a degree of familiarity that is inappropriate to the nature of our aquaintance”.
Liked almost every single one, especially those on wisdom. My favorite quote of all is from the Moroccans: “He who has nothing to die for has nothing to live for.” Thanks for the great list!
Nice collections, I liked it, thank you
If only we could put an old man’s head on a youmg man’s shoulders
Hilarious quotes!
I would like to share with you few of my favourites quotes too:
1. As long as you live, keep learning how to live.
- Seneca
2. If a person is a fool and becomes motivated, he merely becomes a motivated fool – Unknown
3. He who has a why to live can bear with almost any how
- Victor Frankl
4. Circumstances do not make a person, they reveal him
- James Allen
An old Danish proverb – “Life is not holding a good hand; life is playing a poor hand well.”
“We are not humans having a spiritual experience, we are spirits having a human experience.” unknown (to me, anyway)
“It is better to keep your mouth shut and be thought
a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.” unknown (to me, anyway)
“Between two evils, I always pick the one I never tried before.”
Mae West
A few from my growing collection. Grazie, Luciano
the one about keeping quiet and being thought a fool is by Mark Twain (I love that one!)
I like the quotes “You should never ruin an apology with an excuse.”
-Unknown
“You can do something in an instant that can give you heartache for life.”
-Unknown
“You should always leave loved ones with loving words. It may be the last time you see them.”
Unknown
“Regardless of how hot and steamy a relationship is at first, the passion fades and there had better be something else to take its place.”
-Unknown
“Money is a lousy way of keeping score.”
-Unknown
“When you are angry,you have the right to be angry, but that doesn’t give you the right to be cruel.”
-Mark Tackett
“Just because someone doesn’t love you the way the way you want them to doesn’t mean they don’t love you with all they have.”
-Unknown
You can get by on charm for about twenty minuets, after that, you better know something.”
-Mark Tackett
Thanks for the great list. I like this quote from Adlai E. Stevenson Jr. best:
My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular.
Hi everyone, glad you enjoyed the quotes… I’m blown away by all the positive feedback!
I’d like to thank the many commenters for sharing some amazing quotes here in the comments! I’m adding many of them to my personal collection. If you have more, please keep them coming!
Faith is an oasis in the heart which will never be reached by the caravan of thinking ~ Kahlil Gibran
If we all told each other our sins, we would all laugh at one another for our lack of originality~ Kahlil Gibran
Civilization is the limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessities! ~ Mark Twain
The danger of an adventure is worth a thousand days of ease and comfort. ~ Paulo Coelho
I’m no wiser than the fool I was before. ~ Paulo Nutini
*your collection of quotations are spectacular..thanks for sharing!*
:”"NOTHING IS PERMANENT IN LIFE”":
am just amazed by this qoute..
it has a deep meaning…
btw–your qoutes are really very superb…i just feels like , they are for me..
Thankyou Luciano – you’ve made my day
So many of these are good it’s hard to pick even what would be my top five.
Here’s one I made up:
“Every generalization has exceptions – except this one.”
How about:
“No generalizations have exceptions — except this one.”?
How about…
All generalizations are false, including this one.
Where are the quotes from women?
Hi Prinsesse,
Here is a good one about women from Eleanor Roosevelt:
“A Woman is like a tea bag. You never know how strong she is
until she gets in hot water.”
Amazing collection Luciano! *thumbs up*
My favourite qoutes:
“When you come to the end of all the light you know, and it’s time to step into the darkness of the unknown, faith is knowing that one of two things shall happen: Either you will be given something solid to stand on or you will be taught to fly” -Edward Teller
“See that any time you feel pained or defeated, it is only because you insist on clinging to what doesn’t work. Dare to let go and you won’t lose a thing except for a punishing idea.” —Guy Finley
“Youth, like pristine glass, absorbs the prints of its handlers. Some parents smudge, others crack, a few shatter childhoods completely into jagged little pieces, beyond repair” -Mitch Albom
“If you don’t pursue what you think will be most meaningful, you will regret it. Life is long. There is always time for Plan B. But don’t begin with it.” — Drew Faust
“To be trusted is a greater compliment than to be loved” -George MacDonald.”
“Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.” C.S. lewis
…i think i should put a full stop now
Awesome quotes. Really helps to put a positive outlook on life.
8. Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
—Albert Einstein
Einstein never used Windows.
- Buggsy
Hahaha — thanks for the laugh, Buggsy!
good, but i didnt notice any quotes from a woman.
People call me feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat or a prostitute. – Rebacca West
Lacey, Prinsesse Hoppeline,
When selecting the quotes, I didn’t observe gender, race, nationality or any factor other than content of the quotes.
There should be some quotes from women in the full collection, though.
See my previous reply for a quote from Mae West.
“I am not afraid of storms for I am learning to sail my ship.” Louisa May Alcott
“What had long since come to my attention was that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them.
They went out and happened to things.” Elinor Smith – American Aviator
Scientists and Scholars alike spent thousands upon thousands of hours trying to figure out why one line in a flying-v formation of geese is almost always longer than the other, until they figured out that there were just more geese in that line, and that was all. Some people are just plain educated beyond their intelligence.
-Mark Tackett
From http://www.43folders.com
You eventually learn that priorities are like arms; if you think you have more than a couple, you are either lying or crazy.
Hank Hill – “With the joy of responsibility comes the burden of obligation.”
that’s my favorite
Great post. Mark Twain is a legend!
Wonderful quotes…enjoyed every one of them. I, too, chose as my favorite the one from Adlai Stevenson, Jr.
you all realize that these are quotations, not quotes, right?
Ponctuator, although English is not my native language, it seems that Merriam Websters define quote as:
1 a: to speak or write (a passage) from another usually with credit acknowledgment
that is consistent with the use here. Please clarify if I missed something.
My current short favorite humor quote….thanks Steven Wright.
“In the begining there was nothing, then it exploded.”
#57. “Before you go and criticize the younger generation, just remember who raised them.”
—Unknown Author
“Sweet! I’m a kid!”
-Jess Corgan
“Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment”
- Never gets old!
Oh, I love this list as much as your first one! My favorite of this list is #12. Do you have the wonderful quote from Colleen C. Barrett, “Work is either fun or drudgery. It depends on your attitude. I like fun.”
Your blog is so helpful and uplifting that I’ve added it to the Feed Your Good Dog blogroll. Those who come to our page looking to improve themselves and the world will find inspiration in your words. Thank you!
a great one from my Mother… I am not sure whether it is original or not but it measures well in life:
“make choices you can live with”
Please add this one too:
“We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.”
-Native American Song-
Thank you. BTW quotes you have written are great!
my favorite one …
Entrepreneurship is living a few years of your life like most people won’t, so that you can spend the rest of your life like most people can’t
— A student in Warren G. Tracy’s class, entrepreneur
Lovely! I like yours better than a similar one I know, but don’t know the author:
“Being an entrepreneur is working 12 hours a day for yourself so you don’t have to work 8 hours a day for someone else!”
Hey Luciano…fantastic collection. I love number 46 but all are fantastic! I’ve nabbed a few for my collection too!
Muchos gracias!
awesome awesome ….i realy got sumthing after reading it man..thnxxxxxxxx
my fav one is ….. An inventor is simply a fellow who doesn’t take his education too seriously
Sometimes the best quote is no quote at all.
“Sometimes the best quote is no quote at all.”
-G Phunk
Great collection by the way, out of all of the quote sites out there, your’s is the only one I bookmarked.
Ohh let em ad mines! You guys all know this quote.
Emancipate yourself from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our mind.
-Bob Marley
Great post!
öne of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries- A.A. Milne (1882-1956)
Gravity it’s not just a good idea its the law- NASA briefing slide ca. 2005
Love is a matter of chemistry, but sex is a matter of physics- Anonymous
Viewed from the summit of reason, all life looks like a malignant disease and the world like a madhouse- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)
Democracy is a process by which people have the free will to choose the person who will get the blame- Anonymous
and one that was told to me a long time ago by a street urchin reeking of booze: A drunk man’s words are a sober man’s thoughts.
“A drunk man’s words are a sober man’s thoughts.” i really love that quote, even if it isn’t from a very well known person, im glad u shared it =D
Ability is what you’re capable of doing.
Motivation determines what you do.
Attitude determines how well you do it.
Live your beliefs and you can turn the world around.
Hey i really like all these quotes. They make me think and i love how there are people that actually interested in finding out wat the minds of the most important people in our history think of.I really hope to see that bring more and hope to be reading them soon.
i just really love this quote. thanks. bor….
It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.
–Albert Einstein
love your list, very entertaining.
here are some more quotes from another Picasso/Einstein:
A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and gets to bed at night, and in between he does what he wants to do.
Bob Dylan
All I can do is be me, whoever that is.
Bob Dylan
All the truth in the world adds up to one big lie.
Bob Dylan
All this talk about equality. The only thing people really have in common is that they are all going to die.
Bob Dylan
I say there’re no depressed words just depressed minds.
Bob Dylan
Just because you like my stuff doesn’t mean I owe you anything.
Bob Dylan
br nh
“The reasonable man adapts himself to the conditions that surround him… The unreasonable man adapts surrounding conditions to himself… All progress depends on the unreasonable man.” ~ George Bernard Shaw
Life is what happens to you while your busy making other plans ~ Ben Harper
Our ability to live in peace w/ each other depends first and foremost on our ability to accept all that is different b/ween us ~ Idan Raichel
There are times when life presents many options, but to keep them all in existence is to do nothing ~ Unknown
The voice of life in me cannot reach the ear of life in you, but let us talk that may not be lonely ~ Kahlil Gibran
It is not true that people stop pursuing dreams b/c they grow old, they grow old b/c they stop pursuing dreams ~ Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dream. ~ Paulo Coelho
Luciano i love your collection of quotes my favourite one from your list is “I’m looking forward to looking back on all of this.”
here’s one i’d like to share: “Everything will be ok in the end, if its not ok then its not the end.” -Unknown Author (at least to me)
its not as complex like the quotes i’ve read here but its still inspiring to me =]
Great quotes! I especially like #41. Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school.
—Albert Einstein
Thank You for a great website!
“Why so they call it common sense, when it’s so rare”
you know your in love when you cant sleep because your reality is better than your dreams
) Dr. Suess
my best quote is “there is no remedy for love but to love more”.
“Common sense is not so common.”
-Voltaire
“Before you judge an enemy, walk a mile in his shoes. That way, you’re a mile away and you have his shoes.”
I found your blog on Google. I’ve bookmarked it and will watch out for your next blog post.
Truly Amazing quotes!
Here is my personal favorite, it relates to running at it’s extremely motivational and can be looked at with different perspectives in life.
”The only good race pace is a suicide pace, and today looks like a good day to die”- Steve Prefontaine.
”If someone is going to beat me, they are going to have to bleed to do it”- Steve Preofntaine
“Do not follow where the path leads, lead where the path follows” – Nicole Merrillees
I think this is a really good quote.
i would like to add one more to the list “Every moment is an experience.”
Hey… ppl and Luciano amzing collection… i jst read all the posts n i jst wanted to share the 1 i like the most im not sure bout who said it tho it goes somthign like-”Never argue with a foolish person,if yu do he will drag yu down to his level and then beat you experience”
and 1 more…-”never fight with a pig , if yu do both of yu will get dirty but the pig will enjoy it”
hope yu ppl liked them
Kaling Reddy
Man, every time I run across an Oscar Wilde quote, someone has picked a different one as their favorite ….. man was a machine for ace quotes. Groucho is also high on my list.
Nice list, thx.
These quotes are good. The quotes I need are the ones that symbolize growing up, and becoming a woman. I need a perfect quote by a woman to a woman. One that can make one cry, and love more. I need a quote for a speech to the best friend. not a best friend. THE best friend. and I need to make it perfect.
“Ignorance do not Justify Stupidity.”
F. E. A. R.
a v p e
l e p a
s t e l
e s a
r
i
n
g
“If you love life, then dont waster time, for time is what life is made up of” -Bruce Lee
“The foot feels the foot when it feels the ground” -Buddha
“Repetition is the father of learning” -Lil Wayne
“Even the sunshine burns is you get enough of it” – A.A.
“It is better to understand than to be understood” – A.A.
“Why become friends with those whom The Creator Lord Himself has misled” -Guru Gobind Singh Ji
“Dont gain the world and lose your soul. Wisdom is better than silver and gold” -Bob Marley
Just a couple to add to everyone’s collection
Thanks for the post
It seems that the formatting of the FEAR acronym got lost with the font formatting, so here it goes (now in the horizontal):
F.alse
E.vents
A.ppearing
R.real
Thank you and everybody for the all the recent contributions!
those were awesome!
those made me think.
me too started making some……..
Nice collection.
great work. continue…
Increadible collection of quotes =)
id like to add this quote
“fear is the absence of knowledge”
Very nice collection of quotes or even greath. Well done. Continu… Here is one: “Happiness cannot come from without. It must come from within. It is not what we see and touch or that which others do for us which makes us happy; it is that which we think and feel and do, first for the other fellow and then for ourselves.” Helen Keller
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” Arthur C. Clarke
“There is no problem so big that it cannot be resolved by the proper application of high explosives” Unknown
great collection
“Never stop smiling you never know who is going to fall in love with it” and “If i had 7 hours to cut a tree i would spend the first 5 sharpening my axe” good quotes