Venture into the most inspirational collection of quotes, maxims and aphorisms.

True knowledge lies in knowing how to live.

Baltasar Gracian - The Art of Worldly Wisdom

• knowledge
• to live

  Background photo by Maria Shanina on Unsplash

In all things it is better to hope than to despair.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - Torquato Tasso

• hope

Truth prevails only to the extent that we successfully assert it. The victory of reason can only be the victory of rational people.

Bertolt Brecht

• reason
• truth

I have decided to be happy because it's good for my health.

Voltaire - Letter to the Abbé Trublet

• decision
• happiness
• health

  Background photo by Daiga Ellaby on Unsplash

A happy life, therefore, is one which is in accordance with its own nature.

Seneca - De Vita Beata

• happiness
• life
• oneself

Man arrives a novice at every age of life.

Nicolas Chamfort - Maximes et pensées

• Age
• life
• Man

Where all is well, there is no such thing as injustice. Justice and goodness are inseparable.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau - Emile, or On Education

• good
• Justice

We cannot direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails.

• wind

  Background photo by Christina Ambalavanar on Unsplash

All grown-ups were once children (but only few of them remember it).

Antoine de Saint-Exupery - The Little Prince

• child

Do not wait to be perfect to start something good.

Abbé Pierre

• good
• perfection

Fate shuffles the cards and we play.

Arthur Schopenhauer - Parerga and Paralipomena

• destiny
• randomness

No man is weak by choice.

Luc de Clapiers, marquis de Vauvenargues - Reflexions and Maxims

• Man
• weakness

Out of clutter find simplicity ; From discord find harmony; In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.

Albert Einstein

• difficulty
• harmony
• opportunity
• simplicity

A person who thinks all the time has nothing to think about except thoughts. So he loses touch with reality, and lives in a world of illusion.

Alan Watts

• illusion
• to think

One should be light like a bird, and not like a feather.

Paul Valéry - Tel quel

• action

  Background photo by Jan Solà SB on Unsplash

It's easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.

Mark Twain ? - Quotation of uncertain origin

It is never too late to give up our prejudices.

Henry David Thoreau - Walden; or, Life in the Woods

• prejudice

If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable.

Seneca - Epistulae morales ad Lucilium

• wind

  Background photo by Austin Neill on Unsplash

Believe those who are seeking the truth; doubt those who find it.

André Gide

• doubt
• truth

Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.

Leo Tolstoy

• change
• oneself
• world

I think my opinions are good and sound, but who does not think the same of his own?

Michel de Montaigne - Essays

• opinion

I am rich in the goods that I can do without.

Louis Vigée - Poésies

• wealth

The need to be right - the sign of a vulgar mind.

Albert Camus - Carnets

Patience is the companion of wisdom.

Augustine of Hippo - De patientia

• patience
• wisdom

Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language.

Ludwig Wittgenstein - Philosophical Investigations

• intelligence
• Language
• philosophy

In the depth of winter I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.

Albert Camus - L'Été

  Background photo by Cristina Gottardi on Unsplash

Know or listen to those who know.

Baltasar Gracian - The Art of Worldly Wisdom

• to know

I have laboured carefully, not to mock, lament, or execrate, but to understand human actions.

Baruch Spinoza - Tractatus politicus

• action
• Human nature
• to understand

As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - Faust: A Tragedy

• life
• self-confidence

Have courage to use your own reason!

Immanuel Kant - Answering the Question: What is Enlightenment?

• courage
• reason

  Background photo by Frida Bredesen on Unsplash