Wise Quotes about Contemporaries

One way or another, we all have to find
what best fosters the flowering of our humanity
in this contemporary life,
and dedicate ourselves to that.
- Joseph Campbell

Everyone is a prisoner of his own experiences.
No one can eliminate prejudices -
just recognize them.
- Edward R. Murrow

To know yet to think that one does not know is best;
Not to know yet to think that one knows
will lead to difficulty.
- Lao Tzu

If you wait for opportunities to occur,
you will be one of the crowd.
- Edward de Bono

Majority rule only works if you're also
considering individual rights,
because you can't have five wolves and one sheep
voting on what to have for dinner.
- Larry Flynt

When written in Chinese, the word "crisis"
is composed of two characters.
One represents danger and the other represents opportunity.
- John F. Kennedy

One does not discover new lands without consenting
to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.
- Andre Gide

Take your life in your own hands, and what happens?
A terrible thing: no one to blame.
- Erica Jong

Fear defeats more people than
any other one thing in the world.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

The greatest mistake you can make in life
is to be continually fearing you will make one.
- Elbert Hubbard

No one was ever named "Hero" for following the crowd.
Heroes set their own course.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

One can never consent to creep when one feels the impulse to soar.
- Helen Keller

About most subjects, there is not "The Truth;"
there is merely one's personal truth.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying
about things which are beyond the power of our will.
- Epictetus

Money has never made man happy, nor will it,
there is nothing in its nature to produce happiness.
The more of it one has the more one wants.
- Benjamin Franklin

This isn't a rehearsal or a practice life.
This is your real life - your one and only real life.
There are no retakes - no second chances.
Begin now - live full out.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

No one ever found wisdom without also being a fool.
Writers, alas, have to be fools in public,
while the rest of the human race can cover its tracks.
- Erica Jong

Society is a masked ball,
where every one hides his real character,
and reveals it by hiding.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

The final delusion is the belief
that one has lost all delusions.
- Maurice Chapelain

The highest and most beautiful things in life
are not to be heard about, nor read about, nor seen but,
if one will, are to be lived.
- Soren Kierkegaard

Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another
as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.
- Thomas Jefferson

You can't have five wolves and one sheep
voting on what to have for dinner.
- Larry Flynt

The heresy of one age becomes the orthodoxy of the next.
Mere tolerance has given place to a sentiment of brotherhood
between sincere men of all denominations.
- Helen Keller

Wholeness is not achieved by cutting off
a portion of one's being,
but by integration of the contraries.
- Carl Jung

Never be fooled into believing that
there is one speck out of order.
- Byron Katie

Loving, hating, having expectations:
all these are attachments.
Attachment prevents the growth of one's true being.
- Lao Tzu

I am one with the Earth,
with the Water, with the Fire,
with the Air that I breathe,
with all Living Things,
and we are all one with Spirit.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

How is it that one rails against that
which is nearly a certainty?
- Mary Anne Radmacher

It is well to remember that the
entire population of the universe,
with one trifling exception, is composed of others.
- Andrew J. Holmes

The essence of all religions is one.
Only their approaches are different.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

The fox has many tricks.
The hedgehog has but one.
But that is the best of all.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

The mystery of the beginning
of all things is insoluble by us;
and I for one, must be content to remain an agnostic.
- Charles Darwin

To acquire knowledge, one must study;
but to acquire wisdom, one must observe.
- Marilyn vos Savant

There are as many pillows of illusion
as flakes in a snow-storm.
We wake from one dream into another dream.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Decide questions without regard for tradition -
one way or the other.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Friendship is born at that moment
when one person says to another,
"What! You too? I thought I was the only one."
- C. S. Lewis

The greatest hazard of all, losing one's self,
can occur very quietly in the world, as if it were nothing at all.
- Soren Kierkegaard

When I am getting ready to reason with a man,
I spend one-third of my time thinking about myself
and what I am going to say
and two-thirds about him and what he is going to say.
- Abraham Lincoln

Each one of us has our own perspective
on everything we see in life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

We should not moor a ship with one anchor,
or our life with one hope.
- Epictetus

Watch what people are cynical about,
and one can often discover what they lack.
- George S. Patton

The essence of being human is that one
does not seek perfection.
- George Orwell

Listen to all, plucking a feather
from every passing goose,
but, follow no one absolutely.
- Chinese Proverb

One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown
is the belief that one's work is terribly important.
- Bertrand Russell

There is only one time that is important - NOW!
It is the most important time because
it is the only time that we have any power.
- Leo Tolstoy

When angry, count to ten before you speak.
If very angry, count to one hundred.
- Thomas Jefferson

All progress is precarious, and the solution
of one problem brings us face to face with another problem.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

And now here is my secret, a very simple secret:
It is only with the heart that one can see rightly;
what is essential is invisible to the eye.
- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Neither should a ship rely on one small anchor,
nor should life rest on a single hope.
- Epictetus

Love one another but make not a bond of love.
Let it rather be a moving sea
between the shores of your souls.
- Khalil Gibran

We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men
who walked through the huts comforting others,
giving away their last piece of bread...
They offer sufficient proof that everything
can be taken from a man but one thing:
to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances,
to choose one's own way.
- Viktor E. Frankl

Whenever you're in conflict with someone,
there is one factor that can make the difference
between damaging your relationship and deepening it.
That factor is attitude.
- William James

Joy increases and suffering decreases
as one masters the distinction between events
and one's feelings about those events.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The Universe is one great kindergarten for man.
Everything that exists has brought
with it its own peculiar lesson.
- Orison Swett Marden

One cannot have a mind that is empty of all thoughts,
but one can have a mind that is content with
whatever thoughts fill it at the moment.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

We have two ears and one mouth so that
we can listen twice as much as we speak.
- Epictetus

True wisdom cannot be learned in a lifetime,
but can be revealed in a moment,
for it has always lived within each and every one of us.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

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Wisdom Quotes