The Quotes canon
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Browse all 10,075 quotes or apply filters in different categories to narrow your search.
Aristotle2 quotes
Neither by nature, then, nor contrary to nature do the virtues arise in us; rather we are adapted by nature to receive them, and are made perfect by habit. — Aristotle · 322 BCThe good of man is the active exercise of his soul's faculties in conformity with excellence or virtue... Moreover this activity must occupy a complete lifetime; for one swallow does not make spring, nor does one fine day; and similarly one day or a brief period of happiness does not make a man supremely blessed and happy. — Aristotle · 322 BCHenry David Thoreau2 quotes
It is never too late to give up our prejudices. — Henry David Thoreau · 1854I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor. — Henry David Thoreau · 1854Hermann Hesse2 quotes
If what matters in a person's existence is to accept the inevitable consciously, to taste the good and bad to the full and to make for oneself a more individual, unaccidental and inward destiny alongside one's external fate, then my life has been neither empty nor worthless. — Hermann Hesse · 1910No man has ever been entirely and completely himself. Yet each one strives to become that-one in an awkward, the other in a more intelligent way, each as best he can. — Hermann Hesse · 1919Oliver Wendell Holmes2 quotes
Every now and then a man's mind is stretched by a new idea or sensation, and never shrinks back to its former dimensions. — Oliver Wendell Holmes · 1831I find the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving. To reach the port of heaven, we must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it,—but we must sail, and not drift, nor lie at anchor. — Oliver Wendell Holmes · 1858Abraham Maslow1 quote
Growth was seen as an endless series of daily choices and decisions in each of which one can choose to go back toward safety or forward toward growth. Growth must be chosen again and again; fear must be overcome again and again. — Abraham Maslow · 1966Adam Smith1 quote
Never complain of that of which it is at all times in your power to rid yourself. — Adam Smith · 1759Albert Einstein1 quote
Try not to become a man of success but rather try to become a man of value. — Albert Einstein · 1955Alexander Pope1 quote
A man should never be ashamed to own he has been in the wrong, which is but saying, in other words, that he is wiser today than he was yesterday. — Alexander Pope · 1727Anri Sala1 quote
I believe that it's very important to experience a radical rupture, discontinuity or transformation of meaning during your life, but the earlier it happens the better. — Anri Sala · 2006Benjamin Franklin1 quote
How few there are who have courage enough to own their Faults, or resolution enough to mend them! — Benjamin Franklin · 1743Bob Wiley1 quote
Is this a breakthrough, that I'm a sailor? I sail? I sail now? — Bob Wiley · 1991Booker T. Washington1 quote
The best way to lift one's self up is to help someone else. — Booker T. Washington · 1900Carl Jung1 quote
If there is anything that we wish to change in the child, we should first examine it and see whether it is not something that could better be changed in ourselves. — Carl Jung · 1939Charles Baudelaire1 quote
There can be no progress (real, that is, moral) except in the individual and by the individual himself. — Charles Baudelaire · 1867Christopher Lasch1 quote
In a dying culture, narcissism appears to embody-in the guise of personal "growth" and "awareness"-the highest attainment of spiritual enlightenment. The custodians of culture hope, at bottom, merely to survive its collapse. — Christopher Lasch · 1979Confucius1 quote
Is Goodness indeed so far away? If we really wanted Goodness, we should find that it was at our very side. — Confucius · 221 BCDesmond Tutu1 quote
It is through weakness and vulnerability that most of us learn empathy and compassion and discover our soul. — Desmond Tutu · 2004Doug MacRay1 quote
No matter how much you change, you still have to pay the price for the things you've done. — Doug MacRay · 2010E.M. Forster1 quote
Of all means to regeneration Remorse is surely the most wasteful. It cuts away healthy tissues with the poisoned. It is a knife that probes far deeper than the evil. — E.M. Forster · 1910Edmund Waller1 quote
The soul's dark cottage, batter'd and decay'd,
Lets in new light through chinks that Time has made;
Stronger by weakness, wiser, men become
As they draw near to their eternal home.
Leaving the old; both worlds at once they view,
That stand upon the threshold of the new. — Edmund Waller · 1686Eleanor Roosevelt1 quote
Action brings with it its own courage, its own energy, a growth of self-confidence that can be acquired in no other way. — Eleanor Roosevelt · 1963Elizabeth Appell1 quote
And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. — Elizabeth Appell · 1979Ernesto Guevara de la Serna1 quote
Wandering around our America has changed me more than I thought. I am not me anymore, at least, I'm not the same me I was. — Ernesto Guevara de la Serna · 2004Francis Bacon1 quote
Prosperity doth best discover Vice; But Adversity doth best discover Vertue. — Francis Bacon · 1625Frank McKinney Hubbard1 quote
It's what we learn after we think we know it all that counts. — Frank McKinney Hubbard · 1913Henry Adams1 quote
All experience is an arch, to build upon. — Henry Adams · 1907Heraclitus1 quote
Everyone has the potential for self-knowledge and sound thinking. — HeraclitusJoan Didion1 quote
I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise, they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind's door at 4 a. M. Of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends. — Joan Didion · 1968Johann Wolfgang von Goethe1 quote
Let no one think that he can conquer the first impressions of his youth. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe · 1796John Milton1 quote
The childhood shows the man,
As morning shows the day. — John Milton · 1671