Top 100 great quotes and aphorisms edited for the world of English by Carl William Brown so that you can start caring a bit more about the struggle against human stupidity.
If moderation is a fault, then indifference is a crime.
Jack Kerouac
If a man isn’t willing to take some risk for his opinions, either his opinions are no good or he’s no good.
Ezra Pound
If you knew Time as well as I do, said the Hatter, you wouldn’t talk about wasting it. It’s him.
Lewis Caroll
A short saying often contains much wisdom.
Sophocles
No one is more hated than he who speaks the truth.
Plato
The greatest form of communication is listening.
Stephen Littleword
Any man can make mistakes, but only an idiot persists in his errors.
Marcus Tullio Cicero
First learn the meaning of what you say and then speak.
Epictetus
A thunderstorm was in our air; the nature that we are became dark – for we had no other way.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Go wisely and slowly. Those who rush stumble and fall.
William Shakespeare
No battle is ever won. They are not even fought. The field only reveals to man his own folly and despair, and victory is an illusion of fools.
William Faulkner
A man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams.
John Barrymore
Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted… but to weigh and consider.
Francis Bacon
Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws.
Plato
To study and not think is a waste. To think and not study is dangerous.
Confucius
Happiness is a choice that requires effort at times.
Aeschylus
Saying nothing sometimes says the most.
Emily Dickinson
Sometimes absence is more important than presence.
Carl William Brown
When stupidity is considered patriotism, it is unsafe to be intelligent.
Isaac Asimov
If people throw stones at you, don’t worry, and try to avoid being hitted, then collect them and build something new. In no case you should throw them back, think it over, a gun perhaps is better.
Carl William Brown
Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.
Rumi
Don’t go on discussing what a good person should be. Just be one.
Marcus Aurelius
He who cannot obey himself will be commanded. That is the nature of living creatures.
Friedrich Nietzsche
You can also commit injustice by doing nothing.
Marcus Aurelius
The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.
Plato
To burn with desire and keep quiet about it is the greatest punishment we can bring on ourselves.
Federico Garcia Lorca
Do not do to others what angers you if done to you by others.
Socrates
Knowledge is of no value unless you out it into practice.
Anton Chekhov
Never forget that intelligence rules the world and ignorance carries the burden. Therefore, remove yourself as far as possible from ignorance and seek as far as possible to be intelligent.
Marcus Garvey
Have more than you show, speak less than you know.
William Shakespeare
When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him.
Jonathan Swift
There is nothing more deleterious for the human society that minding only to your own business.
Carl William Brown
No one has ever become poor by giving.
Anne Frank
Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right.
Isaac Asimov
Open your mind before your mouth.
Aristophanes
In the small matters trust the mind, in the large ones the heart.
Sigmund Freud
A mind is like a parachute. It doesn’t work if it is not open.
Frank Zappa
Never follow a leader who is more in love with power than people.
Native American Proverb
Confucius used to say that “Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.”, but I think it’s better to start building a whole graveyard.
Carl William Brown
You spend most of your life inside your head, make it a good place to be.
Anonymous
Experience is the teacher of all things.
Julius Caesar
The measure of a man is what he does with power.
Plato
But if the universe doesn’t even know that you exist, you can imagine your situation in the pluriverse.
Carl William Brown
Freedom is the power to choose our own chains.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
My goal is not to be better than anyone else, but to be better than I used to be.
Wayne Dyer
No amount of anxiety makes any difference to anything that is going to happen.
Alan Watts
People will do anything, no matter how absurd, to avoid facing their own souls.
Carl Jung
A wise man fills his brain before emptying his mouth.
African proverb
Love of power, operating through greed, personal ambition and stupidity, is the source of all evils.
Carl William Brown
All you can lose by being real is something that’s fake.
Anonymous
Probably human cruelty is fixed and eternal. Only styles change.
Martin Amis
The best teachers are those who show you where to look, but don’t tell you what to see.
Alexandra K. Trenfor
Whenever anyone has offended me, I try to raise my soul so high that the offence cannot reach it.
Rene Descartes
Success is the ability to continue to move through total disaster.
Winston Churchill
Every word has consequences. Every silence, too.
Jean-Paul Sartre
Self-sufficiency is the greatest of all wealth.
Epicurus
The higher we soar the smaller we appear to those who cannot fly.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Good, better, best. Never let it rest. Until your good is better and your better is best.
Tim Duncan
From the errors of others, a wise man corrects his own.
Publilius Syrus
Rich people without wisdom and learning are but sheep with golden fleeces.
Solon
Don’t confuse power with leadership. The wise don’t need power to lead.
Tao Te Ching
Poor is the pupil who does not surpass his master.
Leonardo da Vinci
A mistake that makes you humble is better than an achievement that makes you arrogant.
Anonymous
They look for skeletons in your closet and they have a graveyard under the bed.
Carl William Brown
Difficulties strengthen the mind, as labor does the body.
Seneca
It is the duty of every man, as far as his ability extends, to detect and expose delusion and error.
Thomas Paine
It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.
Mark Twain
People who shine from within don’t need a spotlight.
Anonymous
It is easier for a man to burn down his house than to get rid of his prejudices.
Roger Bacon
Kindness doesn’t cost a thing, yet it’s the richest gift you can give.
Anonymous
Our life is what our thoughts make it.
Marcus Aurelius
No amount of evidence will ever persuade an idiot.
Mark Twain
Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darknesses of others.
Carl Jung
I don’t care who is doing better than me. I am doing better than I was last year. It’s me vs me.
Anonymous
The difference between a good life and a bad life is how well you walk through the fire.
Carl Jung
You can kïll a man but you can’t kïll an idea.
Sophocles
One loyal friend is worth ten thousand relatives.
Euripides
It is difficult to find happiness within oneself, but it is impossible to find it anywhere else.
Arthur Schopenhauer
You can fuck your whole life up just by hanging out with people with no goals or ambitions.
Anonymous
Knowledge is the food of the soul.
Plato
Those who plot the destruction of others often perish in the attempt.
Phaedrus
Where love rules, laws are not needed.
Annie Besant
Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.
Immanuel Kant
Courage is the commitment to begin without any guarantee of success.
Johann Goethe
All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusions is called a philospher.
Ambrose Bierce
The more unintelligent a man is, the less mysterious existence seems to him.
Arthur Schopenhauer
We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.
Anais Nin
Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
It is not death that a man should fear, but rather he should fear never beginning to live.
Marcus Aurelius
A high degree of intellect tends to make a man unsocial.
Arthur Schopenhauer
Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.
Seneca
Don’t live for your presence to be noticed, but for your absence to be felt.
Bob Marley
When you build in silence, people don’t know what to attack.
Anonymous
The whole world is a series of miracles, but we are so used to them we call them ordinary things.
Hans Christian Andersen
People do not decide their future, they decide their habits and their habits decide their future.
Matthias Alexander
Make your own rules or be a slave to another man.
William Blake
The hardest test in life is the patience to wait for the right moment.
Anonymous
The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.
Marcus Aurelius
Desire makes slaves out of kings, and patience makes kings out of slaves.
Al Ghazali
Don’t miss these other similar posts:
100 admirable quotes and aphorisms
100 wonderful quotes and aphorisms
100 magnificent quotes and aphorisms
100 brilliant quotes and aphorisms
100 famous quotes and aphorisms
100 golden quotes and aphorisms
100 memorable quotes and aphorisms
100 excellent quotes and aphorisms
100 super worthy quotes and aphorisms
Great and famous philosophy quotes
