Quotes, sentences, and aphorisms worth revisiting more than once and reflecting on deeply (from people, songs, books, films, series, myself, and other sources).
See also: My Quotes · ATLA · The Talmud
God, Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, The Courage to change the things I can change, And the wisdom to know the difference between the two. — Serenity Prayer - Reinhold Niebuhr
Ignorance is bliss — Unknown
Stupidity is to think I know a lot, while truly the only thing we (think we) know is that we know almost nothing… — Unknown
You will never have a greater or lesser dominion than that over yourself…the height of a man’s success is gauged by his self-mastery; the depth of his failure by his self-abandonment. — Leonardo Da Vinci
A jack of all trades is a master of none, but often times better than a master of one. — Unknown
The cost of chasing pleasure & comfort in your 20s, is regret in your 30s (read again) — Unknown
Another person cannot hurt you without your cooperation; you are hurt the moment you believe yourself to be. — Epictetus
The minute a person whose word means a great deal to others dare to take the open-hearted and courageous way, many others follow. — Unknown
Don’t criticize what you can’t understand — Bob Dylan, “The Times They Are a-Changin’”
Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity — Horace Mann
The Truth is something I want to hear, not necessarily say. — Unknown
This is your life, and it’s ending one minute at a time. — Tyler Durden
When you pray for rain u gotta deal with the mud too. — Unknown
A good man never looks for trouble, yet he’s prepared when it finds him. — Unknown
I have just three things to teach: simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are your greatest treasures. — Lao Tzu
Be humble after but not during the action. — Ernest Hemingway
A university is a business; a degree is a consumer product. — Unknown
Life is not (only) a mystery to solve, but a reality to experience. — Unknown
A real loser is somebody that’s so afraid of not winning, they don’t even try. — Alan Arkin, Little Miss Sunshine
There’s no greater waste of time than justifying your action to people who have a life that you don’t want — Unknown
Regret for wasted time is more wasted time — Unknown
Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. — Helen Keller
Veritas numquam perit. Truth never perishes. — Unknown
the past is just a story we tell ourselves — Her, Movie.
Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance — Unknown
Be the person uncle Iroh would want you to become — Anonymous YouTube comment
If you wish to strive for peace of soul and happiness, then believe; if you wish to be a disciple of truth, then inquire. — Nietzsche, in a letter to his sister
There is too much evidence against supernatural belief. You cannot decide to believe something for which you have no evidence simply because of the positive experience it may provide. — Sam Harris
Dreams without goals are just dreams. And ultimately, they fuel disappointment. On the road, to achieving your dreams, you must apply discipline, but more importantly, consistency - because without commitment you’ll never start, and without consistency, you’ll never finish. — D.W
Never underestimate the power of denial — Unknown
10 years of freedom for 50 years of pain, or 10 years of pain for 50 years of freedom - your choice — Unknown
We are all in this together, but we all die alone — Gwern
Your boos mean nothing, I’ve seen what makes you cheer — Rick Sanchez
You always learn a lot more when you’re wrong than when you’re right. — Candice Hansen
There are two types of problems: ones that can be solved, and others that cannot… Either way, worrying does not help. — Unknown
If you never learn how to deal with boredom you will never learn how to enjoy peace and quiet — YNH, Lex Fridman podcast, min 2:22
Never take the first offer when buying, and never make the initial offer in a negotiation. — Unknown
When nobody wakes you up in the morning, and when nobody waits for you at night, and when you can do whatever you want. What do you call it, Freedom of Loneliness? — Unknown
It’s not events but our opinion about events that cause us suffering — Epictetus
We suffer more in imagination than in reality — Seneca
To deny our own impulses is to deny the very thing that makes us human — Frans de Waal (?)
The wise warrior avoids the battle — Sun Tzu
There is only one success - to be able to spend your life in your own way. — Christopher Morley
The Ethiops say that their gods are flat-nosed and black, While the Thracians say that theirs have blue eyes and red hair. Yet if cattle or horses or lions had hands and could draw, and could sculpt like men, then the horses would draw their gods like horses, and cattle like cattle; and each they would shape bodies of gods in the likeness, each kind, of their own. — Xenophanes
Easy choices, hard life. Hard choices, easy life — Unknown
I can not decide for my future self — Unknown
Discipline is key, Fuck motivation. you won’t experience success if you only put the work in the days you feel like it. — Unknown
STOP. AND THINK. — Cartoon from one of Dan Ariely’s books
Poverty is not having too little, it is wanting more — Seneca
Let everything happen to you beauty and terror just keep going, no feeling is final — Rainer Maria Rilke
Decide the type of person you want to be prove it to yourself with small wins — James Clear
You don’t have to be the brightest candle in the room, you just need to burn longer than anyone else. — Unknown
The gift of a good liar is making people believe you lack a talent for lying. — Frank Underwood, S2E6
Don’t demand that things happen as you wish, but wish that they happen as they do happen, and you will go on well. — Epictetus, Enchiridion (Carter translation) Passage 8
Which would be worse; to live as a monster or to die as a good man? — Shutter Island
I find no better life purpose than to perish in attempting the great and impossible. — Friedrich Nietzsche
He who is resistant to change is destined to perish — Hot Rod
Man’s task, is… To become conscious of the contents that press upward from the unconscious… As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being — Carl Jung
A wise old man told me once, ya spend half your life earning and collecting things, and the other half dealing with the loss of things taken away from ya. — Unknown
Never give up on a dream because of the time it might take you to achieve it, the time’s gonna fly by anyway — Unknown
Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances. — Viktor Frankl
Comparison is the thief of joy. — Unknown
Discipline is doing what you hate to do but doing it like you love it — Mike Tyson
ITS TOO DAMN IMPORTANT NOT TO TRY! — Unknown
You can only be ridden if your back is bent — Martin Luther King Jr.
No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it is not the same river and he is not the same man. — Heraclitus
A mind stretched by a new experience can never go back to its former dimensions — Unknown
We expect that a true lover can understand what we feel and who we are without us speaking, we need them to read our souls — 18.10.2021
Someone with half your IQ is making 10x as you because they are not smart enough to doubt themselves — Unknown
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
It’s easier to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission from others — Unknown
All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone. — Blaise Pascal
Most people, even though they don’t know it, are asleep. They’re born asleep, they live asleep, they marry in their sleep, they breed children in their sleep, they die in their sleep without ever waking up. They never understand the loveliness and the beauty of this thing that we call human existence. — Anthony De Mello
You are using the excuse of passion to disguise your inability to tolerate hardness — Alex Hormozi
To live is to suffer, to survive is to find meaning in that suffering — Nietzsche
The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of a doubt, what is laid before him. — Leo Tolstoy
Sometimes you gotta play the role of a fool, to fool the fool, who thinks they are fooling you — Al Capone
When one person suffers from a delusion it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called religion. — Robert Pirsig, Lila (1991)
If you’ve endured some good old hardship and discomfort, just like our ancestors did before us, the perks of modern day life that we so easily take for granted feel once again like luxuries. — GeoWizard
The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new lands but seeing with new eyes. — Marcel Proust
Whatever you’re thinking about is less important than you think it is while you’re thinking about it. — Daniel Kahneman
If you ask a lantern what its eye sees, it will say everything is flooded with light. — The Last Jew, Yoram Kaniuk
Your soul is like water; when it’s troubled it’s hard to see, but when you let it settle, everything becomes clear. — Unknown
Anxiety is a feeling of paranoia, when thoughts shape reality. — Unknown
The essence of a person’s soul is found in new experiences. — Unknown
Homo sapiens misses the main point: since the cognitive revolution, there is no longer such a thing as a “natural way of life” — all that exists are different cultural choices, out of an enormous range of possibilities. — Yuval Noah Harari, 23.9.2021
We are stardust that awoke to life, and then received from the universe the powers to understand itself and this is only the beginning. — Neil deGrasse Tyson
He who lives in the past is dead in the present. — Baruch Assoulin the Legend, 6.8.2022
The late Nanrei Kobori, head of the Shining Dragon monastery, a Buddhist temple in Kyoto, said: God is an invention of man, therefore the nature of God is only a shallow mystery. The deep mystery is the nature of man. — Traces from the Past, page 19, Jan 20 2022
Regret piles up around us like books we never read. — Unknown
I’m not afraid of the unknown after death; after all, if my non-existence in the past didn’t frighten me, I have nothing to fear from my non-existence in the future. — Unknown
The universe is lazy, and it will always seek the most efficient and simplest path (the question is — the path to what?). — Unknown
A person’s most ‘certain’ knowledge is the product of his consciousness, his thoughts and his experiences. — Unknown
From Jaffa to Athens, every shark or tuna they all want the same thing…
Every morning they wake up and wait for happiness in a long line that never ends yes, yo, one waits for the mailman another for a raise and I wait for the dawn to break and for things to sort themselves out reasons, excuses, justifications and everyone waits, waits and only time waits for no one… — Unknown
Time is both friend and foe. — a song, Beit HaBubot
There are 3 things certain in life: death, taxes, and the fact that TikTok is a shitty app. — Oren from Levys Fitness
We are never as defenseless against suffering as when we are in love. — Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents, p.91
All people are miserable; some don’t have what they want, and that’s the cause of their misery. Others got what they wanted, but no longer want it — they already want other things, and so they too are miserable. — François de La Rochefoucauld
Our lives are defined by opportunities, even the ones we miss. — Unknown
A rather poor memory is one that works only backward. — Unknown
The cruelest lies are most often told in silence. — Unknown
When curiosity overcame fear, humans advanced. — Unknown
The kingdom of God is within man — not in one man or a group of people, but in every person — in you, little man with big hopes. — Unknown
Just a cog in a machine. — a song, Plutnik
The brain is the arbiter of the fear response; fear can spur action but can also paralyze a person into stillness and thoughtlessness. — Unknown
Nature is built upon fractal systems. — Unknown
Look at yourself, at the light and the dark — in order to know and understand yourself, and learn to cope with both so you can live with yourself in peace. — Unknown
How can happiness be constant, when the brain that creates it never stops changing? (due to changes in the environment too) — Unknown
You cannot suffocate forbidden desire. — Unknown
Never misjudge other people’s capacity to disappoint you. — Unknown
A person shouldn’t tell himself — I failed because all of life’s conditions were against me, and I lived a hard life. A person should tell himself — even though all of life’s conditions were against me, and even though I had every reason in the world not to succeed — I nonetheless succeeded against all odds and reached where I’ve reached. — Unknown
We shouldn’t be surprised to discover order and causality in nature, since from the outset we set out to look only for them. — Tzvi Yanai, A Journey to the Consciousness of Nature, p.10
boredom is the root of all evil — Søren Kierkegaard