Philosophical Quotes

Welcome to these famous Philosophical Quotes about life from wise people of all times.

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The wise man does not lay up his own treasures.
The more he gives to others, the more he has for his own.
- Lao Tzu

It all depends on how we look at things, and not how they are in themselves.
- Carl Jung

There are no whole truths - All truths are half-truths.
- Alfred North Whitehead

Truth does not consist in minute accuracy of detail; but in conveying a right impression.
- Henry Alford

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.
- Aristotle

A man must be both stupid and uncharitable who believes there is no virtue or truth but on his own side.
- Joseph Addison

There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.
- Albert Einstein

Courage doesn't always roar.
Sometimes courage is the quiet voice
at the end of the day, saying,
"I will try again tomorrow."
- Mary Anne Radmacher

An eye for eye only ends up making the whole world blind.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

A 'No' uttered from deepest conviction is better and greater than a 'Yes' merely uttered to please, or what is worse, to avoid trouble.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

What we think, we become. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world.
- The Buddha

Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.
- The Buddha

The opposite of a fact is falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth.
- Niels Bohr

The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up.
- Mark Twain

Show up and choose to be present.
Pay attention to what has heart and meaning.
Tell the truth without blame or judgment.
Be open rather than attached to the outcome.
- Angeles Arrien

The very ink with which history is written is merely fluid prejudice.
- Mark Twain

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.
- Mark Twain

Nothing is softer or more flexible than water, yet nothing can resist it.
- Lao Tzu

Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it,
no matter if I have said it,
unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.
- The Buddha

Self-pity is our worst enemy and if we yield to it, we can never do anything wise in this world.
- Helen Keller

The mystery of life is not a problem to be solved but a reality to be experienced.
- Aart Van Der Leeuw

A wise man can learn more from a foolish question than a fool can learn from a wise answer.
- Bruce Lee

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence,
and toughness multiplies toughness,
in a descending spiral of destruction.
The chain reaction of evil must be broken,
or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.
- Martin Luther King Jr.

Do not mourn for the past, nor to worry about the future, but to live the present moment wisely and earnestly.
- The Buddha

The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance; the wise grows it under his feet.
- James Openheim

Excellence is the result of caring more than others think is wise,
risking more than others think is safe,
dreaming more than others think is practical,
and expecting more than others think is possible.
- Anonymous

Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions.
Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.
- Mark Twain

About Butterflies

There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it's going to be a butterfly.
- Richard Buckminster Fuller

The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.
- Rabindranath Tagore

'Just living is not enough,' said the butterfly, 'one must have sunshine, freedom and a little flower.'
- Hans Christian Anderson

What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly.
- Richard Bach

To know God, watch a butterfly return to the same tree - after a year and a thousand miles.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Famous Philosophical Quotes

As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of being.
- Carl Gustav Jung

All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.
- Galileo Galilei

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
- Mark Twain

Beauty is truth, truth beauty -- that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.
- John Keats

We must become the change we wish to see in the world.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.
- Mark Twain

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.
- Benjamin Franklin

He is richest who is content with the least, for content is the wealth of nature.
- Socrates

It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.
- Mark Twain

About Life

Life is without meaning.
You bring the meaning to it.
The meaning of life is whatever you ascribe it to be.
Being alive is the meaning.
- Joseph Campbell

Three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.
- Joseph Addison

Life's Tragedy is that we get old to soon and wise too late.
- Benjamin Franklin

Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn't.
- Erica Jong

Be not like the sugarcane - do not hold your sweetness inside.
Be like the fruit tree - be generous with your best.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie (inspired by Tagore)

It is a fool's prerogative to utter truths that no one else will speak.
- Neil Gaiman

Funny

Don't go around saying the world owes you a living;
the world owes you nothing; it was here first.
- Mark Twain

The only fool bigger than the person who knows it all is the person who argues with him.
- Stanislaw Jerszy Lec

The only thing to do with good advice is to pass it on. It is never of any use to oneself.
- Oscar Wilde

Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do.
- Benjamin Franklin

Life is like a sewer... what you get out of it depends on what you put into it.
- Tom Lehrer

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