Throughout the centuries, there are many famous people who have left phrases to remember .
Phrases that make us reflect, that motivate us, that help us learn. In short, great phrases spoken by brilliant minds. That is why, in today’s article, we have made a list with 90 great phrases that great writers, politicians, or philosophers have recorded in the history of mankind.
Phrases of famous people that you should learn by heart
In the following lines you will find deep reflections on life, friendship, learning or intelligence. Do not miss it!
1. The greater the difficulty, the more glory there is in overcoming it (Epicurus)
The Greek philosopher, founder of Epicureanism, leaves us this great motivating phrase for history.
2. Life must be understood backwards. But it must be lived forward (Søren Kierkegaard)
A nice positive phrase from the great Danish philosopher.
3. Man is condemned to be free (Jean-Paul Sartre)
For this French thinker, freedom is inherent in the human condition and, therefore, man is absolutely responsible for the use he makes of it .
4. In everything there is a part of everything (Anaxagoras)
A great phrase from this pre-Socratic philosopher
5. The brave man is the one who not only surpasses his enemies, but also his pleasures (Democritus)
A phrase about life that is full of meaning
6. Creativity requires that courage be detached from certainties (Erich Fromm)
To be creative you have to step on uncertainties with force, affirms the father of humanist psychoanalysis.
7. Those who do not know history are condemned to repeat it (Edmund Burke)
A phrase about the importance of experience and knowledge.
8. The best part of beauty is that which no image can express (Francis Bacon)
Francis Bacon did not leave this gem of a phrase.
9. A small spark can ignite a flame (Dante)
A wise phrase that can be exemplified with thousands of everyday situations.
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10. The environment shapes the actions of the individual (BF Skinner)
This famous character of behavioral psychology expresses the relative of that line that separates individual and environment.
11. No one can hurt me without my permission (Gandhi)
The always remembered pacifist leader explains the importance of letting himself be hurt or not. One of Gandhi’s most popular phrases .
12. I can control my passions and emotions if I can understand their nature (Spinoza)
This famous quote is about emotional intelligence , already in Spinoza’s time .
13. Human beings are not born forever the day their mothers give birth to them, but life forces them to give birth to themselves again and again (Gabriel García Márquez)
A phrase that is an authentic truth about life. Life makes you mature .
14. Being independent of public opinion is the first formal condition to achieve something great (Friedrich Hegel)
A phrase that speaks of one’s own thinking.
15. Knowing is relatively easy. Wanting and acting according to what one would like, is always harder (Aldous Huxley)
A phrase that refers to the difficulty of being yourself.
16. Where a television works, surely there is someone who is not reading (John Irving)
On the influence of the small screen in our life.
17. Youth is happy because it has the ability to see beauty. Anyone who retains the ability to see beauty never grows old (Franz Kafka)
A famous quote about staying forever young.
18. Touch is the art of showing something without making an enemy (Isaac Newton)
A great phrase from the physicist and philosopher Isaac Newton .
19. We live in the best of all possible worlds (Leibniz)
At least this is the only one we know of. With its good things and its bad things.
20. He who is good at making excuses is rarely good at anything else (Benjamin Franklin)
Cowards make excuses instead of facing reality.
21. Holding onto anger is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die (Buddha)
The always kind Buddha explains some of the principles of his philosophy.
22. There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you have altered yourself (Nelson Mandela)
The great Nelson Mandela uttered this phrase once.
23. If we do not believe in the freedom of expression of the people we despise, we do not believe in it at all (Noam Chomsky)
A phrase that reminds us of the importance of freedom of expression.
24. What we achieve internally will change our external reality (Plutarco)
A beautiful phrase about personal development.
25. Courage is not developed by being happy in your relationships every day. Courage is developed by surviving difficult times and defying adversity (Epicurus)
You have to suffer in this life to value what we have.
26. Nothing reinforces authority as much as silence (Leonardo da Vinci)
A great phrase from the great Leonardo da Vinc i .
27. The most difficult thing in life is knowing yourself (Tales)
Self-knowledge is key to having a healthy emotional life.
28. The foundation of every state is the education of its youth (Diogenes)
Education is key to the socialization process.
29. It is not what happens to you, but how you react that matters (Epithet)
On the importance of evaluating the facts in a positive way.
30. There is only one way to happiness and that is to stop worrying about things that are beyond the reach of your will (Epithet)
What you cannot change is not worth worrying about.
31. Great results require great ambitions (Heraclitus)
Big goals are achieved by aiming high.
32. The person who is a master in patience can with everything else (George Savile)
A phrase of the famous character George Savile that speaks of the power of patience.
33. Hope is a good breakfast, but a bad dinner (Francis Bacon)
Hope ceases to be positive when it is the last resort.
34. Someone who does not believe in miracles is not realistic (David Ben-Gurion)
A phrase to reflect on, by David Ben-Gurion about the anomalies and inexplicable facts contained in reality.
35. There is no sadder vision than that of a pessimistic young man (Mark Twain)
Mark Twain talks about the value associated with youth and the mistake of wasting this stage of life.
36. The risk of a bad decision is preferable to the terror of indecision (Maimonides)
A bad decision always hurts, but indecision is worse.
37. Education is the movement from darkness to light (Allan Bloom)
A phrase intended to explain what education is.
38. Knowing that one does not know, that is humility. To think that one knows what one does not know, that is disease (Lao-tse)
On ignorance and the perception of wisdom.
39. In the end, they will not ask you what you have known, but what you have done (Jean de Gerson)
The importance of action , it is what we will really remember.
40. Life is very simple, but we insist on making it complicated (Confucius)
According to Confucius , life is simpler than it seems.
41. Taking advantage of good advice requires more wisdom than giving it (John Churton Collins)
A phrase from life, voiced by John Churton Collins .
42. Our life always expresses the result of our dominant thoughts (Søren Kierkegaard)
This phrase could be summarized as follows: we are what we think.
43. In the end, it is not the years in our life that count, but the life in our years (Abraham Lincoln)
What is really important is the quality of our life.
44. Nothing is more harmful to creativity than the fury of inspiration (Umberto Eco)
A great phrase from the always remembered, Umberto Eco .
45. Success is about getting what you want. Happiness, in enjoying what you get (Emerson)
A phrase that we should always have in our head.
46. A heart is a wealth that is neither sold nor bought, but is given away (Gustave Flaubert)
Giving love is one of the best experiences that human beings can enjoy.
47. If we exaggerate our joys, as we do with our sorrows, our problems would lose importance (Anatole France)
Sometimes we are too pessimistic. A phrase to apply in our day to day.
48. Death as the end of time that is lived can only cause fear to those who do not know how to fill the time that is given to live (Viktor Frankl)
A great phrase about human existence. By Viktor Frankl .
49. Modern science has not yet produced a soothing medicine as effective as a few kind words (Sigmund Freud)
To find inner peace, you have to be kind: both to others and to yourself.
50. Man is the measure of all things (Protagoras)
A great phrase of Pythagoras about the human being.
51. Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet (Jean-Jacques Rousseau)
Jean-Jacques Rousseau explains to us that patience can become bitter
53. We are asleep. Our life is a dream. But sometimes we wake up, just enough to know that we are dreaming (Ludwig Wittgestein)
A beautiful phrase about the greatness of this life.
54. Change your pleasures, but don’t change your friends (Voltaire)
Voltaire . On the importance of friendship and having friends.
55. Lacking one’s own books is the height of misery (Benjamin Franklin)
Books and reading them is one of life’s great pleasures.
56. Get married: if by chance you find a good woman, you will be happy; if not; you will become a philosopher, which is always useful for man (Socrates)
A phrase that will make you reflect on marriage. Of the great Socrates .
57. Almost all people live life in silent despair (Henry David Thoreau)
A phrase that tries to explain the complexity of life and the bad times that one can experience.
58. We would be doing better if it weren’t for the fact that we have built too many walls and not enough bridges (D. Pire)
A phrase about the worst of the human being. The walls have never been good.
59. Before getting married I had six theories about how to educate children. Now I have six little ones and no theory (Lord Rochester)
Raising children is complicated, as this phrase states.
60. Knowing and knowing how to prove it is worth twice (Baltasar Gracián)
A famous quote from Baltasar Gracián that talks about the differences between superficial knowledge and deep knowledge.
61. Announce the pleasant message with a hundred tongues; But let the bad news reveal itself (Shakespeare)
Bad news is not pleasant, but it does exist.
62. I would give everything I know, for half of what I don’t know (René Descartes)
You never know enough. There is always room to learn.
63. To spare is virtue, power and humility; letting oneself fade is vileness and crime (Quevedo)
A phrase to reflect, by Quevedo .
64. Experience is the disease that offers the least danger of contagion (Oliverio Girondo)
We can learn a lot from experience and from what happens to us in the past.
65. Experience is not how much you live but all the good you learn (Jairo Fowbier Pabón)
As in the previous statement. Experience helps us to learn.
66. The fault of our time is that its men do not want to be useful but important (Churchill)
A phrase about narcissistic people , who want power above all else.
67. Lack of intelligence, poverty and lack of education are the three major factors behind crimes (Auchner)
An interesting phrase that will make you think
68. The lack of humanity of the computer is that once it is programmed and worked properly, its honesty is impeccable (Isaac Asimov)
On the quality of being human and honest.
69. False modesty is the most decent of all lies (Chamfort)
It refers to false modesty . Well, among the lies, it is the least bad.
70. Faith consists in believing what we do not see, and the reward is seeing what we believe (Saint Augustine)
A positive phrase from Saint Augustine about faith in God.
71. The wise man should not refrain from participating in the government of the State, since it is a crime to renounce being useful to the needy and cowardice to give way to the unworthy (Epictetus of Phrygia)
A reflection on politics: wise citizens should try to participate in the management of the polis to seek justice for all.
72. The great discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their mental attitudes (William James)
A motivating phrase formulated by William James . Attitude makes the difference in our results.
73. You are what you do, not what you say you will do (C. G. Jung)
Your actions determine who you are, not your words.
74. The human heart is an instrument with many strings; the perfect connoisseur of men knows how to make them all vibrate, like a good musician (Charles Dickens)
The man who is known is a powerful man.
75. Most social events must be understood in context, since they lose meaning if they are isolated (Solomon Asch)
People are biopsychosocial beings . That is, context is important in influencing how we act.
76. If a person loves only one person and is indifferent to all others, his love is not love, but symbiotic attachment or expanded egoism (Erich Fromm)
When we are in love with someone, we would give our lives for that person. We can fool ourselves and believe that we are good people, but even the most selfish people can lose their minds for someone and appear to be dedicated people.
77. Targets transform a random walk into a chase (Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi)
Having goals to pursue motivates and excites us.
78. A man who does not feed on his dreams grows old soon (William Shakespeare)
If a person has no dreams or something to fight for, he is dead alive.
79. If you do not remember the slightest madness into which love made you fall, you have not loved (William Shakespeare)
Love can make us feel high and can make us do incredible things that we would never have thought we would do.
80. When the wise man points to the moon, the fool looks at the finger (Confucius)
Unlike the wise, fools do not want to see beyond what their eyes can see .
81. A friend is a person with whom you can think aloud (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
Great friends are those that you can trust and that you can tell the biggest secrets to.
82. Nobody’s knowledge can go beyond his experience (John Locke)
Experience is the greatest source of knowledge. What is known as experiential learning.
83. There is only one god, knowledge, and one demon, ignorance (Socrates)
Socrates pronouncing a phrase about knowledge and ignorance.
84. If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him (Voltaire)
One of the positive things about religion is the values it pursues.
85. Leisure is the mother of philosophy (Thomas Hobbe)
A great philosophical phrase from Thomas Hobbe , one of the most famous British philosophers.
86. We are what we do repeatedly. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit (Aristotle)
A phrase from the Greek philosopher, Aristotle . In which he talks about the importance of habit to achieve excellence.
87. Never think that you know everything. No matter how high you value yourself, always have the courage to tell yourself: I am ignorant (Ivan Pavlov)
The human being can be in continuous learning. Believing that you know everything is ignorant.
88. Legislators certainly need a school of morals (Simón Bolívar)
Unfortunately, not all politicians are honest.
89. Man only likes to list his problems, he does not usually calculate his happiness (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
It’s easier to focus on the negative things than the positive things that happen to us.
90. The reward of a good deed is in having done it (Seneca)
Taking a good deed makes us feel really good.
91. The purpose of life is to be happy (Dalai Lama)
One of the most remembered and simple phrases of this religious reference.
92. Wherever you go, go with all your heart (Confucius)
An inspiring and poetic reflection of this thinker of Chinese philosophy.
93. I can resist everything except temptation (Oscar Wilde)
This writer was known for his sense of humor based on irony.
94. The good life is inspired by love and guided by knowledge (Bertrand Russell)
A reflection on the fundamental elements of a life that develops correctly.
95. We aim over the target to get to it (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
Another of the motivating phrases of this American writer and poet.
96. Knowledge will give you power, but character will give you respect (Bruce Lee)
A reflection on two of the elements that make up authority figures.
97. Friends show their love in difficult times, not in happiness (Euripides)
This ancient Greek poet portrays the essence of friendship in this way .
98. Autumn is a second spring when each leaf is a flower (Albert Camus)
A reflection on the importance of perspective.
99. With each day comes new strength and new thoughts (Eleanor Roosevelt)
A reflection on new beginnings and the opportunities they provide.
100. Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens (Jimi Hendrix)
An apparent paradox about what makes up the human intellect.
101. Society does not consist of individuals, but is expressed through interrelations (Karl Marx)
This philosopher reflects in this phrase his mentality based on the analysis of social phenomena