Most modern thoughts are not entirely unique. We borrow from our contemporaries and, occasionally, think up ideas which have already been hatched. Yet some words are timeless. Long after the speaker or writer is dead, we remember them.
As a slight departure from my usual ramblings, here are just a few of my many favorite quotes spoken by great minds. No truer words were ever spoken.
“Logic, n. The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human understanding.” — Ambrose Bierce
“If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.” — Lewis Carroll
“It’s the friends you can call up at 4 a.m. that matter.” — Marlene Dietrich
“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” — Thomas A. Edison
“Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.” — Albert Einstein
“The difference between genius and stupidity is; genius has its limits.” — Albert Einstein
“We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid.” — Benjamin Franklin
“I have found little that is ‘good’ about human beings on the whole. In my experience most of them are trash, no matter whether they publicly subscribe to this or that ethical doctrine or none at all. That is something that you cannot say aloud, or perhaps even think.” — Sigmund Freud
“An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools.” — Ernest Hemingway
“As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.” — Carl Gustav Jung
“The most terrifying thing is to accept oneself completely.” — Carl Gustav Jung
“Loneliness does not come from having no people about one, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to oneself, or from holding certain views which others find inadmissible.” — Carl Gustav Jung
“It is hard enough to remember my opinions, without also remembering my reasons for them!” — Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
“I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.” — Edgar Allan Poe
“The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.” — Socrates
“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it’s time to pause and reflect.” — Mark Twain
“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
“Censorship is telling a man he can’t have a steak just because a baby can’t chew it.” — Mark Twain
“It takes your enemy and your friend, working together, to hurt you to the heart: the one to slander you and the other to get the news to you.” — Mark Twain
“It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not deserve them.” — 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
“There are three types of lies — lies, damn lies, and statistics.” — Mark Twain
“It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.” — Mark Twain
“…gratitude is a debt which usually goes on accumulating like blackmail; the more you pay, the more is exacted. In time, you are made to realize that the kindness done you is become a curse and you wish it had not happened.” — Mark Twain
“Sanity and happiness are an impossible combination.” — Mark Twain
“The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple.” — Oscar Wilde
“There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.” — Oscar Wilde
“A true friend stabs you in the front.” — Oscar Wilde
“Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.” — Oscar Wilde
