Short Quotes

Legit things people have said over time.

Last update: 2021.03.20

Here is a collection of short quotes I have found meaningful. More extensive and thus deeper quotes could be found in quote category.

Added last time:

  • “Every man has two lives. And the second starts when he realizes he only has one.” Confucius.

List of One Sentence – Short Quotes

  • “You are either in love of what you know or you are in love of what you don’t know and there’s a lot more of what you don’t know; so pick your love carefully.” Jordan B Peterson
  • “Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” Benjamin Franklin
  • “The people should take steps toward healing themselves. Whenever they open up their eyes in the morning they should be thinking: “How can I have a better day today then yesterday? How can I be more of a success spiritually today than I was yesterday?” I like to think of a word S.T.E.P. Healing begins with the Spirit, trickles down to the Thoughts, which changes our Emotions which comes out of our bodies Physically. Our bodies manifest our emotions, which in turn are manifested by our thoughts, which in turn are manifested by the spirit. So we can all work on those four things concurrently, but if you gonna work on any one of them, you need to start with the spirit.” Bobby McFerrin
  • “More data—such as paying attention to the eye colors of the people around when crossing the street—can make you miss the big truck.” – Nassim Nicholas Taleb
  • “The more we value things outside our control, the less control we have.” Epictetus
  • “The political left has never understood that, if you give the government enough power to create “social justice,” you have given it enough power to create despotism. Millions of people around the world have paid with their lives for overlooking that simple fact.” Thomas Sowell
  • „Ultimatums are expressions of powerlessness, empty threats designed to try to influence a situation someone has no control over“Neil Strauss
  • “What does the money machine eat? It eats youth, spontaneity, life, beauty, and, above all, it eats creativity. It eats quality and shits quantity.” William S. Burroughs
  • “You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the Entire Ocean in a drop” Rumi
  • „Celebrity is a mask, that eats your face“ Gregory Colbert
  • “Psychedelics are illegal not because a loving government is concerned that you may jump out of a third story window. Psychedelics are illegal because they dissolve opinion structures and culturally laid down models of behavior and information processing. They open you up to the possibility that everything you know is wrong.” Terence McKenna
  • “I can assure you, pleasure is very different from happiness. I mean, some things are more precious because they don’t last.” Oscar Wilde
  • “The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off” Gloria Steinem
  • “Ego is false confidence, self-respect is true confidence. ” Naval Ravikant
  • “The path of liberation has no end” Gyrus
  • “When one teaches, two learn.” Robert Heinlein
  • “Even if you’re on the right track – you’ll get run over if you just sit there.” – Arthur Godfrey
  • “Read what you love until you love to read.” Naval Ravikant
  • „If freedom is outlawed only outlaws will have freedom“ Unknown
  • “The three most harmful addictions are heroin, carbohydrates, and a monthly salary.” Nassim Nicholas Taleb
  • “Your purpose has to be bigger than yourself” – RSD Tyler
  • „Laugh, and the world laughs with you; Weep, and you weep alone“ – Ella Wheeler Wilcox
  • “Do just once what others say you cannot do, and you will never pay attention to their limitations again.” – Captain James Cook
  • “If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn’t thinking.”  George S. Patton
  • “To make God laugh, tell Him your plans.” Amores Perros
  • „I wish there was a way to know you were in the good old days, before you‘ve actually left them“ The Office writers
  • „We accept the reality of the world with which we are presented“ The Truman Show
  • “Fear knocked on the door. Faith answered. There was no one there.” Sopranos
  • „A problem cannot be solved by the same thinking that created it.“ Albert Einstein
  • „Those who do not learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them.“ George Santayana
  • „Have more than you show, speak less than you know“ William Shakespear
  • “Fear not your enemies, for they can only kill you.Fear not your friends, for they can only betray you.Fear only the indifferent, who permit the killers and betrayers to walk safely on the earth.” Edward Yashinsky
  • “The greatest enemy will hide in the last place you would ever look.” Julius Caesar 75 BC
  • “The only way to get smarter is by playing a smarter opponent.” Fundamentals of Chess 1883
  • “First rule of business, protect your investment.” Etiquette of the Banker 1775
  • “There is no avoiding war, it can only be postponed to the advantage of your enemy.” Niccolo Machiavelli 1502
  • “The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent.” John Maynard Keynes
  • “To avoid criticism say nothing, do nothing, be nothing.” Aristotle
  • „He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man“ Samuel Johnson
  • “A man has a weakness, he’s flawed. That flaw leads him to guilt. The guilt leads him to shame. The shame he compensates with pride and vanity. And when pride fails, despair takes over and they all lead to his destruction. It will become his fate… Something’s gotta stop the flow.” INK
  • “Never hate your enemies. It affects your judgment.” Mario Puzo
  • “A man who doesn’t spend time with his family can never be a real man.” Mario Puzo
  • „Faith is taking the first step even when you don‘t see the whole staircase.“ Martin Luther King Jr.
  • „Fear, guilt and shame are the self-imposed prison guards of our soul.“ Elliott Hulse
  • „The further a society drifts from truth, the more it will hate those that speak it.“ George Orwell
  • “Military men are just dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy.” H.Kissinger
  • “The cleverest of all, in my opinion, is the man who calls himself a fool at least once a month.” – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
  • “You do not need to understand a film, you should feel the film” Federico Fellini
  • “Often what people call “thinking” is merely recycling the opinions of others.” – Nathaniel Branden
  • “There are no passengers on spaceship earth. We are all crew.” Marshall Mcluhan
  • „The best definition of love I ever heard: giving someone the power to destroy you and trusting they won’t use it.“ Simon Sinek
  • „The main problem in Soviet Russia under Stalin, in Red China under Mao, in Nazi Germany under Hitler–and in fact, in nearly every other tyrannical regime in history–was too many obedient law-abiding citizens and too few disobedient law-breaking criminals.“ Larken Rose
  • “Governments, to have a reason for existing, must defend their people from other people’s attack. But not one people wishes to attack, or does attack, another. And therefore Governments, far from wishing for peace, carefully excite the anger of other nations against themselves. And having excited other people’s anger against themselves, and stirred up the patriotism of their own people, each Government then assures its people that it is in danger and must be defended.” – Leo Tolstoy
  • „Most people don’t want new information, they want validating information.“
  • „Plan in decades. Think in years. Work in months. Live in days.“ Nic Haralambous
  • “No matter what happened to you in your past, you are not your past, you are the resources and the capabilities you glean from it. And that is the basis for all change.” – Jordan Belfort
  • “Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.” – Eleanor Roosevelt
  • “With guns you can kill terrorists, with education you can kill terrorism.” – Malala Yousafzai
  • “If Your Only Tool Is a Hammer Then Every Problem Looks Like a Nail” Unknown
  • „Water is wet, the sky is blue, women have secrets.“ Shane Black; Last Boy Scout
  • “Truth is like poetry. And most people fucking hate poetry.” Overheard at a Washington, D.C. bar
  • “The lips of wisdom are closed, except to the ears of Understanding” -The Kybalion.
  • „If you have sex with someone of another country,make sure you give your best ‘cuz you’ll be representing the whole country. Make us feel proud“ Ch Ali Hamza
  • “There are decades where nothing happens, and then there are weeks when decades happen.” – Lenin
  • “The Chinese use two brush strokes to write the word ‘crisis.’ One brush stroke stands for danger; the other for opportunity. In a crisis, be aware of the danger — but recognize the opportunity.” ― John F. Kennedy
  • „Men test ideas, women test men“ Unknown.
  • “Don‘t stop exercising; don‘t let your body know it‘s dying.” Unknown.