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Contemplative & Other

Voices from outside the Greco-Roman tradition, included here for reflection. These are not Stoic in origin.

84 quotes. Browse by author instead.

• "Life is an echo. If you don't like what you're receiving, pay attention to what you're emitting."
  — Unknown
• "Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don't resist them; that only creates sorrow."
  — Lao Tzu
• "The true measure of a man is how he behaves in moments of controversy and challenge, not comfort and convenience."
  — Martin Luther King Jr.
• "Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated."
  — Confucius
• "Life is too short to be small."
  — Disraeli
• "Life is a mirror: if you smile at it, it smiles back at you."
  — Unknown
• "Begin by doing what is necessary, then what is possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible."
  — Saint Francis of Assisi
• "He who knows others is wise; he who knows himself is enlightened."
  — Lao Tzu
• "Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together."
  — Vincent Van Gogh
• "Learning without thinking is wasted labor; thinking without learning is dangerous."
  — Confucius
• "It is better to conquer oneself than to win a thousand battles."
  — Buddha
• "Success consists of going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm."
  — Winston Churchill
• "If you are patient in one moment of anger, you will escape a hundred days of sorrow."
  — Chinese Proverb
• "Change is the law of life. Those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future."
  — John F. Kennedy
• "Living well is the best revenge."
  — George Herbert
• "Luck favors the prepared mind."
  — Louis Pasteur
• "To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but to love wisdom to the point of living according to its dictates."
  — Henry David Thoreau
• "The main obstacle to knowledge is not ignorance, but the illusion of knowledge."
  — Daniel J. Boorstin
• "An intelligent person learns from the mistakes of others, a common person learns from their own mistakes."
  — Confucius
• "There is nothing so useless as doing something efficiently that should not be done."
  — Peter Drucker
• "The darkest hour lasts only sixty minutes."
  — Morris Mandel
• "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."
  — Lao Tzu
• "The mind that opens to a new idea never returns to its original size."
  — Albert Einstein
• "One can achieve great success when one remains true to oneself."
  — Friedrich Nietzsche
• "Know all the theories, master all the techniques, but when touching a human soul, be just another human soul."
  — Carl Jung
• "Silence is a source of great strength."
  — Lao Tzu
• "What is behind us and what is in front of us are small matters compared to what is within us."
  — Ralph Waldo Emerson
• "Great deeds are accomplished not by strength, but by perseverance."
  — Samuel Johnson
• "Do not be afraid of growing slowly; be afraid of standing still."
  — Chinese Proverb
• "He who chases two hares catches none."
  — Confucius
• "A wise man creates more opportunities than he finds."
  — Francis Bacon
• "Be the change you wish to see in the world."
  — Mahatma Gandhi
• "When the storm has passed, you will not remember how you managed to get through it. But one thing is certain: when you come out of it, you will not be the same person who entered it."
  — Haruki Murakami
• "The best things in life are not things."
  — Art Buchwald
• "There is only one time that is essential to awaken. That time is now."
  — Buddha
• "If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together."
  — African Proverb
• "If you are not willing to risk the usual, you will have to settle for the ordinary."
  — Jim Rohn
• "The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time."
  — Bertrand Russell
• "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
  — Edmund Burke
• "Whatever you do in life, do it with all your heart."
  — Confucius
• "Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens."
  — Jimi Hendrix
• "The way to the top is as difficult as the way to any other place."
  — John Updike
• "Every action you take is a vote for the kind of person you wish to become."
  — James Clear
• "The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees opportunity in every difficulty."
  — Winston Churchill
• "True inspiration is being well prepared for the moment of revelation."
  — Louis Pasteur
• "Where there is no law, there is no freedom."
  — John Locke
• "Invest in your mind. It is the best investment you can make."
  — Benjamin Franklin
• "The truth never harms a cause that is just."
  — Mahatma Gandhi
• "The ends do not justify the means."
  — Immanuel Kant
• "Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does."
  — William James
• "If you do not like something, change it. If you cannot change it, change the way you think about it."
  — Mary Engelbreit
• "Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards."
  — Søren Kierkegaard
• "If you cannot explain something in a simple way, you do not understand it well enough."
  — Albert Einstein
• "The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge."
  — Stephen Hawking
• "Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it."
  — Charles R. Swindoll
• "Knowledge is limited; imagination involves the world."
  — Albert Einstein
• "Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body."
  — Joseph Addison
• "The crazy open the paths that the wise then follow."
  — Carlo Dossi
• "There are three things that are certain: death, taxes, and maintenance."
  — Benjamin Franklin
• "Value those who seek the truth, distrust those who have found it."
  — André Gide
• "There is no need for temples, no need for complicated philosophies. Our brain, our heart is our temple; philosophy is kindness."
  — Dalai Lama
• "The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."
  — Lao Tzu
• "He who knows what is enough will always have enough."
  — Lao Tzu
• "What you resist, persists. What you accept, transforms."
  — Carl Jung
• "In nature, nothing is created, nothing is lost, everything is transformed."
  — Lavoisier
• "The man who moves mountains begins by carrying away small stones."
  — Confucius
• "Do not wait for great leaders; do it yourself, person to person."
  — Mother Teresa
• "Constancy is the foundation of virtue."
  — Francis Bacon
• "True education is learning how to think, not what to think."
  — Krishnamurti
• "Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet."
  — Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• "The mind is everything. You become what you think."
  — Buddha
• "Small acts that are carried out are better than great ones that are planned."
  — George Marshall
• "The illiterates of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn."
  — Alvin Toffler
• "Man can only be man through education."
  — Immanuel Kant
• "Learning without thinking is wasted labor."
  — Confucius
• "The beginning of wisdom is calling things by their true names."
  — Confucius
• "Our glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall."
  — Confucius
• "The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person who is doing it."
  — Chinese Proverb
• "Do what you can, with what you have, where you are."
  — Theodore Roosevelt
• "The cure for pain is in the pain."
  — Rumi
• "The greatest proof of a people's civilization is the way they treat their animals."
  — Mahatma Gandhi
• "The world is a beautiful book, but of little use to those who cannot read."
  — Carlo Goldoni
• "Man is a being who gets used to everything."
  — Dostoevsky
• "Words are like leaves; where they abound, rarely is found much fruit of reason."
  — Alexander Pope