In this posting you will find my selection of the very best 60 quotes, from nearly a decade of collecting them. They range from the profound to the intriguing to the just plain funny.
One way or the other, you’ll surely find many of them to be thought-provoking and entertaining.
This selection is, of course, based solely on my personal taste (and even that varies largely from day to day according to my mood). You are welcome to browse the entire collection and look for your own favorite ones or contribute new quotes from your own personal collection.
Wisdom Quotes
1. You can do anything, but not everything.
—David Allen
2. Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
3. The richest man is not he who has the most, but he who needs the least.
—Unknown Author
4. You miss 100 percent of the shots you never take.
—Wayne Gretzky
5. Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgement that something else is more important than fear.
—Ambrose Redmoon
6. You must be the change you wish to see in the world.
—Gandhi
7. When hungry, eat your rice; when tired, close your eyes. Fools may laugh at me, but wise men will know what I mean.
—Lin-Chi
8. The third-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the majority. The second-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the minority. The first-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking.
—A. A. Milne
9. To the man who only has a hammer, everything he encounters begins to look like a nail.
—Abraham Maslow
10. We are what we repeatedly do; excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.
—Aristotle
11. A wise man gets more use from his enemies than a fool from his friends.
—Baltasar Gracian
12. Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the men of old; seek what they sought.
—Basho
13. Watch your thoughts; they become words.
Watch your words; they become actions.
Watch your actions; they become habits.
Watch your habits; they become character.
Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.
—Lao-Tze
14. Everyone is a genius at least once a year. The real geniuses simply have their bright ideas closer together.
—Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
15. What we think, or what we know, or what we believe is, in the end, of little consequence. The only consequence is what we do.
—John Ruskin
16. The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new lands but seeing with new eyes.
—Marcel Proust
17. Work like you don’t need money, love like you’ve never been hurt, and dance like no one’s watching
—Unknown Author
18. Try a thing you haven’t done three times. Once, to get over the fear of doing it. Twice, to learn how to do it. And a third time, to figure out whether you like it or not.
—Virgil Garnett Thomson
19. Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.
—Will Rogers
20. People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing - that’s why we recommend it daily.
—Zig Ziglar
Funny Quotes
21. Before I got married I had six theories about bringing up children; now I have six children and no theories.
—John Wilmot
22. What the world needs is more geniuses with humility, there are so few of us left.
—Oscar Levant
23. Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.
—Oscar Wilde
24. I’ve gone into hundreds of [fortune-teller's parlors], and have been told thousands of things, but nobody ever told me I was a policewoman getting ready to arrest her.
—New York City detective
25. When you go into court you are putting your fate into the hands of twelve people who weren’t smart enough to get out of jury duty.
—Norm Crosby
26. Those who believe in telekinetics, raise my hand.
—Kurt Vonnegut
27. Just the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.
—Carl Sagan
28. My pessimism extends to the point of even suspecting the sincerity of the pessimists.
—Jean Rostand
29. Sometimes I worry about being a success in a mediocre world.
—Lily Tomlin
30. I quit therapy because my analyst was trying to help me behind my back.
—Richard Lewis
31. We’ve heard that a million monkeys at a million keyboards could produce the complete works of Shakespeare; now, thanks to the Internet, we know that is not true.
—Robert Wilensky
32. If there are no stupid questions, then what kind of questions do stupid people ask? Do they get smart just in time to ask questions?
—Scott Adams
33. If the lessons of history teach us anything it is that nobody learns the lessons that history teaches us.
—Anon
34. When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President. Now I’m beginning to believe it.
—Clarence Darrow
35. Laughing at our mistakes can lengthen our own life. Laughing at someone else’s can shorten it.
—Cullen Hightower
36. There are many who dare not kill themselves for fear of what the neighbors will say.
—Cyril Connolly
37. There’s so much comedy on television. Does that cause comedy in the streets?
—Dick Cavett
38. All men are frauds. The only difference between them is that some admit it. I myself deny it.
—H. L. Mencken
39. I don’t mind what Congress does, as long as they don’t do it in the streets and frighten the horses.
—Victor Hugo
40. I took a speed reading course and read ‘War and Peace’ in twenty minutes. It involves Russia.
—Woody Allen
Otherwise Intelligent Quotes
41. The person who reads too much and uses his brain too little will fall into lazy habits of thinking.
—Albert Einstein
42. Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it.
—André Gide
43. It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
—Aristotle
44. I’d rather live with a good question than a bad answer.
—Aryeh Frimer
45. We learn something every day, and lots of times it’s that what we learned the day before was wrong.
—Bill Vaughan
46. I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter.
—Blaise Pascal
47. Don’t ever wrestle with a pig. You’ll both get dirty, but the pig will enjoy it.
—Cale Yarborough
48. An inventor is simply a fellow who doesn’t take his education too seriously.
—Charles F. Kettering
49. Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamppost how it feels about dogs.
—Christopher Hampton
50. Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self.
—Cyril Connolly
51. Never be afraid to laugh at yourself, after all, you could be missing out on the joke of the century.
—Dame Edna Everage
52. I am patient with stupidity but not with those who are proud of it.
—Edith Sitwell
53. Normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work and driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for - in order to get to the job you need to pay for the clothes and the car, and the house you leave vacant all day so you can afford to live in it.
—Ellen Goodman
54. The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.
—Ellen Parr
55. Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn’t.
—Erica Jong
56. Some people like my advice so much that they frame it upon the wall instead of using it.
—Gordon R. Dickson
57. The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you’re still a rat.
—Lily Tomlin
58. Never ascribe to malice, that which can be explained by incompetence.
—Napoleon (Hanlon’s Razor)
59. Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he is not, and a sense of humor was provided to console him for what he is.
—Oscar Wilde
60. When a person can no longer laugh at himself, it is time for others to laugh at him.
—Thomas Szasz
Help! How to Better Manage my Unwieldy Collection of Quotes?
After I first published my favorite quotes collection (along with its companion article 5 Reasons to Collect Favorite Quotes), it grew faster than ever from 400 to over 500 quotes.
Nowadays, I’m much more demanding about which quotes to add to my collection. However — judging from the number of quotes I find on the web on a daily basis — I can only expect it to grow even faster than before.
Years ago, I faced the same situation with my browser bookmarks. Even being extremely conservative about adding them, after years they inevitably started adding up to the point of being unmanageable. Cleaning and categorizing those bookmarks was both time-consuming and inefficient.
The problem was eventually solved not by tidying them up regularly, but by the smart use of tagging and searching technology. Now my bookmarks are online at del.icio.us, tagged and fully searchable — and I still have ways to own the data. (Call me paranoid, but I don’t feel comfortable relying entirely on a third party to hold years of data, no matter how much I like their service.)
Now I feel I need a similar solution for my quotes — having a long flat list isn’t working very well anymore. At first, Quotiki seemed like a perfect fit. Unfortunately, however, there’s currently no way to export my quotes or otherwise retain ownership of the data.
So, here’s the question to my smart readers: How do you think I should go with my quotes collection? Do you have any suggestions of online services I can use and still retain my collection while making it more useful to myself and to others?
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In the old days this used to be called a “Commonplace Book”. I have a page for mine on my website, which takes care of the ‘online’ and ’searchable’ aspects of it.
You could set up a new account on Gmail, and send all your quotes to that account. There are ways to backup Gmail e-mails to your local e-mail client.
Or you could use a spreadsheet on Google docs, or store your quotes file on an online file vault.
Just some ideas …
best of luck
Stephan
Hey! Nice work here, loved all of them. I would only like to correct the author of quote number 13. Its author is not Frank Outlaw, as you mention, but rather Lao-Tze, the founder of Taoism. This quote can be found in the Tao-te-Ching, a 2500 year old book, which explains the principles behind Taoism.
Anyways, great post!
Nice collection. I enjoyed #5 and 3. I usually take the quotes and bookmark them on google. If you want your private collection, you can copy and paste them in an excel sheet, though it is cumbersome…But, it serves me.
thanks
Heartwalker
Nicolai: Thanks for the correction. Doing a little research, it seems indeed that — as his surname suggests — Mr. Outlaw is a fraud.
Check out this page: Who is Frank Outlaw?
I changed the author (both here and in the full collection page).
Thanks again!
Tim: I have a similar setup at my full collection page, but it doesn’t fit the bill anymore. I didn’t know it was called a “Commonplace Book”. Thanks for sharing.
Heartwalker: Thanks for the idea! I want to keep the process as streamlined as possible, but your idea sparked a new one: how about using Quotiki and bookmarking the page via Del.icio.us? Hummm… maybe… got to think a little more about that!
Stephan: Today I keep the file as an Excel spreadsheet and yes: moving it to a shared Google Spreadsheet may be a great improvement indeed!
That way I can have the database online, still have it in my own website (via embedding). It also allows me to make it “live”: no delay between adding quotes and users being able to see them (today I have to manually publish the spreadsheet every once in a while).
That doesn’t fix the “social” and “tagging” parts of the equation, but it’s an excellent improvement. Thanks again Stephan — I will definitely investigate it!
You readers are great! Keep the ideas flowing!
If you’re a Mac user, there’s a freeware app called iWisdom which makes for easy entry, categorization, and search of your quotes collection.
Try Google Notebook.
It will help you collect stuff from internet, which will be accessible from any computer as soon as you log into your account.
It has a search function.
It has share and publish functions, which I personally not used so I do not know how they work but it looked like these functions match your needs with quotes.
Thanks for the collection. I liked this page and Scrapbooked it.
I use NoteTab Light to keep track of quotes. It’s a freeware improvement on Notepad for windows. It has tabs, so it might be easy if you want to divide your quotes into categories.
I started collecting quotes about 6 weeks ago. I only have about a dozen or so quotes, so I don’t have to deal with the issues you’re having yet. But after reading your article, I realize that I should start organizing them by category now.
Thanks for the tips!
Great list, thanks. Posting at http://www.mofata.com
Hey, thanks a bunch for the quotes mate, really helpful. Back when I used to collect quotes to help me with character development that I modeled after famous personalities, it got so hectic to a point where I threw everything away and decided to start over. On the following attempt, I used Yoono. It’s not the best/quickest service in the world… But it was very helpful. You see, with Yoono, I just selected the text I wanted to keep, right clicked and chose the Yoono command, I forgot what it was called, which opened a pop up window where I’d quickly add tags, and often pictures/photos to accompany the quote, which was also very easy.. Anyway, check out Yoono. The quotes end up similar to separate blog posts, search-able by Tags and (I think) post words. Hope I’m any help. Cheers, thanks again for the quotes. ~Jade.
Ray Bayley: Thanks for the suggestion, but I’m a Windows user. Ideally, I should settle with an OS-agnostic solution. (Web based and exportable to open formats).
Mehmet and Jade : Thanks for the suggestions! I took a quick look at both Google Notebook and Yoono, and they both seem like nice solutions. Will investigate them further.
The question is: Do these apps allow me to retain ownership of the data (e.g. export)?
David: Yes, having your collection organized from the start will be well worth your time in the future. I’ve found, however, that attributing a single category to each quote might not be the ideal solution. As for me, I really need tagging to properly organize and find quotes — there are way too many quotes that are multifaceted — such as being both humorous and wise.
Ryan: Thanks for the link — I really appreciate it!
With Google Notebook you can export to Google Docs. I actually started to use it for my quotes last week. You can also sort by sections and use tags.
Try a tiddlywiki - http://www.tiddlywiki.com
Searchable and flexible with tagging capabilities. I collect poetry on one and, because of your post, am thinking about doing quotes on another.
You can keep a copy of the file on your computer and have an online version of it.
Eric: Wow, I have never heard about TiddlyWiki. It looks really, really promising. Giving it a quick look, it looks even better than Google Apps (not to mention geekier, yay!).
I wonder if it’s possible to create structured data, such as separating the data in fields, just like in a database. That would probably make it a no-brainer for me, not just for quotes but for many other things (I always try to keep the number of apps I use to a minimum).
I guess I have a lot to investigate and twiddle with. Thank you so much for letting me know about it!
evernote… usable on mac and window and let you clip from the internet and add from desktop and mobile too..
really neat and useful tool =)
you should try it
http://evernote.com/
cheers
Maria, I just signed up to the Evernote beta. It seems it will take a couple of days until they accept my registration — let’s wait. Thanks for the tip!
Great list
There is a freeware called “Zettelkasten” (German for box of notes - actually it’s a system developed by Luhmann, a philosopher), available here: http://zettelkasten.daniellued......php?abs=1
It doesn’t look good, but it’s really handy and does its job.
Great page you have here!
Enjoy it very much!
Thank you for the quotes; there are some gems indeed. I’d recommend EverNote too. Maybe Version 2.2 is still neater and better to organize, it’s more desktop bound, but you can open the backup in 3.0 and synchronize with your web account.
Have a good time! anette
Great list of quotes, thanks for putting them together and sharing here.
Wow! Excellent compilation of quotes… You’ve made a wise selection. Thanks for sharing.
Great list of quotes, Luciano!
The one that struck me most was this one:
To the man who only has a hammer, everything he encounters begins to look like a nail.
—Abraham Maslow
It made me think how important it is to broaden my mind so that I can approach the old in a new way, instead of approaching the new in an old way.
I’ve subscribed to this lovely blog. What a find!
cheers
Mary
not to loose quotes and keep them organized is a daunting task! have you ever tried a block of notes and a pencil? It worked magic for me.
Diego: Yes, pencil and paper have always that appealing “feel” (some don’t leave pen and paper for anything)… For me, however, it’s important to have it in a digital medium that I can easily share and reorganize them.
But hey, thanks for the suggestion — sometimes we overlook the simplest solutions, don’t we?
‘The emo must have killed himself….to get attention”-Sean Kinsella
So, here’s the question to my smart readers: How do you think I should go with my quotes collection? Do you have any suggestions of online services I can use and still retain my collection while making it more useful to myself and to others?
I vote for scripting it yourself. I’m disappointed with online services homogenizing everything. It just seems to sap creativity.
Thankyou very much for sharing these together, they are beautiful and great to read. I am glad I found this.