Thereโs a certain sense of โbeing aliveโ that strikes you when you hear someone frame together words of wisdom that explain and express a certain feeling that torments you. You instantly feel a strong connection with that person for understanding what you feel and for putting it into words so that you can understand yourself better. Ultimately, you are relieved of the overwhelming burden of that certain feeling or emotion and you know for sure that you are not alone.
This is the beauty and power of words.
Proverbs, anecdotes, quips, riddles, excerpts, aphorisms, koans, snippets, lyrics, and limericks – you name it, I appreciate them all.
Quotes these days tend to catch a bad rep on the internet, due to certain popular quotes to be shared ad infinitum.
But this is a real shame and disappointment. Because if you really dig deep enough in the caverns of the internet, you can find a nearly infinite wellspring of mind-liberating, soul-vitalizing words of wisdom.
Now, donโt get me wrong, quotes can never be a replacement for reading entire books, intricate novels, and long-form essays. Absolutely no way.
But I believe that they can nonetheless deliver influential, pithy shots of insight, clarity, and vigor.
That being said, as a gift to you, we have assembled this list of 150 priceless jewels of thought, on everything ranging from love and suffering to mystery and happiness, to death and morality.
Make sure you marinate, contemplate, salivate, and above all, savor these words of wisdom as if they were intimate notes left personally to you by some of the greatest minds in history.
Because in fact, thatโs exactly what they are.
Related: Take these words of wisdom and apply them to the power of now to power through life. Here are 100+ Eckhart Tolleโs Quotes To Help You Power Through Life.
Here are 150 Words of Wisdom – For Life, Death and Everything In Between:
On Happiness
1. โWhat did you do as a child that made the hours pass like minutes? Herein lies the key to your earthly pursuits.โ
โ Carl Jung
2. โWhen you are content to be simply yourself and donโt compare or compete, everyone will respect you.โ
โ Lao Tzu
3. โContentment is natural wealth, luxury is artificial poverty.โ
โ Socrates
4. โMan only likes to count his troubles; he doesnโt calculate his happiness.โ
โ Fyodor Dostoyevsky
5. โHappiness consists in realizing it is all a great strange dream.โ
โ Jack Kerouac
6. โI have the true feeling of myself only when I am unbearably unhappy.โ
โ Franz Kafka
7. โIf you look for perfection, youโll never be content.โ
โ Leo Tolstoy
8. โAction may not always bring happiness, but there is no happiness without action. โ
โ William James
9. โThe notion that a human being should be constantly happy is a uniquely modern, uniquely American, uniquely destructive ideaโ
โ Andrew Weil
On Love
10. โThe truly faithless one is the one who makes love to only a fraction of you. And denies the rest.โ
โ Anaรฏs Nin
11. โLove one another but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.โ
โ Kahlil Gibran
12. โWhen you love someone, you love the person as they are, and not as youโd like them to be.โ
โ Leo Tolstoy
13. โLove doesnโt just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; remade all the time, made new.โ
โ Ursula K. Le Guin
14. โWe need, in love, to practice only this: letting each other go. For holding on comes easily; we do not need to learn it.โ
โ Rainer Maria Rilke
15. โBeing deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.โ
โ Lao Tzu
16. โWe were together. I forget the rest.โ
โ Walt Whitman
17. โLove is friendship set to music.โ
โ Jackson Pollock
18. โIntelligence is intuitive
you neednโt learn to love
unless youโve been taught
to fear and hateโ
โ Saul Williams
On Identity & Self-Actualization
19. “re what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.โ
โ Kurt Vonnegut
20. โThe privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.โ
โ C.G. Jung
21. โWe must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.โ
โ Joseph Campbell
22. โBecome what you are.โ
โ Friedrich Nietzsche
23. โWhat labels me, negates me.โ
โ Sรธren Kierkegaard
On Art
24. โWhat is important is to spread confusion, not eliminate it.โ
โ Salvador Dalรญ
25. โIrresponsibility is part of the pleasure of all art; it is the part the schools cannot recognize.โ
โ James Joyce
26. โArt and love are the same thing: Itโs the process of seeing yourself in things that are not you.โ
โ Chuck Klosterman
27. โOthers have seen what is and asked why. I have seen what could be and asked why not. โ
โ Pablo Picasso
28. โArt is anything you can get away with.โ
โ Marshall McLuhan
29. โI donโt believe in art. I believe in artists.โ
โ Marcel Duchamp
On Writing & Language
30. โIโd tell you all you want and more, if the sounds I made could be what you hear.โ
โ David Foster Wallace
31. โIf my poetry aims to achieve anything, itโs to deliver people from the limited ways in which they see and feel.โ
โ Jim Morrison
32. โAll you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.โ
โ Ernest Hemingway
33. โPoetry is the one place where people can speak their original human mind. It is the outlet for people to say in public what is known in private.โ
โ Allen Ginsberg
34. โMany a book is like a key to unknown chambers within the castle of oneโs own self.โ
โ Franz Kafka
35. โWords can be like X-rays if you use them properly โ theyโll go through anything. You read and youโre pierced.โ
โ Aldous Huxley
36. โPoetry is what gets lost in translation.โ
โ Robert Frost
37. โI have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.โ
โ Jorge Luis Borges
38. What I really wanted was every kind of life, and the writerโs life seemed the most inclusive.โ
โ Susan Sontag
39. โWords are never โonly words’; they matter because they define the contours of what we can do.โ
โ Slavoj ลฝiลพek
On Reading & Education
40. โRead a lot. Expect something big, something exalting or deepening from a book. No book is worth reading that isnโt worth re-reading.โ
โ Susan Sontag
41. โStudy hard what interests you the most in the most undisciplined, irreverent and original manner possible.โ
โ Richard P. Feynman
42. โIt is what you read when you donโt have to that determines what you will be when you canโt help it.โ
โ Oscar Wilde
43. โโฆ we should read for power. Man reading should be man intensely alive. The book should be a ball of light in oneโs hand.โ
โ Ezra Pound
On Truth & Wisdom
44. โNobody is smarter than you are. And what if they are? What good is their understanding doing you?โ
โ Terence McKenna
45. โI must find a truth that is true for me.โ
โ Sรธren Kierkegaard
46. โLearn what is to be taken seriously and laugh at the rest.โ
โ Hermann Hesse
47. โThe wisest of all, in my opinion, is he who can, if only once a month, call himself a fool โ a faculty unheard of nowadays.โ
โ Fyodor Dostoevsky
48. โTruth, she thought. As terrible as death. But harder to find.โ
โ Philip K. Dick
49. โI donโt believe anything, but I have many suspicions.โ
โ Robert Anton Wilson
50. โThe struggle between โforโ and โagainstโ is the mindโs worst disease.โ
โ Sent tsโan, c. 700 C. E.
51. โThe fundamental delusion of humanity is to suppose that I am here and you are out there.โ
โ Yasutani Roshi
On Music & Silence
52. โI want to sing like the birds sing, not worrying about who hears or what they think.โ
โ Rumi
53. โMusic expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent.โ
โ Victor Hugo
54. โThe only truth is music.โ
โ Jack Kerouac
55. โAfter silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.โ
โ Aldous Huxley
56. โSilence is only frightening to people who are compulsively verbalizing.โ
โ William S. Burroughs
57. โWhen you are Angry, Be Silent.โ
โ Bukhari
On Suffering
โMan suffers only because he takes seriously what the gods made for fun.โ
โ Alan W. Watts
โOut of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.โ
โ Kahlil Gibran
โWhat is hell? I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love.โ
โ Fyodor Dostoyevsky
โThe world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places.โ
โ Ernest Hemingway
On Dreams & Possibility
โBecause you are alive, everything is possible.โ
โ Thรญch Nhแบฅt Hแบกnh
โI love those who yearn for the impossible.โ
โ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
โIf I were to wish for anything, I should not wish for wealth and power, but for the passionate sense of the potential, for the eye which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible. Pleasure disappoints, possibility never. And what wine is so sparkling, what so fragrant, what so intoxicating, as possibility!โ
โ Sรธren Kierkegaard
โI dream. Sometimes I think thatโs the only right thing to do.โ
โ Haruki Murakami
โIt is not true that people stop pursuing dreams because they grow old, they grow old because they stop pursuing dreams.โ
โ Gabriel Garcรญยญa Mรกrquez
โHold fast to dreams,
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird,
That cannot fly.โ
โ Langston Hughes
On Change
โYou could not step twice into the same river.โ
โ Heraclitus
โLife is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Donโt resist them; that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality.โ
โ Lao Tzu
โLet everything happen to you
Beauty and terror
Just keep going
No feeling is finalโ
โ Rainer Maria Rilke
โThe only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.โ
โ Alan W. Watts
โA good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving.โ
โ Lao Tzu
โLifeโs under no obligation to give us what we expect.โ
โ Margaret Mitchell
On Zen & Taoism
โFlow with whatever may happen, and let your mind be free: Stay centered by accepting whatever you are doing. This is the ultimate.โ
โ Chuang Tzu
โYou can feel an emotion; just donโt think that itโs so important.โ
โ John Cage
โNo snowflake ever falls in the wrong place.โ
โ Zen Proverb
โSitting quietly, doing nothing, Spring comes and grass grows by itself.โ
โ Zenrin Kushรป
โThe instant you speak about a thing, you miss the mark.โ
โ Zen Proverb
โYou must let what happens happen. Everything must be equal in your eyes, good and evil, beautiful and ugly, foolish and wise.โ
โ Michael Ende
โWorry is preposterous; we donโt know enough to worry.โ
โ Wei Boyang
โIf you understand, things are just as they are; if you do not understand, things are just as they are.โ
โ Zen Proverb
On Mystery
โThe longer I live, the more uninformed I feel. Only the young have an explanation for everything.โ
โ Isabel Allende
โMysteries abound where most we seek for answers.โ
โ Ray Bradbury
โHe who does not answer the questions has passed the test.โ
โ Franz Kafka
โTalk of mysteries! โ Think of our life in nature, โ daily to be shown matter, to come in contact with it, โ rocks, trees, wind on our cheeks! The solid earth! The actual world! The common sense! Contact! Contact! Who are we? Where are we?
โ Henry David Thoreau
โThe frog in the pond knows little of the great ocean.โ
โ Zen Proverb
โAstonishment is the proper response to reality.โ
โ Terence McKenna
โLife is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.โ
โ Sรธren Kierkegaard
On Death
โLife is for the living.
Death is for the dead.
Let life be like music.
And death a note unsaid.โ
โ Langston Hughes
โAs I have not worried to be born, I do not worry to die.โ
โ Federico Garcรญa Lorca
โNobody owns life, but anyone who can pick up a frying pan owns death.โ
โ William S. Burroughs
On Freedom
โPeople demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.โ
โ Sรธren Kierkegaard
โNothing is more wonderful than the art of being free, but nothing is harder to learn how to use than freedom.โ
โ Alexis de Tocqueville
โLive, travel, adventure, bless, and donโt be sorry.โ
โ Jack Kerouac
On Nature
โThe clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.โ
โ John Muir
โTrees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth.โ
โ Hermann Hesse
โTrees are poems the earth writes upon the sky,
We fell them down and turn them into paper,
That we may record our emptiness.โ
โ Kahlil Gibran
โThe wise man knows that it is better to sit on the banks of a remote mountain stream than to be emperor of the whole world.โ
โ Zhuangzi
โNature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.โ
โ Lao Tzu
โWe are perishing for want of wonder, not for want of wonders.โ
โ G.K. Chesterton
โWe can never sneer at the stars, mock the dawn, or scoff at the totality of being.โ
โ Abraham Joshua Heschel
โConsistency is contrary to nature, contrary to life. The only completely consistent people are the dead.โ
โ Aldous Huxley
โA morning-glory at my window satisfies me more than the metaphysics of books.โ
โ Walt Whitman
โI believe in God, only I spell it Nature.โ
โ Frank Lloyd Wright
โThe earth has music for those who listen.โ
โ George Santayana
On Genius & Insanity
โIn individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.โ
โ Friedrich Nietzsche
โWe do not have to visit a madhouse to find disordered minds; our planet is the mental institution of the universe.โ
โ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
โGenius is the recovery of childhood at will.โ
โ Arthur Rimbaud
โWe are all geniuses up to the age of ten.โ
โ Aldous Huxley
On Meditation
โMake your ego porous. Will is of little importance, complaining is nothing, fame is nothing.โ
โ Rainer Maria Rilke
โYour mind will answer most questions if you learn to relax and wait for the answer.โ
โ William S. Burroughs
โMuddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone.โ
โ Alan W. Watts
On Religion & Morality
โIn reality there are as many religions as there are individuals.โ
โ Mahatma Gandhi
โNever let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right.โ
โ Isaac Asimov
โIt is not always the same thing to be a good man and a good citizen.โ
โ Aristotle
โThe books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.โ
โ Oscar Wilde
โRight or wrong, itโs very pleasant to break something from time to time.โ
โ Fyodor Dostoyevsky
โThere are no passengers on spaceship earth. We are all crew.โ
โ Marshall McLuhan
โDear future generations: Please accept our apologies. We were rolling drunk on petroleum.โ
โ Kurt Vonnegut
โImmorality, no less than morality, has at all times found support in religion.โ
โ Sigmund Freud
On Relationship & Friendship
โI have learned that to be with those I like is enough.โ
โ Walt Whitman
โIt is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.โ
โ Friedrich Nietzsche
โIf you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isnโt part of ourselves doesnโt disturb us.โ
โ Herman Hesse
โEverything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.โ
โ C.G. Jung
On Justice & Politics
โNever forget that justice is what love looks like in public.โ
โ Cornel West
โOne has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.โ
โ Martin Luther King Jr.
โHe who loves the world as his body may be entrusted with the empire.โ
โ Lao Tzu
โProtest beyond the law is not a departure from democracy; it is absolutely essential to it.โ
โ Howard Zinn
On Modern Life
โWe need way more intimacy than nearly anyone considers normal. Always hungry for it, we seek solace and sustenance in the closest available substitutes: television, shopping, pornography, conspicuous consumption โ anything to ease the hurt, to feel connected, or to project an image by which we might be seen and known, or at least see and know ourselves.โ
โ Charles Eisenstein
โWe live in a world where there is more and more information, and less and less meaning.โ
โ Jean Baudrillard
โEveryoneโs worried about stopping terrorism. Well, thereโs really an easy way: Stop participating in it.โ
โ Noam Chomsky
โIf you donโt have a strategy, youโre part of someone elseโs strategy. โ
โ Alvin Toffler
โAmericans may have no identity, but they do have wonderful teeth.โ
โ Jean Baudrillard
โWe in the richest societies have too many calories even as we starve for beautiful, fresh food; we have overlarge houses but lack spaces that truly embody our individuality and connectedness; media surround us everywhere while we starve for authentic communication. We are offered entertainment every second of the day but lack the chance to play. In the ubiquitous realm of money, we hunger for all that is intimate, personal, and unique.โ
โ Charles Eisenstein
On Compassion & Generosity
โThatโs what I consider true generosity: You give your all, and yet you always feel as if it costs you nothing.โ
โ Simone de Beauvoir
โNo one has ever become poor by giving.โ
โ Anne Frank
โThe greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.โ
โ Mahatma Gandhi
โOneโs life has value so long as one attributes value to the life of others, by means of love, friendship, and compassion.โ
โ Simone de Beauvoir
On Everything & Nothing
โDisillusionment in living is finding that no one can really ever be agreeing with you completely in anything.โ
โ Gertrude Stein
โMost of our ancestors were not perfect ladies and gentlemen. The majority of them werenโt even mammals.โ
โ Robert Anton Wilson
โI donโt necessarily agree with everything that I say.โ
โ Marshall McLuhan
โA serious and good philosophical work could be written consisting entirely of jokes.โ
โ Ludwig Wittgenstein
โIt is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody elseโs life with perfection.โ
โ The Bhagavad Gita
โPeople who deny the existence of dragons are often eaten by dragons. From within.โ
โ Ursula K. Le Guin
โI know there is no straight road
No straight road in this world
Only a giant labyrinth
Of intersecting crossroadsโ
โ Federico Garcia Lorca
โIโve often lost myself, in order to find the burn that keeps everything awakeโ
โ Federico Garcรญa Lorca
โThe menu is not the meal.โ
โ Alan W. Watts
โyou are not too old
and it is not too late
to dive into your increasing depths
where life calmly gives out
itโs own secretโ
โ Rainer Maria Rilke
โEvery society honors its live conformists and its dead troublemakers.โ
โ Marshall McLuhan
โYou have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.โ
โ Friedrich Nietzsche
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