Deep quotes, cute phrases and aphorisms on existence, or on the conception of reality as the object of a sensitive experience and as a result of the act of being and existing as such.
Quotes about existence
- If life is only a passage, in this passage we sow at least flowers. (Michel de Montaigne)
- We should all start living before we get too old. Fear is stupid, and regrets are too. (Marilyn Monroe)
- Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success, if you love what you are doing, you will be successful. (Albert Schweitzer)
- What we have behind us and what we have before us are small things compared to what we have inside. (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
- I've always tried. I've always failed. Do not argue. Try again. Fail again. Fail better. (Samuel Beckett)
- Peace begins with a smile. (Mother Teresa of Calcutta)
- Happiness does not depend on external things, but on the way we see them. (Lev Tolstoj)
- Stay away from those who try to curb your ambitions, people just do it always, but only those who are really big makes you feel that you too can become like him. (Mark Twain)
- Be yourself; all the others have already been taken. (Oscar Wilde)
- Life is not finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself. (George Bernard Shaw)
Recommended readings- Travel phrases: aphorisms for those who have to leave
- Human rights phrases: aphorisms and short quotes
- Phrases about being yourself: quotes, aphorisms
- Phrases about indifference: aphorisms, quotes
- Formal excuses: sentences to apologize
- Be happy, act in happiness, feel happy, for no particular reason. (Socrates)
- A day without a smile is a lost day. (Charlie Chaplin)
- Be the change you want to see in the world. (Mahatma Gandhi)
- It takes courage to grow and become who you really are. (E.E. Cummings)
- Only ardent patience will lead to the achievement of splendid happiness. (Martha Medeiros)
- Life is like riding a bicycle. To stay in balance you have to keep moving. (Albert Einstein)
- If you want something you've never had, you have to do something you've never done. (Thomas Jefferson)
- Bring love wherever you go. Don't let anyone leave you without being happier than when they arrived. (Mother Teresa of Calcutta)
- He who wants to travel happy must travel light. (Antoine De Saint Exupery)
- There is only one happiness in life: to love and be loved. (George Sand)
- Kindness is the language that the deaf can hear and the blind can see. (Mark Twain)
- Be nice, because every person you meet is already fighting a tough battle. (Plato)
- Friendship improves happiness and reduces unhappiness, by doubling our joy and sharing our pain. (Guide)
- A life spent making mistakes, not only is it more honorable, but it is much more useful than a life spent doing nothing. (George Bernard Shaw)
- Keep love in your heart. A life without love is like a garden without sun where the flowers have died. (Oscar Wilde)
- We must be grateful to the people who make us happy. It is the caring gardeners who make our soul blossom. (Marcel Proust)
- If you come, for example, every afternoon at four, from three I will begin to be happy. (Antoine De Saint Exupery)
- Be faithful in small things, because it is in them that your strength lies. (Mother Teresa of Calcutta)
- There are only two days a year when you can't do anything: one is called yesterday, the other is called tomorrow, so today is the right day to love, believe, do and, mainly, live. (Dalai Lama)
- Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced. (Soren Kierkegaard)
- Do you want to live happy? Travel with two bags, one to give, the other to receive. (Goethe)
- The only true wisdom is knowing that you know nothing. (Socrates)
- A falling tree makes more noise than a growing forest. (Lao Tzu)
- In the end, we will not remember the words of our enemies, but the silences of our friends. (Martin Luther King)
- I am not rich in money or earthly things, I am not beautiful, nor intelligent and smart, but I am and I will be happy! I am by nature, I like people, I am not suspicious and I want to see everyone happy and together. (Anne Frank)
- The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams. (Eleanor Roosevelt)
- What the mind can conceive and believe, can realize it. (Napoleon Hill)
- The only way to do a great job is to love what you do. (Steve Jobs)
- We only notice the happy days of our lives when they have now given way to unhappy days. (Arthur Schopenhauer)
- In the end, what matters is not the years of your life, but the life you put in those years. (Abraham Lincoln)
- You only live twice. Once when you are born and once when you look at death in the face. (Ian Fleming)
- Do what you can, with what you have, where you are. (Theodore Roosevelt)
- I would like to bring you nothing but joy and surround yourself with a calm and continuous happiness to compensate you a little for everything you give me with full hands in the generosity of your love. (Victor Hugo)
- No matter how slow you go, the important thing is not to stop. (Confucius)
- Do nonsense, but do it with enthusiasm. (Colette)
- The real punishment for those who lie is not to be no longer believed, but to be unable to believe anyone. (George Bernard Shaw)
- The supreme happiness of life is to be loved for what you are, or rather, to be loved in spite of what you are. (Victor Hugo)
- A ship is always safe on land, but that's not what it was built for. (Albert Einstein)
- I don't know if God exists, but it would be better, for his reputation, if he didn't exist. (Jules Renard)
- The problem with humanity is that stupid people are insecure, while intelligent people are full of doubts. (Bertrand Russell)
- Even if happiness forgets you a little, never forget it completely. (Jacques Prévert)
- I'd rather die of passion than boredom. (Vincent van Gogh)
- It is not only for what we do that we are held responsible, but also for what we do not do. (Molière)
- It's never too late to be what you wanted to be. (George Eliot)
- Any happiness is a masterpiece: the slightest mistake falsifies it, the slightest hesitation cracks it, the slightest coarseness disfigures it, the slightest foolishness degrades it. (Marguerite Yourcenar)
- Whoever you are, be a good person. (Abraham Lincoln)
Aphorisms on existence
- You only live once, but if you do it well, once is enough. (Mae West)
- Choose a job you love, and you won't have to work even one day in your life. (Confucius)
- The most important things to be happy in this life are having something to do, something to love and something to hope for. (Joseph Addison)
- No one, not even a poet, has ever measured the capacity of a heart. (Zelda Fitzgerald)
- The mind is like a parachute. Only works if opened. (Albert Einsten)
- An intelligent person solves a problem. A wise person avoids it. (Albert Einstein)
- Go out into the fields, into nature, in the sun. Go out and try to find luck inside you; think of all the beautiful things that grow in and around you and be happy. (Anne Frank)
- If you want to be happy, be happy. (Lev Tolstoj)
- There are times when a rose is more important than a piece of bread. (Rainer Maria Rilke)
- Don't let your past determine your fate. (Confucius)
- Morality is not exactly the doctrine of how to make ourselves happy, but of how we should become worthy of possessing happiness. (Immanuel Kant)
- Happiness is not something ready. It comes from your own actions. (Dalai Lama)
- It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not. (André Gide)
- How wonderful it is that there is no need to wait a single moment before starting to improve the world. (Anne Frank)
- A thorn is also welcome when you expect to see a rose. (Publilio Siro)
- When one door of happiness closes, another opens, but we often look at the closed door for so long that we don't see the door that has been opened to us. (Hellen Keller)
- In two words I can summarize everything I have learned about life: go on. (Robert Frost)
- You think you can do it, and you'll be halfway there. (Theodore Roosevelt)
- Do not regret what you did if you were happy when you did it. (Jim Morrison)
- The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be. (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
- The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is just tenacity. Fears are paper tigers. You can do whatever you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure, the process is its own reward. (Amelia Earhart)
- There is only one way to avoid criticism: do nothing, say nothing and be nothing. (Aristotle)
- An altruistic and compassionate person is generally a happier, more peaceful woman or man. (Dalai Lama)
- It is not what we say or think that defines us, but what we do. (Jane Austen)
- I am grateful to all those people who said no to me. It is thanks to them that I am what I am. (Albert Einstein)
- Always do your best.What you plant now, you will collect it later. (Og Mandino)
- Love does not exist to make us happy, but to show us how strong our ability to bear pain is. (Herman Hesse)
- You will never be able to cross the ocean if you don't have the courage to lose sight of the shore. (Christopher Columbus)
- To understand who commands you, just find out who you are not allowed to criticize. (Voltaire)
- The secret to moving forward is to start. (Mark Twain)
- We pay more attention to making others believe that we are happy than to really try to be happy. (Francois De La Rochefoucauld)
- With kindness, you can shake the world. (Mahatma Gandhi)
- Worry about what others think and you will always be their prisoner. (Lao Tzu)
- Success is not definitive, failure is not fatal: what matters is the courage to go on. (Winston Churchill)
- Man knows no other happiness than what he is imagining, and then, once the illusion is over, he falls back into the usual pain. (Sophocles)
- There are two ways of living life. One is to think that nothing is a miracle. The other is to think that everything is a miracle. (Albert Einstein)
- Do not dwell on the past; do not dream of the future, focus your mind on the present moment. (Buddha)
- Don't let the noise of others' opinions stifle your inner voice. (Steve Jobs)
- Happiness does not lie in being loved: this is only a satisfaction of vanity mixed with disgust. Happiness is in loving. (Thomas Mann)
- Those who look outside dream, those who look inside wake up. (Carl Gustav Jung)
- Don't mind me. I come from another planet. I still see horizons where you draw borders. (Frida Kahlo)
- Every man is guilty of all the good he has not done. (Voltaire)
- The secret of happiness? Find something more important than yourself and dedicate your life to it. (Daniel Dennett)
- Never confuse a single defeat with a permanent defeat. (Francis Scott Fitzgerald)
- We have to do the best we are capable of. This is our sacred human responsibility. (Albert Einstein)
- Everything you can imagine is real. (Pablo Picasso)
- To be happy, life must pass mostly quiet, since true joy can only live in an atmosphere of tranquility. (Bertrand Russel)
- If you judge people, you don't have time to love them. (Mother Teresa of Calcutta)
- If you always tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything. (Mark Twain)
- Love everyone, believe few and don't hurt anyone. (William Shakespeare)
- Birds are happy with little, which is necessary, since they would not otherwise be able to fly. (Willem Vermandere)
- If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become better, then you are a leader. (John Quincy Adams)
- Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. (Voltaire)
- You are what you do, not what you say you will do. (Carl Jung)
- The best way to be happy is to try to cheer someone else up. (Mark Twain)
- If you can't explain it to a six-year-old, you don't understand it either. (Albert Einstein)
Phrases about existence
- Only those who risk going too far will have the chance to find out how far they can go. (Thomas Stearns Eliot)
- A lie has time to travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes. (Mark Twain)
- Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new. (Albert Einstein)
- Happiness is when what you think, what you say and what you do are in harmony. (Mahatma Gandhi)
- Nothing will stop the sun from rising again, not even the darkest night. Because beyond the black curtain of the night there is a sunrise waiting for us. (Khalil Gibran)
- Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius, and it is better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring. (Marilyn Monroe)
- For every minute you go angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness. (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
- I learned that people forget what you said, people forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. (Maya Angelou)
- Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened. (Dr. Seuss)
- Do you have any enemies? Well. This means that you have fought for something, sometimes, in your life. (Winston Churchill)
- The biggest thing in the world is knowing how to belong to yourself. (Michel de Montaigne)
- There are two great tragedies in life: one is not getting what you want, the other is getting it. (Oscar Wilde)
- The happiest people are not necessarily those who have the best of everything, but those who derive the best from what they have. (Khalil Gibran)
- The biggest achievement is being yourself in a world that constantly tries to make you someone else. (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
- Nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent. (Eleanor Roosevelt)
- Those who are crazy enough to think they can change the world usually do it. (Steve Jobs)
- Whoever wants to see the rainbow, must learn to love the rain. (Paulo Coelho)
- There is nothing noble about being superior to someone else. The true nobility consists in being superior to who we were yesterday. (Ernest Hemingway)
- The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or touched. You have to feel them with your heart. (Helen Keller)
- It is not in the stars that our destiny is preserved, but in ourselves. (William Shakespeare)
- Think of all the beauty still around you and be happy. (Anne Frank)
- I was smart, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself. (Gialal al-Din Rumi)
- Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever. (Mahatma Gandhi)
- They will be able to cut all the flowers but they will not be able to stop spring. (Pablo Neruda)
- If you want a happy life you have to dedicate it to a goal, not to people or things. (Albert Einstein)
- The greatest pleasure in life is doing what people say you can't do. (Walter Bagehot)
- Success is the ability to go from one failure to another without losing enthusiasm. (Winston Churchill)
- Always do what you are afraid to do. (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
- They say money doesn't make you happy, but if I have to cry, I prefer to do it in the back seat of a Rolls Royce rather than in the back of a subway car. (Marilyn Monroe)
- Always forgive your enemies. Nothing angers them more. (Oscar Wilde)
- We live in a world where we hide to make love, while violence and hatred spread in the light of the Sun. (John Lennon)
- What is not useful to the swarm is not useful even to the bee. (Marco Aurelio)
- I decided to be happy because it is good for my health. (Voltaire)
- I have no particular talents, I'm just passionately curious. (Albert Einstein)
- Even a thousand mile journey starts with a single step. (Lao Tzu)
- I disagree with what you say, but I will defend your right to say it until death. (Evelyn Beatrice Hall)
- Happiness is a combination of inner peace, financial resources and, above all, world peace. (Dalai Lama)
- Cemeteries are full of people who thought they were indispensable. (Georges Clemenceau)
- If you can't fly, then run, if you can't run, then walk, if you can't walk, then crawl, but whatever you do, you have to keep going. (Martin Luther King Jr.)
- Every saint has a past, while every sinner has a future. (Oscar Wilde)
- Of all the things that wisdom provides for a happy existence, the greatest is friendship. (Epicurus)
- The higher we rise, the smaller we seem to those who cannot fly. (Friedrich Nietzsche)
- Do not judge each day on the basis of the harvest you have obtained, but on the seeds you have planted. (Robert Louis Stevenson)
- Two roads diverged into a wood. I took the one less traveled, and this made the difference. (Robert Frost)
- Being happy does not necessarily mean being happy, sometimes you want to laugh and joke so as not to feel that you want to cry inside. (Jim Morrison)
- Never doubt that a small group of conscientious and committed citizens can change the world. In fact, it's the only thing that's always happened. (Margaret Mead)
- A room without books is like a body without a soul. (Marco Tullio Cicerone)
- Life is what happens to you while you are busy making other plans. (John Lennon)
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you. Then win. (Mahatma Gandhi)
- Our biggest weakness lies in giving up. The safest way to succeed is always to try again. (Thomas Edison)
- Magic is believing in ourselves. If we can do it, then we can make anything happen. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)
- Everyone thinks of changing the world, but nobody thinks of changing himself. (Lev Tolstoj)
- Darkness does not drive away darkness: only Light can do it. Hatred does not drive away hatred: only love can do it. (Martin Luther King Jr.)
- If you want a happy life you have to dedicate it to a goal, not to people or things. (Albert Einstein)
- Those who can do, do; those who cannot do, teach. (George Bernard Shaw)
- Life and dreams are sheets of the same book. Reading them in order is living, leafing through them at random is dreaming. (Arthur Schopenhauer)
- The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page. (Augustine of Hippo)
