100 golden quotes | The World of English

100 golden quotes, best, wise and memorable aphorisms by various famous authors of all times, useful for your motivation, inspiration, meditation and self-growth, chosen for the World of English blog by Carl William Brown, a sincere literary avenger.

Man is the most intelligent of the animals – and the most silly.
Diogenes

Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.
Arthur Schopenhauer

No amount of evidence will ever persuade an idiot.
Mark Twain

We feel that even if all possible scientific questions be answered, the problems of life have still not been touched at all.
Ludwig Wittgenstein

Universe doesn’t even know that you exist, so relax.
Carl William Brown

Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.
Virginia Woolf

In peace, sons bury their fathers. In war, fathers bury their sons.
Herodotus

I know that I am intelligent, because I know that I know nothing.
Socrates

Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.
Lao Tzu

Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.
James Madison

Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.
Benjamin Franklin

The only true wisdom is knowing that you know nothing.
Socrates

Do your own homework, otherwise you are never going to learn. If someone else does all the work for you, evidently you are not going to develop vital thinking skills and critical writing abilities.
Carl William Brown

Religion is like a blind man looking in a black room for a black cat that isn’t there, and finding it.
Oscar Wilde

Be a first rate version of yourself, not a second rate version of someone else.
Judy Garland

Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.
Samuel Beckett

By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.
Benjamin Franklin

It doesn’t matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.
Confucius

Learning is like rowing upstream, not to advance is to drop back.
Chinese Proverb

I want to imagine death as an affectionate mother who, while holding me to her breast, instead of giving me life, for ever will take it away.
Carl William Brown

You have one fucking life, do something about it.
Anonymous

Assassination is the extreme form of censorship.
George Bernard Shaw

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

Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings.
Salvador Dali

A mind is like a parachute. It doesn’t work if it isn’t open.
Frank Zappa

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.
F. Scott Fitzgerald

That which does not kill us makes us stronger.
Friedrich Nietzsche

The secret of genius is to carry the spirit of the child into old age, which means never losing your enthusiasm.
Aldous Huxley

Common sense is not so common.
Voltaire

Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak. Courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.
Winston Churchill

Religion is only literature, but luckily literature is not only religion.
Carl William Brown

Imagination is the one weapon in the war against reality.
Jules de Gaultier

The universe is not hostile, nor yet is it unfriendly. It is simply indifferent.
Rev. John H. Holmes

Time is money, life is art and business is war, therefore be prepared to fight!
Carl William Brown

Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.
Oscar Wilde

The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled.
Plutarch

In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: It goes on.
Robert Frost

There are no great limits to growth because there are no limits of human intelligence, imagination, and wonder.
Ronald Reagan

I’m not the smartest fellow in the world, but I can sure pick smart colleagues.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

There is no great genius without some touch of madness.
Aristotle

To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.
Oscar Wilde

Beauty is truth and truth is beauty, that is all you need to know to be a perfect stupid.
Carl William Brown

Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.
Henry Ford

We must not allow other people’s limited perceptions to define us.
Virginia Satir

If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn’t thinking.
George S. Patton

Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.
Bernard M. Baruch

If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.
Mark Twain

A smart man makes a mistake, learns from it, and never makes that mistake again. But a wise man finds a smart man and learns from him how to avoid the mistake altogether.
Roy H. Williams

Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change.
Stephen Hawkin

Remember no one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
Eleanor Roosevelt

Language is “the infinite use of finite means.”
Wilhelm von Humboldt

There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.
Edith Wharton

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.
Robert Frost

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.
Mark Twain

In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.
Benjamin Franklin

Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.
Eleanor Roosevelt

Wise men speak because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something.
Plato

You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.
Mae West

If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door.
Milton Berle

I haven’t failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.
Thomas Edison

If you don’t make mistakes, you’re not working on hard enough problems.
Frank Wilczek

Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.
Dalai Lama

Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions.
Albert Einstein

Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self control – these three alone lead to power.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson

As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so a life well spent brings happy death.
Leonardo da Vinci

The greatest discovery of all time is that a person can change his future by merely changing his attitude.
Oprah Winfrey

It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.
Frederick Douglass

You must be the change you wish to see in the world.
Mahatma Gandhi

Love me when I least deserve it, because that’s when I really need it.
Swedish Proverb

It takes a great deal of courage to stand up to your enemies, but even more to stand up to your friends.
J. K. Rowling

Don’t walk in front of me, I may not follow. Don’t walk behind me, I may not lead. Walk beside me and be my friend.
Albert Camus

Walking with a friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the light.
Helen Keller

If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else.
Booker T. Washington

The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.
Samuel Johnson

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
Aristotle

Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.
Mahatma Gandhi

All art is quite useless and so it is the universe.
Carl William Brown

Education is like a double-edged sword. It may be turned to dangerous uses if it is not properly handled.
Wu Ting-Fang

Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.
Albert Einstein

Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it.
Maya Angelou

Everything has beauty, but not everyone can see.
Confucius

Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.
Oscar Wilde

The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision.
Helen Keller

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

Never leave that till tomorrow which you can do today.
Benjamin Franklin

Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young.
Henry Ford