We feel better when we find ways to make other people feel better. Kindness towards others is like a sandwich that feeds two.

#962 · Mike Monteiro

If every time men had sex, they risked death, physical disability, a life-altering interruption in their education or career, and the sudden lifelong responsibility for another human being, I think they'd expect a choice in the matter.

#961 · Cher

If you're afraid that books might change someone's thinking, you're not afraid of books, you're afraid of thinking.

#960 · Andrea Junker

American leaders - eternally proving this place to be a land of cowards built by slaves on the bones of indigenous peoples.

#959 · Andrew Tanner

Nobody dies a virgin... Life fucks us all.

#957 · Kurt D. Cobain

O Lord, help me to be pure, but not yet.

#954 · Saint Augustine of Hippo

Faith is to believe what you do not yet see; the reward for this faith is to see what you believe.

#953 · Saint Augustine of Hippo

The World is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.

#952 · Saint Augustine of Hippo

The absolute yearning of one human body for another particular body and its indifference to substitutes is one of life's major mysteries.

#951 · Iris Murdoch

I think being a woman is like being Irish. Everyone says you're important and nice, but you take second place all the same.

#950 · Iris Murdoch

Every man needs two women: a quiet home-maker, and a thrilling nymph.

#949 · Iris Murdoch

We can only learn to love by loving.

#948 · Iris Murdoch

We live in a fantasy world, a world of illusion. The great task in life is to find reality.

#947 · Iris Murdoch

Love is the extremely difficult realisation that something other than oneself is real.

#946 · Iris Murdoch

If you can't fly then run, if you can't run then walk, if you can't walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.

#945 · Martin Luther King Jr.

It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences.

#944 · Audre Lorde

Love is the quality of attention we pay to things. Love is both the shrine and the idol.

#943 · J.D. McClatchy

I must be a mermaid, Rango. I have no fear of depths and a great fear of shallow living.

#942 · Anais Nin

If time travel is possible, where are the tourists from the future?

#941 · Stephen Hawking

I have noticed that even those who assert that everything is predestined and that we can change nothing about it still look both ways before they cross the street.

#940 · Stephen Hawking

Quiet people have the loudest minds.

#939 · Stephen Hawking

The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance. It is the illusion of knowledge.

#938 · Stephen Hawking

Nature creates few men brave, industry and training makes many.

#937 · Machiavelli

Everyone sees what you appear to be, few experience what you really are.

#936 · Machiavelli

There is little difference between obstacle and opportunity. The wise are able to turn both to their advantage.

#935 · Machiavelli

People love change when they know it is a good thing. No one gives back a winning lottery ticket. What people resist is not change per se, but loss.

#934 · Ronald A. Heifetz

Anthropologists say that in every culture in history, children have played the game hide and seek.

#933 · Rob Brezsny

Most of us can manage no more than a narrow little obsession with a particular human who we mistakenly imagine can satisfy our gargantuan yearning for the real, primordial thing.

#932 · Rob Brezsny

If you can see a thing whole… it seems that it’s always beautiful. Planets, lives... But close up, a world’s all dirt and rocks. And day to day, life’s a hard job, you get tired, you lose the pattern. You need distance, interval. The way to see how beautiful the earth is, is to see it as the moon. The way to see how beautiful life is, is from the vantage point of death.

#931 · Ursula K. Le Guin

Gravity pulls me to the future, bits of me falling off along the way. Each of us disappears into the mist of the possible. In our minds, time is gravity’s other side.

#930 · Michael Frame

What exists, exists so that it can be lost and become precious.

#929 · Lisel Mueller

If we take care of the moments, the years will take care of themselves.

#928 · Maria Edgeworth

Most people think their experiences show them who they are, not what they have chosen. They do not know they have the ability to shape their experiences like a potter shapes clay. You are the artist and you are also the art that is being created. You choose the colours, where to add and remove clay, and you determine whether the art will be dark and depressing or light and joyful. There is no limit to your creative capacity.

#927 · Gary Zukav

By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.

#926 · Confucius

For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them.

#925 · Aristotle

The moment you recognize what is beautiful in this world, you stop being a slave.

#924 · Muhammad Iqbal

Watch what you believe because your beliefs have a way of becoming your reality.

#923 · Frank Sonnenberg

If anybody here has trouble with the concept of design humility, reflect on this: it took us 5000 years to put wheels on our luggage.

#922 · William McDonough

If I only have a hammer, I treat all problems as though they were a nail.

#921 · Abraham Maslow

Any teacher who can be replaced by a machine, should be.

#920 · Arthur C. Clarke

Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather must recognize that it is he who is asked. In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life

#919 · Viktor E. Frankl

Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.

#918 · Viktor E. Frankl

Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.

#917 · Viktor E. Frankl

And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.

#916 · Friedrich Nietzsche

Give a man a mask, and he’ll show you his true face.

#915 · Oscar Wilde

“If there is a God, he will have to beg for my forgiveness.”

#914 · anonymous

No man ever listened himself out of a job.

#913 · Calvin Coolidge

If we judge ourselves only by our aspirations and everyone else only their conduct we shall soon reach a very false conclusion.

#912 · Calvin Coolidge

I have noticed that nothing I have never said ever did me any harm.

#909 · Calvin Coolidge

We cannot do everything at once, but we can do something at once.

#910 · Calvin Coolidge

I can be changed by what happens to me. But I refuse to be reduced by it.

#911 · Maya Angelou

Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can't ride you unless your back is bent.

#908 · Martin Luther King Jr.

We may have all come on different ships, but we're in the same boat now.

#907 · Martin Luther King Jr.

I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality... I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.

#906 · Martin Luther King Jr.

We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.

#905 · Martin Luther King Jr.

Do what you can, where you are, with what you have.

#904 · Theodore Roosevelt

Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.

#903 · Anais Nin

The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.

#902 · William James

The opposite of love is not hate; it’s indifference.

#901 · Elie Wiesel

If life were predictable it would cease to be life, and be without flavor.

#900 · Anna Eleanor Roosevelt

Don’t let your want replace your need, because a day will come when you will lose what you need to get what you want.

#899 · Najwa Zebian

The reality you live in is partially up to you. The fantasy you live in is entirely up to you.

#898 · Najwa Zebian

My heart aches in corners I did not know existed.

#897 · Najwa Zebian

We still think of a powerful man as a born leader and a powerful woman as an anomaly.

#896 · Margaret Atwood

Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.

#895 · Aristotle

Anxiety's like a rocking chair. It gives you something to do, but it doesn't get you very far.

#894 · Jodi Picoult

The great aim of education is not knowledge but action.

#893 · Herbert Spencer

The world was not big enough for Alexander the Great, but a coffin was.

#892 · Juvenal

You never know who’s swimming naked until the tide goes out.

#327 · Warren Buffett

Space I can recover. Time, never.

#881 · Napoleon Bonaparte

Better to trip with the feet than with the tongue.

#891 · zeno

Self-sufficiency is the greatest of all wealth.

#890 · Epicurus

The best revenge is not to be like that.

#889 · Marcus Aurelius

It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.

#888 · Epictetus

We must all either wear out or rust out, every one of us. My choice is to wear out.

#887 · Theodore Roosevelt

A man's desire is for the woman, but the woman's desire is rarely other than for the desire of the man.

#886 · Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Nothing is so contagious as enthusiasm.

#885 · Samuel Taylor Coleridge

In politics, what begins in fear usually ends in failure.

#884 · Samuel Taylor Coleridge

What is an epigram? A dwarfish whole. Its body brevity, and wit its soul.

#883 · Samuel Taylor Coleridge

To improve is to change, so to be perfect is to have changed often.

#882 · Winston Churchill

You either get bitter or you get better. It's that simple. You either take what has been dealt to you and allow it to make you a better person, or you allow it to tear you down. The choice does not belong to fate, it belongs to you.

#880 · Josh Shipp

When you don't create things, you become defined by your tastes rather than ability. Your tastes only narrow and exclude people. So create.

#879 · Why The Lucky Stiff

A man cannot directly choose his circumstances, but he can choose his thoughts, and so indirectly, yet surely, shape his circumstances.

#878 · James Allen

A bend in the road is not the end of the road…Unless you fail to make the turn.

#875 · Helen Keller

If you hide your ignorance, no one will hit you and you'll never learn.

#877 · Ray Bradbury

You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.

#876 · Ray Bradbury

The problem with quick and dirty, is that the dirty remains long after the quick has been forgotten.

#874 · Steve C. McConnell

When everything is coming your way, you’re in the wrong lane.

#873 · Stephen Wright

Support bacteria – they’re the only culture some people have.

#872 · Stephen Wright

In school, every period ends with a bell. Every sentence ends with a period. Every crime ends with a sentence.

#871 · Stephen Wright

I couldn’t repair your brakes, so I made your horn louder.

#870 · Stephen Wright

Experience is something you don’t get until just after you need it.

#869 · Stephen Wright

Dancing is a perpendicular expression of a horizontal desire.

#868 · Stephen Wright

Bills travel through the mail at twice the speed of checks.

#867 · Stephen Wright

A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.

#866 · Stephen Wright

Everywhere is walking distance if you have the time.

#865 · Stephen Wright

Without requirements or design, programming is the art of adding bugs to an empty text file.

#864 · Louis Srygley

Complaining is silly. Either act or forget.

#863 · Stefan Sagmeister

To find ideas, find problems. To find problems, talk to people.

#862 · Julie Zhuo

It does not make sense to hire smart people and then tell them what to do. We hire smart people to tell us what to do.

#861 · Steve Jobs

Leave it better than you found it.

#860 · Robert Baden-Powell

Guilt rarely results in positive behavior. But gratitude? Great things flow from a heart of gratitude.

#859 · Andy Stanley

It is when our hearts are stirred that we become most aware of what they contain.

#858 · Andy Stanley

Leaders who don't listen will eventually be surrounded by people who have nothing to say.

#857 · Andy Stanley

Standards are like toothbrushes, everybody agrees you should have one, but no one wants to use yours.

#856 · Joe Croser

L'arbre est devant la fenêtre du salon. Je l'interroge chaque matin: Quoi de neuf aujourd'hui? La réponse vient sans tarder, donnée par des centaines de feuilles: Tout.

#855 · Christian Bobin

A man can be destroyed but not defeated.

#854 · Ernest Hemingway

Live every day like it's your last.
One day, you'll be right.

#853 · Frank Sinatra

The system of nature, of which man is a part, tends to be self-balancing, self-adjusting, self-cleansing. Not so with technology.

#852 · Ernst Friedrich Schumacher

I, for one, hope that youth will again revolt and again demoralize the dead weight of conformity that now lies upon us.

#851 · Howard Mumford Jones

Ours is the age which is proud of machines that think and suspicious of men who try to.

#850 · Howard Mumford Jones

I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong.

#821 · Bertrand Russell

The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.

#820 · Bertrand Russell

Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness.

#819 · Bertrand Russell

Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.

#818 · Bertrand Russell

In the New Earth we are creating, we need lusty compassion and ecstatic duty, ingenious love and insurrectionary beauty. We need radical curiosity and reverent pranks, voracious listening and ferocious thanks.

#849 · Rob Brezsny

Never wrestle with a pig. You both get dirty and the pig enjoys it.

#848 · George Bernard Shaw

A true leader has the confidence to stand alone, the courage to make tough decisions, and the compassion to listen to the needs of others. He does not set out to be a leader, but becomes one by the equality of his actions and the integrity of his intent.

#847 · Douglas MacArthur

The time it takes to make a decision increases as the number of alternatives increases.

#846 · William Edmund Hick

In all beginnings dwells a Magic Force.

#845 · Herman Hesse

Science arose from poetry... When times change the two can meet again on a higher level as friends.

#844 · Johan Goethe

Modern man still is anxious and tempted to surrender his freedom to dictators of all kinds, or to lose it by transforming himself into a small cog in the machine, well fed, and well clothed, yet not a free man but an automaton.

#843 · Erich Fromm

The whole life of the individual is nothing but the process of giving birth to himself; indeed, we should be fully born, when we die.

#842 · Erich Fromm

Design to express, not to impress.

#841 · John Tanedo

Talent is helpful in writing, but guts are absolutely necessary.

#840 · Jessamyn West

A religious awakening which does not awaken the sleeper to love has roused him in vain.

#839 · Jessamyn West

Writing is a solitary occupation. Family, friends, and society are the natural enemies of the writer. He must be alone, uninterrupted, and slightly savage if he is to sustain and complete an undertaking.

#838 · Jessamyn West

Memory is a magnet. It will pull to it and hold only material nature has designed it to attract.

#837 · Jessamyn West

We want the facts to fit the preconceptions. When they don't it is easier to ignore the facts than to change the preconceptions.

#836 · Jessamyn West

A taste for irony has kept more hearts from breaking than a sense of humor, for it takes irony to appreciate the joke which is on oneself.

#835 · Jessamyn West

The past is really almost as much a work of the imagination as the future.

#834 · Jessamyn West

Confusion and clutter are the failure of design, not the attributes of information.

#833 · Edward Tufte

Don't live to make your presence noticed, live to make your absence felt.

#832 · Bob Marley

The best thing we can do for this planet is die.

#831 · Mike Monteiro

The best thing we can do for this planet is die.

#830 · Mike Monteiro

The best thing we can do for this planet is die.

#829 · Mike Monteiro

The world gives you so much pain and here you are making gold out of it.

#828 · Rupi Kaur

Loneliness is a sign you are in desperate need of yourself.

#827 · Rupi Kaur

When your work speaks for itself, don't interrupt.

#826 · Henry J Kaiser

These mountains you were carrying, you were only supposed to climb.

#825 · Najwa Zebian

Never wish them pain. That's not who you are. If they caused you pain, they must have pain inside. Wish them healing. That's what they need.

#824 · Najwa Zebian

People are made of stories. Our memories are not the impartial accumulation of every second we’ve lived; they’re the narrative that we assembled out of selected moments.

#823 · Ted Chiang

Four things do not come back: the spoken word, the sped arrow, the past life, and the neglected opportunity.

#822 · Ted Chiang

Only when I allowed myself to feel the emotions pent up for so long inside me did I start extricating myself from my own past.

#817 · Alice Miller

The value of an idea lies in the using of it.

#816 · Thomas Edison

We have art in order not to die of the truth.

#815 · Friedrich Nietzsche

You should always bear in mind that entropy is not on your side.

#814 · Elon Musk

You have to be odd to be number one.

#813 · Dr. Seuss

The object of the superior man is truth.

#812 · Confucius

Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.

#811 · Dale Carnegie

Learning never exhausts the mind.

#810 · Leonardo da Vinci

Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.

#809 · Ralph Waldo Emerson

Hard work spotlights the character of people: some turn up their sleeves, some turn up their noses, and some don't turn up at all.

#808 · Sam ewing

If opportunity doesn't knock, build a door.

#807 · Milton Berle

The mind that perceives the limitation is the limitation.

#784 · Siddartha Gautama Buddha

As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.

#783 · John F. Kennedy

Do not seek praise. Seek criticism.

#806 · Paul Arden

Keep your fears to yourself, but share your courage with others.

#805 · Robert Louis Stevenson

For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move.

#804 · Robert Louis Stevenson

Keep your eyes open to your mercies. The man who forgets to be thankful has fallen asleep in life.

#803 · Robert Louis Stevenson

Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but of playing a poor hand well.

#802 · Robert Louis Stevenson

Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.

#801 · Robert Louis Stevenson

After all these years, I have come to realise that I must go through a period of agony and torture before I have a breakthrough.

#800 · Hans Zimmer

Beauty and brains, pleasure and usability – they should go hand in hand.

#799 · Donald Norman

But for the poor of a country where corruption thieved a great deal of opportunity, corruption was one of the genuine opportunities that remained.

#798 · Katherine Boo

I tell Allah I love Him immensely, immensely. But I tell Him I cannot be better, because of how the world is.

#797 · Katherine Boo

What you don't want is always going to be with you.
What you want is never going to be with you.
Where you don't want to go, you have to go.
And the moment you think you're going to live more, you're going to die.

#796 · Katherine Boo

Much of what was said did not matter, and that much of what mattered could not be said.

#795 · Katherine Boo

Either you deal with what is the reality, or you can be sure that the reality is going to deal with you.

#794 · Alex Haley

Why should you believe your eyes? You were given eyes to see with, not to believe with. Your eyes can see the mirage, the hallucination as easily as the actual scenery.

#793 · Ward Moore

In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.

#792 · Martin Luther King Jr.

Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.

#791 · George Bernard Shaw

I'm not upset that you lied to me, I'm upset that from now on I can't believe you.

#790 · Friedrich Nietzsche

It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends.

#789 · JK Rowling

I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living.

#788 · Theodor Seuss Geisel

Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it's better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.

#787 · Marilyn Monroe

I believe that everything happens for a reason. People change so that you can learn to let go, things go wrong so that you appreciate them when they're right, you believe lies so you eventually learn to trust no one but yourself, and sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together.

#786 · Marilyn Monroe

Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.

#785 · Martin Luther King Jr.

Minds are simply what brains do.

#782 · Marvin Minsky

Within 10 years computers won't even keep us as pets.

#781 · Marvin Minsky

You don't understand anything until you learn it more than one way.

#780 · Marvin Minsky

The reason most kids don't like school is not that the work is too hard, but that it is utterly boring.

#779 · Seymour Papert

The goal is to teach in such a way as to produce the most learning from the least teaching.

#778 · Seymour Papert

The scandal of education is that every time you teach something, you deprive a [student] of the pleasure and benefit of discovery.

#777 · Seymour Papert

Always listen to experts. They'll tell you what can't be done, and why. Then do it.

#776 · Robert A. Heinlein

You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having both at once.

#775 · Robert A. Heinlein

Don't handicap your children by making their lives easy.

#774 · Robert A. Heinlein

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

#773 · Robert A. Heinlein

Happiness consists in getting enough sleep. Just that, nothing more.

#772 · Robert A. Heinlein

Everyone spoke of an information overload, but what there was in fact was a non-information overload.

#771 · Richard Saul Wurman

Anybody can become angry – that is easy, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way – that is not within everybody's power and is not easy.

#770 · Aristotle

Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won't either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness.
Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could.

#769 · Louise Erdrich

When we are young, the words are scattered all around us. As they are assembled by experience, so also are we, sentence by sentence, until the story takes shape.

#768 · Louise Erdrich

The most common user action on a website is to flee.

#767 · Edward Tufte

Most of us have jobs that are too small for our spirits.

#766 · Studs Terkel

I always love to quote Albert Einstein because nobody dares contradict him.

#765 · Studs Terkel

Work is about a search for daily meaning as well as daily bread, for recognition as well as cash, for astonishment rather than torpor; in short, for a sort of life rather than a Monday through Friday sort of dying.

#764 · Studs Terkel

Stop acting so small. You are the universe in ecstatic motion.

#763 · alal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi

Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.

#762 · alal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi

Death is not extinguishing the light; it is only putting out the lamp because the dawn has come.

#761 · Rabindranath Tagore

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