Over the years I’ve come across a lot a memorable quotes on many different topics. This is my humble collections, sorted into categories according to my own idea. Take a minute to read through this list. I’m certain you’ll find something of value here.
— Stijn Vogels

  1. Creativity & Life
  2. Politics & Leadership
  3. Society & Class
  4. Religion & Death
  5. War & Conflict
  6. Love
  7. Stijn Vogels
  8. Unsorted Quotes

Creativity & Life

Children painting
Painting is a great way for children to express themselves.
  1. Do one thing every day that scares you. (Eleanor Roosevelt)
  2. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. (Helen Keller)
  3. Dream as if you’ll live forever. Live as if you’ll die today. (James Dean)
  4. To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all. (Oscar Wilde)
  5. We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light. (Plato)
  6. You must be the change you want to see in the world. (Mahatma Gandhi)
  7. You are the storyteller of your own life, and you can create your own legend or not. (Isabel Allende)
  8. A year from now you may wish you had started today. (Karen Lamb)
  9. Two men looked out through prison bars… One saw mud, the other stars.
  10. Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone. (Picasso)
  11. Primitive life is very common and intelligent life is fairly rare. Some would say it has yet to occur on Earth. (Stephen Hawking)
  12. What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail? (Robert Schuller)
  13. Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people. (Admiral Hyman G. Rickover)
  14. Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. (Leonardo da Vinci)
  15. A goal without a plan is just a wish. (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
  16. Don’t worry baby. There should be sunshine after rain and love after pain. (Anonymous)
  17. Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. (Mark Twain)
  18. Be Who You Are and Say What You Feel Because Those Who Mind Don’t Matter and Those Who Matter Don’t Mind. (Dr. Seuss, originally by Bernard Baruch)
  19. For billions of years, since the outset of time, every single one of your ancestors survived, every single person on your mom’s and dad’s side successfully looked after and passed onto you life. (Anonymous)
  20. Take wrong turns. Talk to strangers. Open unmarked doors. And if you see a group of people in a field, go find out what they’re doing. Do things without always knowing how they’ll turn out. (XKCD 267)
  21. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. (Laozi)
  22. From a universal standpoint, there are always bigger and better things to worry about. (Albert Einstein)
  23. You have to take the good with the bad, smile with the sad.
    Love what you’ve got, and remember what you had.
    Learn to forgive, but never forget.
    Learn from your mistakes, but never regret.
    People change, things go wrong.
    Just remember life goes on.
  24. We know what we are, but not what we may be. (William Shakespeare)
  25. What gets us into trouble is not what we don’t know. It’s what we know for sure that just ain’t so. (Mark Twain)
  26. Luck is preparation meeting opportunity. (Adam Lyons)
  27. Any intelligent fool can make things better, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius, and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction. (Albert Einstein)
  28. The past is history. The future is a mystery. This moment is a gift. That’s why this moment is called the present. Enjoy it. (Allan Johnson)
  29. Success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan. (Anonymous)
  30. You can live to be a hundred if you give up all the things that make you want to live to be a hundred. (Woody Allen)
  31. If you want to travel fast, travel alone. If you want to travel far, travel together. (Africa proverb)
  32. The man is the head [of the family], but the woman is the neck. And she can turn the head any way she wants. (My Big Fat Greek Wedding)
  33. Most homes valued at over $250,000 have a library. That should tell us something. (Jim Rohn)
  34. To climb steep hills requires a slow pace at first. (William Shakespeare)
  35. The young do not know enough to be prudent, and therefore they attempt the impossible, and achieve it, generation after generation. (Pearl S. Buck)
  36. You can tell more about a person by what he says about others than you can by what others say about him. (Anonymous)
  37. Minds are like parachutes — they only function when open. (Thomas Dewar)
  38. Try not to become a man of success but a man of value. (Albert Einstein)
  39. The only way of finding the limits of the possible is by going beyond them into the impossible. (Arthur C. Clarke)
  40. A single conversation with a wise man is better than ten years of study. (Chinese proverb)
  41. We do not learn; and what we call learning is only a process of recollection. (Plato)
  42. The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources. (Albert Einstein)
  43. In order to succeed, your desire for success should be greater than your fear of failure. (Bill Cosby)
  44. When people see some things as beautiful, other things become ugly. When people see some things as good, other things become bad. (Laozi)
  45. Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others. (Jonathan Swift)
  46. When faced with two choices simply toss a coin. It works not because it settles the question for you, but because in that brief moment when the coin is in the air, you suddenly know what you are hoping for.
  47. If you love two people at the same time, choose the second one, because if you really loved the first one you wouldn’t have fallen for the second. (Johnny Depp)
  48. In the pursuit of knowledge, something is added every day. In the pursuit of enlightenment, something is dropped every day. (Laozi)
  49. Do not regret growing older. It is a privilege denied to many. (Anonymous)
  50. Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light. I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night. (Sarah Williams)
  51. If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants. (Isaac Newton)
  52. Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, champagne in one hand … strawberries in the other and screaming: “Woo Hoo! What a ride!” (Mavis Leyrer)
  53. If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough. (Albert Einstein)
  54. Quiet people have the loudest minds. (Stephen Hawking)
  55. We don’t know where we get our ideas from. What we do know is that we do not get them from our laptops. (John Cleese)
  56. Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid. (Albert Einstein)
  57. I am thankful to all those who said “no” to me. It is because of them I did it myself. (Albert Einstein)
  58. Give your children enough money to do something, but not enough to do nothing. (Anonymous)
  59. The worst part about being old is remembering you were young. (Alvin Straight)
  60. People are very open-minded about new things — as long as they’re exactly like the old ones. (Charles Kettering)
  61. We are what we frequently do. (Aristotle)
  62. Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans. (John Lennon)
  63. ‘Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. (Alfred, Lord Tennyson)
  64. No one remembers the nights they got enough sleep. (Detje Schoonjans) 1Niemand denkt ooit terug aan de nachten die zij geslapen heeft, wel aan de dagen die zij geleefd heeft.
  65. You can’t always get what you want. But if you try sometime, you just might find you get what you need. (The Rolling Stones)
  66. I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. (Maya Angelou)
  67. The best things in life are worth waiting for, fighting for, believing in, and just never letting go of.
  68. Life is not measured by the breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath.
  69. The most successful men in the end are those whose success is the result of steady accretion… It is the man who carefully advances step by step, with his mind becoming wider and wider — and progressively better able to grasp any theme or situation — persevering in what he knows to be practical, and concentrating his thought upon it, who is bound to succeed in the greatest degree. (Alexander Graham Bell)
  70. Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm. (Winston Churchill)
  71. The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather in a lack of will. (Vincent T. Lombardi)
  72. Character is like a tree and reputation like its shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing. (Abraham Lincoln)
  73. To the world, you may be just one person; but to one person, you may be the world. (Josephine Billings)
  74. All that we are is a result of what we have thought. (Buddha)
  75. Old friends pass away, new friends appear. It is just like the days. An old day passes, a new day arrives. The important thing is to make it meaningful: a meaningful friend — or a meaningful day. (Dalai Lama)
  76. Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life. (Confucious)
  77. Intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease only at death. (Albert Einstein)
  78. Life is ours to be spent, not to be saved. (D.H. Lawrence)
  79. Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself. (George Bernard Shaw)
  80. A women is like a tea bag. You only find out how strong she is when she gets into hot water. (Eleonor Roosevelt)
  81. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not lived at all. In which case, you’ve failed by default. (J. K. Rowling)
  82. I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn’t learn something from him. (Galileo Galilei)
  83. Curiosity about life in all of its aspects, I think, is still the secret of great creative people. (Leo Burnett)
  84. Love wholeheartedly, be surprised, give thanks and praise then you will discover the fullness of your life. (David Steindl-Rast)
  85. Finish each day before you begin the next, and interpose a solid wall of sleep between the two. This you cannot do without temperance. (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
  86. Breathe in experience, breathe out poetry. (Muriel Rukeyser)
  87. Don’t wish it were easier, wish you were better. (Jim Rohn)
  88. If you love life, don’t waste time, for time is what life is made up of. (Bruce Lee)
  89. Whatever is done for love always occurs beyond good and evil. (Friedrich Nietzsche)
  90. Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself and know that everything in this life has a purpose. (Elisabeth Kubler-Ross)
  91. We accept the love we think we deserve. (Stephen Chbosky)
  92. Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, but beautiful old people are works of art. (Eleanor Roosevelt)
  93. Life was mostly made up of things you couldn’t control, full of surprises, and they weren’t always good. Life wasn’t what you made it. You were what life made you. (Sara Zarr)
  94. Soul meets soul on lovers’ lips. (Percy Bysshe Shelley)
  95. A kiss that speaks volumes is rarely a first edition. (Clare Whiting)
  96. Kissing is a means of getting two people so close together that they can’t see anything wrong with each other. (Rene Yasenek)
  97. A kiss is a lovely trick designed by nature to stop speech when words become superfluous. (Ingrid Bergman)
  98. Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none. (William Shakespeare)
  99. If every word I said could make you laugh I’d talk forever. (Anonymous)
  100. If you go on vacation for one week, you’ll come back to two weeks of work. If you go on vacation for two weeks, you’ll come back to four weeks of work. If you go on vacation for three weeks, people seem to figure it out for themselves. (Paul Orfalea)
  101. A man without a goal is like a ship without a rudder. (Thomas Carlyle)
  102. There is properly no history; only biography. (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
  103. Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony. (Mahatma Gandhi)
  104. Life is really simple, but men insist on making it complicated. (Confucius)
  105. Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; but remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for. (Epicurus)
  106. It is not the years in your life, but the life in your years that counts. (Adlai Stevenson)
  107. Don’t worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. (Mary Schmich)
  108. We are face to face with our destiny and we must meet it with high and resolute courage. For us is the life of action, of strenuous performance of duty; let us live in the harness, striving mightily; let us rather run the risk of wearing out than rusting out. (Theodore Roosevelt)
  109. If you can’t handle me at my worst, then you don’t deserve me at my best. (Marilyn Monroe)
  110. It’s afterwards you realize that the feeling of happiness you had with a man didn’t necessarily prove that you loved him. (Marguerite Duras)
  111. L’amour c’est comme le vent, ça ce voit pas, ça ce sent. 2Telkens wanneer ik dit lees dan verschijnt er echt zo’n gigantische glimlach op mijn gezicht. :D
  112. To love someone is to see a miracle invisible to others. (Francois Mauriac)
  113. When the heart speaks, the mind finds it indecent to object. (Milan Kundera)
  114. One thing life has taught me: if you are interested, you never have to look for new interests. They come to you. When you are genuinely interested in one thing, it will always lead to something else. (Eleanor Roosevelt)
  115. Poverty of goods is easily cured; poverty of the mind is irreparable. (Michel Eyquem De Montaigne)
  116. Language is one of the fundamental principles of human understanding. It is the way we interact with each other and how we grasp the world we live in.
  117. Intelligence is the ability to avoid doing work, yet getting the work done. (Linus Torvalds)
  118. Seduce my mind and you can have my body. Find my soul and I’m yours forever. (Anonymous)
  119. A man can be beautiful physically, mentally, or personality wise. True beauty, though, is in the spirit. A genuine man who understands right and wrong, with a strong sense of self is beautiful. A man who can be compassionate and caring, but firm and wise. Someone who can do the right thing no matter who’s around to see it. Even if the deed is unseen and unrecognized. That is a beautiful man.
  120. One today is worth two tomorrows. (Benjamin Franklin)
  121. When women go wrong, men go right after them. (Mae West)
  122. I will love the light for it shows me the way, yet I will endure the darkness for it shows me the stars. (Og Mandino)
  123. Qui bene agit, bene agitur. 3Wie goed doet, goed ontmoet.
  124. Women are made to be loved, not understood. (Oscar Wilde)
  125. The older I get, the greater power I seem to have to help the world; I am like a snowball — the further I am rolled, the more I gain. (Susan B. Anthony)
  126. The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts. (Marcus Aurelius)
  127. If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign? (Albert Einstein) 4I don’t really agree with Einstein’s thesis that an empty desks indicates an ‘empty mind’. It may also represent an organised desk, belonging to an organised and efficient mind.
  128. The two most important days in your life are the day you are born, and the day you find out why. (Mark Twain)
  129. Selfishness not living your life as you wish. It is asking others to live their lives as you wish. (Oscar Wilde)
  130. Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful. (William Morris)
  131. If humanism were right in declaring that man is born only to be happy, he would not be born to die. Since his body is doomed to die, his task on earth evidently must be of a more spiritual nature. It cannot be unrestrained enjoyment of everyday life. It cannot be the search for the best ways to obtain material goods and then cheerfully get the most of them. It has to be the fulfillment of a permanent, earnest duty so that one’s life journey may become an experience of moral growth, so that one may leave life a better human being than one started it. (Aleksandr Solzjenitsyn)
  132. If only we could take “soulfies” with our cell phones, perhaps we might love each other for what’s on the inside, too. (Shakieb Orgunwall)
  133. Aristotle once said that wisdom (the ability to make good decisions) is a combination of experience plus reflection. The more time that you take to think about your experiences, the more vital lessons you will gain from them. (Brian Tracy)
  134. Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve. (Napoleon Hill)
  135. You can never cross the ocean until you have the courage to lose sight of the shore. (Christopher Columbus)
  136. The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why. (Mark Twain)
  137. Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage. (Anais Nin)
  138. The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today. (Franklin D. Roosevelt)
  139. Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it. (William Arthur Ward)
  140. Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing. (Benjamin Franklin)
  141. If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people or things. (Albert Einstein)
  142. All the problems of the world could be settled easily if men were only willing to think. (Thomas J. Watson)
  143. The best way to make your dreams come true is to wake up. (Paul Valery)
  144. Begin challenging your own assumptions. Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in a while, or the light won’t come in. (Alan Alda)
  145. If we did all the things we are capable of, we would literally astonish ourselves. (Thomas Edison)
  146. I don’t wait for moods. You accomplish nothing if you do that. Your mind must know it has got to get down to work. (Pearl Buck)
  147. So great has been the endurance, so incredible the achievement that, as long as the sun keeps a set course in heaven, it would be foolish to despair of the human race. (Ernest Woodward)
  148. If you can dream it, you can do it. Always remember this whole thing was started by a mouse. (Walt Disney)
  149. There is no passion to be found playing small, in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living. (Nelson Mandela)
  150. Start by doing what’s necessary; then do what’s possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible. (St. Francis of Assisi)
  151. Obstacles cannot crush me. Every obstacle yields to stern resolve. (Leonardo da Vinci)
  152. Today I will do what others won’t, so tomorrow I can accomplish what others can’t. (Jerry Rice)
  153. Character consists of what you do on the third and fourth tries. (James Michener)
  154. The most delightful surprise in life is to suddenly recognize your own worth. (Maxwell Maltz)
  155. Comfort, that stealthy thing that enters the house a guest, and then becomes a host, then a master. And then it becomes a tamer, and with a hook and whip it makes puppets of your larger desires. (Kahlil Gibran)
  156. Kind words do not cost much. They never blister the tongue or lips. They make other people good-natured. They also produce their own image on men’s souls, and a beautiful image it is. (Blaise Pascal)
  157. Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful. (Williams Morris)
  158. Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing. (Benjamin Franklin)
  159. As our island of knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance. (John Wheeler)
  160. Innovation often is the juxtaposition of two things that have not been combined before. (Martin Lindstrom)
  161. A problem well stated is a problem half-solved. (Charles Kettering)
  162. Success is getting what you want, happiness is wanting what you get. (W. P. Kinsella)
  163. The only place where success come before work is in the dictionary. (Vidal Sassoon)
  164. To thine own self be true, and then it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not be false to any man. (William Shakespeare)
  165. A man who dares to waste an hour of time has not discovered the value of his life. (Charles Darwin)
  166. Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness. (Martin Luther King, Jr.)
  167. First forget inspiration. Habit is more dependable. Habit will sustain you whether you’re inspired or not. Habit is persistence in practice. (Octavia Butler)
  168. When you do as everyone else does, don’t be surprised when you get what everyone else gets. (Peter Kaufman)
  169. There is nothing quite so useless as doing with great efficiency something that should not be done at all. (Peter Drucker)
  170. Before you speak, let your words pass through three gates: At the first gate, ask yourself “Is is true?” At the second gate ask, “Is it necessary?” At the third gate ask, “Is it kind?” (Rumi)
  171. We do not see things the way they are, we see them as we are. (Anaïs Nin)
  172. No subject is terrible if the story is true, if the prose is clean and honest, and if it affirms courage and grace under pressure. (Ernest Hemingway)
  173. Never give up on a dream just because of the time it will take to accomplish it. The time will pass anyway. (Earl Nightingale)
  174. Dedicating oneself to a great cause, taking responsibility and gaining self-knowledge is the essence of being human. […] A predatory capitalist’s truest enemy and humanity’s greatest ally is the self-educated individual who has read, understood, delays their gratification and walks around with their eyes wide open. (Four Horsemen)
  175. It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. (Aristotle)
  176. Have no fear of perfection — you’ll never reach it. (Salvador Dali)
  177. You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have. (Maya Angelou)
  178. The public is more familiar with bad design than good design. It is, in effect, conditioned to prefer bad design, because that is what it lives with. The new becomes threatening, the old reassuring. (Paul Rand)
  179. Every fact of science was once damned. Every invention was considered impossible. Every discovery was a nervous shock to some orthodoxy. Every artistic innovation was denounced as fraud and folly. We would own no more, know no more, and be no more than the first apelike hominids if it were not for the rebellious, the recalcitrant, and the intransigent. (Robert Anton Wilson)
  180. A stupid decision that works out well becomes a brilliant decision in hindsight. (Daniel Kahneman)
  181. All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds, wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act on their dreams with open eyes, to make them possible. (T. E. Lawrence)
  182. Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value. (Albert Einstein)
  183. Life isn’t about getting and having, it’s about giving and being. (Kevin Kruse)
  184. Certain things catch your eye, but pursue only those that capture the heart. (Ancient Indian Proverb)
  185. There are no traffic jams along the extra mile. (Roger Staubach)
  186. Nothing is impossible, the word itself says, “I’m possible!” (Audrey Hepburn)
  187. Ideas exist like fish. If you sit quietly like you’re fishing, you will catch ideas. The real beautiful big ideas swim deep down there, so you have to be very quiet and wait for them to come along. (David Lynch)
  188. Have no fear of perfection. You will never reach it. (Salvador Dali)
  189. Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself. (Rumi)
  190. If a man has a lot to do, nothing is more precious than time. (Quintus Sertorius)
  191. You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the levels of your systems. (James Clear)
  192. I am a citizen of the world, and everyone in the world is related to me. (Kaniyan Pungundranar)
  193. Art is never finished, only abandoned. (Leonardo da Vinci)
  194. Our creatures are our thoughts, creatures that are born giants; that reach from east to west, from earth to heaven; that do not only bestride all the sea and land, but span the sun and firmament at once; my thoughts reach all, comprehend all. (John Donne)
  195. I don’t believe in astrology; I’m a Sagittarius, and we’re skeptical. (Arthur C. Clarke)

Politics & Leadership

Napoleon Bonaparte
Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821)
  1. A leader is a dealer in hope. (Napoleon)
  2. All this will not be finished in the first one hundred days. Nor will it be finished in the first one thousand days, nor in the life of this Administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin. (John F. Kennedy)
  3. The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil, is for good men to do nothing. (Edmund Burke)
  4. The fly sat upon the axle-tree of the chariot wheel and said, “What a dust do I raise!” (Aesop)
  5. It is easy to be brave from a safe distance. (Aesop)
  6. We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office. (Aesop)
  7. In our every deliberation, we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations. (Great Law of the Iroquois)
  8. There is a tide in the affairs of men. (Julius Caesar)
  9. The truth is treason in the Empire of Lies. (Ron Paul)
  10. One should not focus on the differences between people but look for commonality and similarity. (Theodore Levitt)
  11. The best minds are not in government. If any were, business would steal them away. (Ronald Reagan)
  12. Superficial goals lead to superficial results. (Attila the Hun)
  13. Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfils the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things. (Winston Churchill)
  14. Honor is doing the right thing, even when nobody is looking. (Anonymous)
  15. If a man is to shed the light of the Sun upon other men, he must first of all have it within himself. (Romain Rolland)
  16. Civil disobedience, that’s not our problem. Our problem is that people are obedient all over the world in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war, and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves, and all the while the grand thieves are running the country. That’s our problem. (Howard Zinn)
  17. Man is free at the instant he wants to be. (Voltaire)
  18. Great ideas alter the power balance in relationships. That’s why great ideas are initially resisted. (Hugh MacLeod)
  19. People ask the difference between a leader and a boss. The leader works in the open, and the boss in covert. (Theodore Roosevelt)
  20. A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves. (Laozi)
  21. If I advance, follow me! If I retreat, kill me! If I die, avenge me! (Francois De La Rochefoucauld)
  22. No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself, or to get all the credit for doing it. (Andrew Carnegie)
  23. A group becomes a team when all members are sure enough of themselves and their contributions to praise the skill of others. (Norman Shidle)
  24. Leaders aren’t born, they are made. And they are made just like anything else, through hard work. (Vince Lombardi)
  25. He who has never learned to obey cannot be a good commander. (Aristoteles)
  26. A good objective of leadership is to help those who are doing poorly to do well and to help those who are doing well to do even better. (Jim Rohn)
  27. Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber. (Plato)
  28. Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge. (Isaac Asimov)
  29. Never play with the feelings of others. You may win the game, but lose the person. (William Shakespeare)
  30. The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong. (Gandhi)
  31. It is very easy to defeat someone, but it is very hard to win someone. (Abdul Kalaam)
  32. The man of wisdom is never of two minds; the man of benevolence never worries; the man of courage is never afraid. (Confucius)
  33. I’m afraid we have become a nation of plodders, who feel that all problems can be found in books and that the answers are on a certain page. (Clarence Linder)
  34. The superior man is the providence of the inferior. He is the eyes for the blind, strength for the weak, and a shield for the defenceless. (Robert Green Ingersoll)
  35. The temptation to form premature theories upon insufficient data is the bane of our profession. (Sherlock Holmes)
  36. If you are never scared, embarrassed, or hurt, it means you never take chances. (Julia Soul)
  37. If one is strong be also merciful, so that one’s neighbours may respect one rather than fear one. (Chilon of Sparta)
  38. None of us is as smart as all of us. (Erich Schmidt)
  39. The best thing to give to your enemy is forgiveness; to an opponent, tolerance; to a friend, your heart; to your child, a good example; to a father, deference; to your mother, conduct that will make her proud of you; to yourself, respect; to all men, charity. (Francis Maitland Balfour)
  40. Try not to become a man of success. Rather become a man of value. (Albert Einstein)
  41. Most of us, swimming against the tides of trouble the world knows nothing about, need only a bit of praise or encouragement — and we will make the goal. (Jerome P. Fleishman)
  42. The way for a young man to rise is to improve himself in every way he can, never suspecting that anybody wishes to hinder him. (Abraham Lincoln)
  43. When wealth is lost, nothing is lost; when health is lost, something is lost; when character is lost, all is lost. (Billy Graham)
  44. You can’t help someone get up a hill without getting closer to the top yourself. (H. Norman Schwarzkopf)
  45. He who reigns within himself and rules his passions, desires, and fears is more than a king. (John Milton)
  46. You are who you are in the darkness. (Birdslug)
  47. Three-fourths of the people you will ever meet are hungering and thirsting for sympathy. Give it to them, and they will love you. (Carnegie)
  48. Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive. (Howard Thurman)
  49. He who fails to plan, plans to fail. (Winston Churchill)
  50. When your enemy is doing something wrong, do not interrupt him. (Napoleon)
  51. Audentis Fortuna iuvat. Fortune favours the bold. (Publius Terentius Afer)
  52. Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed. Everything else is public relations. (George Orwell)
  53. The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any. (Alice Walker)
  54. Circumstances do not make the man; they merely reveal himself to himself. (Epictetus)
  55. Responsibilities gravitate to the person who can shoulder them; power flows to the man who knows how. (Elbert Hubbard)
  56. The price of greatness is responsibility. (Winston Churchill)
  57. Accept the challenges so that you may feel the exhilaration of victory. (George Patton)
  58. Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from indomitable will. (Mahatma Gandhi)
  59. People do not decide to become extraordinary. They decide to accomplish extraordinary things. (Sir Edmund Hilary)
  60. There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self. (Ernest Hemingway)
  61. The drying up a single tear has more of honest fame than shedding seas of gore. 5In het drogen van een enkele traan ligt meer roem en eerlijke eer, dan in het vergieten van zeeën bloed. (Lord George Byron)
  62. The pro is the person who has all the hassles, obstacles, and disappointing frustrations that everyone else has. yet continues to persist, does the job, and makes it look easy. (David Cooper)
  63. A good plan is like a road map: It shows the final destination and usually the best way to get there. (H. Stanley Judd)
  64. Wisdom is knowing what to do; virtue is doing it. (David Jordan)
  65. It’s better to look ahead and prepare than to look back and regret. (Jacki Joyner-Kersee)
  66. In the realm of ideas everything depends on enthusiasm… in the real world all rests on perseverance. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)
  67. I am grateful for all of my problems. After each one was overcome, I became stronger and more able to meet those that were still to come. I grew in all my difficulties. (J.C. Penney)
  68. Few men during their lifetime come anywhere near exhausting the resources dwelling within them. There are deep wells of strength that are never used. (Richard Byrd)
  69. Experience tells you what to do; confidence allows you to do it. (Stan Smith)
  70. If you want to get the best out of a person you must look for the best that is in him. (Bernard Haldane)
  71. Success is waking up in the morning and bounding out of bed because there’s something out there that you love to do, that you believe in, that you’re good at – something that’s bigger than you are, and you can hardly wait to get at it again. (Whit Hobbs)
  72. The moment you commit and quit holding back, all sorts of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance, will rise up to help you. The simple act of commitment is a powerful magnet for help. (Napoleon Hill)
  73. In a moment of decision the best thing you can do is the right thing. The worst thing you can do is nothing. (Theodore Roosevelt)
  74. Nothing great will ever be achieved without great men, and men are great only if they are determined to be so. (Charles de Gaulle)
  75. The wisest mind has something yet to learn. (George Santayana)
  76. The superior man blames himself. The inferior man blames others. (Don Shula)
  77. Don’t let a mad world tell you that success is anything other than a successful present moment. (Eckhart Tolle)
  78. What is important is seldom urgent and what is urgent is seldom important. (Dwight D. Eisenhower)
  79. You don’t need more time, you just need to decide. (Seth Godin)
  80. To waste one’s own time is foolish — to waste others’ is stealing. (?)
  81. Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected. (Steve Jobs)
  82. Rules are for the guidance of wise men and the obedience of fools. (Douglas Bader)
  83. What is needed is a realisation that power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anaemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love. (Martin Luther King, Jr.)
  84. A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way. (John C. Maxwell)
  85. We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history there is such a thin as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time… We must move past indecision to Action. (Martin Luther King Jr.)
  86. Better to trip with the feet than with the tongue. (Zeno)
  87. Everything is always impossible until someone does it. (Nelson Mandela)
  88. The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any. (Alice Walker)
  89. There is only one way to avoid criticism: do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing. (Aristotle)
  90. First, have a definite, clear practical ideal; a goal, an objective. Second, have the necessary means to achieve your ends; wisdom, money, materials, and methods. Third, adjust all your means to that end. (Aristotle)
  91. The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me. (Ayn Rand)
  92. The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt. (Bertrand Russell)
  93. More people worship the rising than the setting sun. (Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus)

Society & Class

Migrant Mother, by Dorothea Lange
Migrant Mother (1936), by Dorothea Lange
  1. That which has been is what will be; that which is done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun. Is there anything of which it may be said, “See, this is new”? It has already been in ancient times before us. (Ecclesiastes 1:9-11) 6Wat er gebeurd is, zal weer gebeuren en wat er gedaan is, zal weer gedaan worden; er is niets nieuws onder de zon. Men zegt wel: “Kijk, dat is iets nieuws.” Maar dan blijkt dat het vroeger ook al was. Niemand denkt meer aan de mensen die voor ons geleefd hebben en ook aan de mensen die na ons komen, zal later niemand meer denken. (Prediker 1:9-11)
  2. Twee boeren eisten dezelfde koe op. Terwijl de ene boer aan de horens trok en de andere aan de staart werd de koe gemolken door een advocaat. (Hebreeuws gezegde)
  3. When you philosophically oppose an entire power elite, you cannot help but sound like a conspiracy theorist. Social power is by nature a conspiracy. (Tom N.)
  4. Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves. (Henry David Thoreau)
  5. We know that communication is a problem, but the company is not going to discuss it with the employees. (Dilbert)
  6. Video games don’t affect kids. If Pac-Man had affected us as kids, we’d all be running around in darkened rooms, munching magic pills and listening to repetitive electronic music. (Nintendo CEO)
  7. Better freedom with danger than peace with slavery. In other words: It is better to live with fear than in chains. 7Malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium. (The Palatine of Posen, father of the King of Poland and Duke of Lorraine)
  8. We should try to create the society we would want if we didn’t know in advance who we’d be. (Paul Krugman, inspired by John Rawls)
  9. Half of writing history is hiding the truth. (Serenity)
  10. When science discovers the centre of the universe a lot of people will be disappointed to find they are not it. (Bernard Baily)
  11. The 2 timeless drivers that underpin the behaviour of every generation: the need to belong and the need to be significant.
  12. The limits of my language mean the limits of my world. (Wittgenstein)
  13. The things you take for granted someone else is praying for. (Anonymous)
  14. I am not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world. (Socrates)
  15. I am almost ashamed to be living in such peace while all the rest struggle and suffer. (Albert Einstein)
  16. No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were: any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee. (John Donne, 1572-1631)
  17. The problem of humanity is the following: we have palaeolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and God-like technology. (E. O. Wilson)
  18. Our entire much-praised technological progress, and civilisation generally, could be compared to an axe in the hand of a pathological criminal. (Albert Einstein)
  19. A truly rich man is one whose children run into his arms when his hands are empty. (Unknown)
  20. True peace is not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice. (Martin Luther King Jr.)

Religion & Death

Elysian fields or Elysium
Elysium, or: the Elysian fields
  1. There are many in the world who are dying for a piece of bread, but there are many more dying for a little love. (Mother Teresa)
  2. The most unfair thing about life is the way it ends. I mean, life is tough. It takes up a lot of your time. What do you get at the end of it? A Death! What’s that, a bonus? I think the life cycle is all backwards. You should die first, get it out of the way. Then you live in an old age home. You get kicked out when you’re too young, you get a gold watch, you go to work. You work forty years until you’re young enough to enjoy your retirement. You do drugs, alcohol, you party, you get ready for high school. You go to grade school, you become a kid, you play, you have no responsibilities, you become a little baby, you go back into the womb, you spend your last nine months floating… and you finish off as an orgasm. (George Carlin)
  3. Truth, in its struggles for recognition, passes through four distinct stages. First, we say it is damnable, dangerous, disorderly, and will surely disrupt society. Second, we declare it is heretical, infidelic and contrary to the Bible. Third, we say it is really a matter of no importance either one way or the other. Fourth, we aver that we have always upheld it and believed it. (Elbert Hubbard)
  4. Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. (Voltaire)
  5. My country is the world, and my religion is to do good. (Thomas Paine)
  6. Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately, it kills all its pupils. (Louis Hector Berlioz)
  7. Once the game is over, the King and the Pawn go back in the same box. (Italian Proverb)
  8. I would love to believe that when I die I will live again, that some thinking, feeling, remembering part of me will continue. But much as I want to believe that, and despite the ancient and worldwide cultural traditions that assert an afterlife, I know of nothing to suggest that it is more than wishful thinking. The world is so exquisite with so much love and moral depth, that there is no reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there’s little good evidence. Far better it seems to me, in our vulnerability, is to look death in the eye and to be grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides. (Carl Sagan)
  9. Which is it, is man one of God’s blunders or is God one of man’s? (Nietzsche)
  10. Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich. (Napoleon)
  11. The ink of the scholar is holier than the blood of the martyr. (Prophet Muhammad)
  12. I like your Christ; I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ. (Mohandas Gandhi)
  13. Lighthouses are more helpful then churches. (Benjamin Franklin)
  14. The fact that a believer is happier than a sceptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one. (George Bernard Shaw)
  15. Morality is doing what is right regardless of what you are told. Religion is doing what you are told, regardless of what is right. (J. Anderson Thomson) 8From his book Why We Believe in God(s): A Concise Guide to the Science of Faith (2011).
  16. It is always darkest just before the day dawneth. (Thomas Fuller, 1650)
  17. Everything will be okay in the end. If it’s not okay, it’s not the end. (Anonymous)
  18. More than an end to war, we want an end to the beginnings of all wars. (Franklin D. Roosevelt)
  19. Murder is always a mistake. One should never do anything that one cannot talk about after dinner. (Oscar Wilde)
  20. Als je niet meer hebt waar je van houdt, hou dan vast wat je nog hebt. (Anonymous)
  21. Hell is empty and all the devils are here. (William Shakespeare)
  22. We the unwilling, led by the unqualified, to kill the unfortunate, die for the ungrateful. (Nam 71-72)
  23. The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong in the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry. (Ernest Hemingway)
  24. Religion. It’s given people hope in a world torn apart by religion. (Jon Stewart)
  25. The world was not big enough for Alexander the Great, but a coffin was. (Juvenal)
  26. When one door of happiness closes, another opens, but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one that has been opened for us. (Helen Keller)
  27. Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. (Martin Luther King Jr.)
  28. It’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years. (Abraham Lincoln)
  29. The plant of “tolerance” is bitter, but the fruits that bear from the plant would be sweet and soft. (Gotthold Ephraim Lessing)

War & Conflict

Kim Phuc, by Nick Ut
Kim Phuc (1972), by Nick Ut during the Vietnam War
  1. An eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind. (Gandhi)
  2. When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace. (Jimi Hendrix)
  3. War is always the choice of the chosen who will not have to fight. (Paul D. Hewson, aka Bono)
  4. Terror is the poor man’s war, war is the rich man’s terror. Ultimately, all wars will end either in annihilation or at the negotiating table. (#)
  5. A terrorist is someone who has a bomb but can’t afford an air force. (William Blum)
  6. Because I do it with one small ship, I am called a terrorist (pirate?). You do it with a whole fleet and are called an emperor. (St. Augustine)
  7. Kill a man, and you are an assassin. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill everyone, and you are a god. (Jean Rostand)
  8. Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man’s original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion. (Oscar Wilde)
  9. Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defence against a homicidal maniac. (George Orwell)
  10. The compulsion to do good is an innate American trait. Only North Americans seem to believe that they always should, may, and actually can choose somebody with whom to share their blessings. Ultimately this attitude leads to bombing people into the acceptance of gifts. (Ivan Illich)
  11. Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. (Isaac Asimov)
  12. Where one burns books, one will, in the end, burn people. (Heinrich Heine)
  13. The world suffers not because of the violence of bad people, but because of the silence of good people. (Napoleon)
  14. The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear. And the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown. (H.P. Lovecraft)
  15. Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to a better understanding of ourselves. (Carl Jung)
  16. There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics. (Benjamin Disraeli)
  17. He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself. (Thomas Paine)
  18. A lie told often enough becomes the truth. (Lenin)
  19. He harms himself who does harm to another, and the evil plan is most harmful to the planner. (Hesiod)
  20. The further a society drifts from truth the more it will hate those who speak it. (George Orwell)
  21. The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing. (Henry Ford)
  22. People were created to be loved.
    Things were created to be used.
    The reason why the world is in chaos,
    is because things are being loved,
    and people are being used. (Anonymous)
  23. The best revenge is massive success. (Frank Sinatra)
  24. In the confrontation between the stream and the rock, the stream always wins, not through strength but by perseverance. (H. Jackson Brown)
  25. Do not go gentle into that good night,
    Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
    Rage, rage against the dying of the light. (Dylan Thomas)
  26. Now is the envy of all of the dead. (World of Tomorrow)
  27. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death. (Martin Luther King, Jr.)
  28. The best revenge is not to be like that. (Marcus Aurelius)
  29. Only the dead have seen the end of war. (George Santayana)

Love

  1. To love means to open ourselves to the negative as well as the positive – to grief, sorrow, and disappointment as well as to joy, fulfilment, and an intensity of consciousness we did not know was possible before. (Rollo May)
  2. Love is like a friendship caught on fire. In the beginning a flame, very pretty, often hot and fierce, but still only light and flickering. As love grows older, our hearts mature and our love becomes as coals, deep-burning and unquenchable. (Bruce Lee)
  3. A loving person lives in a loving world. A hostile person lives in a hostile world. Everyone you meet is your mirror. (Ken Keyes)
  4. You may not understand my words, but if you look into my eyes you can listen with your heart. (Unknown)
  5. I’ll never know, and neither will you, of the life you don’t choose. We’ll only know that whatever that sister life was, it was important and beautiful and not ours. It was the ghost ship that didn’t carry us. There’s nothing to do but salute it from the shore. (Cheryl Strayed)
  6. You don’t love because: you love despite; not for the virtues, but despite the faults. (William Faulkner)
  7. Kussen is het eerste teere spel,
    Waar we ’t grove leven mee begroeten;
    Kussen is het allerlest vaarwel
    Van de menschen als ze sterven moeten.
    (Alice Nahon, uit: Op zachte vooizekens, 1923)

Stijn Vogels

  1. Seek nothing and you will find everything.
  2. Finding pleasure in the smaller things is one of the greater joys in life.
  3. Great minds don’t sleep. They dream.
  4. Waste is haste.
  5. The best method for finding universal truths is to keep asking “why?”.
  6. The greatest gift you can give someone is your time.
  7. What you want is not always what you need.
  8. If a fail happens on Twitter, does the whale care? #
  9. Happiness is more than the absence of unhappiness.
  10. Danger fills me with anger, and anger fills me with the energy to respond.
  11. L’amour c’est un pays qui se trouve sur aucune carte.
  12. The biggest lesson in life is letting go. (9-10 Feb 2015)
  13. Time is precious. I don’t want to waste yours. (11 Feb 2015)
  14. Love your enemy, for they make you a stronger person. (13 Feb 2015)
  15. Inaction is torture for the ambitious man. (18-19 Mar 2015)
  16. From life, death is born. Thus from death comes life.
    From war, peace is born. Thus from peace comes war. (28 Mar 2015)
  17. It is easier to be ignorant than intelligent, since ignorance requires no effort. (30 May 2017)
  18. Zinnen zeggen zacht welke woorden zijn bedacht. (10 juli 2020)

Unsorted Quotes

  1. Zo voorzichtig alsof zij een winterse stroom oversteken,
    zo aarzelend alsof zij de roddel van alle buren vrezen,
    zo ingetogen alsof zij slechts op bezoek zijn,
    ontdooiend als smeltend ijs, massief als een ruw blok,
    diep en weids als een vallei,
    ondoorzichtig als troebel water.
    Troebelheid wordt geklaard door bezinking,
    wat rust wordt opgewonden door beroering.
    (Lao Tse, Tao Te King)
  2. In the end, you’ll know which people really love you. They’re the ones who see you for who you are and, no matter what, always find a way to be at your side. (Randy K. Milholland, Something Positive Comic, 08-23-05)
  3. Myths are public dreams; dreams are private myths. (Philip K. Dick)
  4. I must learn to be content with being happier than I deserve. (Jane Austen)