200+ Best and Most Famous Quotes of All Time

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Here’s the scoop: everyone loves a good quote. Those lines that just stick with you, whether they’re from a movie, a famous thinker, or a book you couldn’t put down. This post is all about those gems—words so sharp and shiny, they’ve cut through years and ended up here in our collection of the best and the most famous quotes of all time. They’re simple, they’re smart, and hey, they just might make your day a little better. So, let’s get into it and enjoy some legendary words that have more than earned their keep.

The Most Famous Quotes of All Time

Be yourself; everyone else is already taken. ~ Oscar Wilde

That which does not kill us makes us stronger. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing. ~ Walt Disney

 Nothing is impossible, the word itself says, ‘I‘m possible!’ ~ Audrey Hepburn

Not all those who wander are lost. ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it. ~ Roald Dahl

I’m selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can’t handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don’t deserve me at my best. ~ Marilyn Monroe

The biggest risk is not taking any risk… In a world that is changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks. ~ Mark Zuckerberg

I would rather walk with a friend in the dark, than alone in the light. ~ Helen Keller

If I had a flower for every time I thought of you…I could walk through my garden forever. ~ Alfred Tennyson

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. ~ Steve Jobs

Have no fear of perfection, you’ll never reach it. ~ Salvador Dali

The trouble is, you think you have time. ~ Jack Kornfield

If you really look closely, most overnight successes took a long time. ~ Steve Jobs

So many books, so little time. ~ Frank Zappa

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

The difference between genius and stupidity is: genius has its limits. ~ Alexandre Dumas-fils

The secret of success is to do the common thing uncommonly well. ~ John D. Rockefeller Jr.

There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure. ~ Colin Powell

 Before anything else, preparation is the key to success. ~ Alexander Graham Bell

Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated. ~ Confucius


I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman. ~ Virginia Woolf

 Doing the best at this moment puts you in the best place for the next moment. ~ Oprah Winfrey

Keep smiling, because life is a beautiful thing and there’s so much to smile about. ~ Marilyn Monroe

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you’ve imagined. ~ Henry David Thoreau

If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it. ~ Toni Morrison

The real test is not whether you avoid this failure, because you won‘t. It’s whether you let it harden or shame you into inaction, or whether you learn from it; whether you choose to persevere. ~ Barack Obama

You don’t learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing and by falling over. ~ Richard Branson

It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop. ~ Confucius

There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed. ~ Ernest Hemingway

In playing ball and in life, a person occasionally gets the opportunity to do something great. When that time comes, only two things matter: being prepared to seize the moment and having the courage to take your best swing. ~ Hank Aaron

I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have. ~ Thomas Jefferson

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams. ~ Eleanor Roosevelt

In the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years. ~ Abraham Lincoln

′Classic′ – a book which people praise and don’t read. ~ Mark Twain

But better to get hurt by the truth than comforted with a lie. ~ Khaled Hosseini

I have never let my schooling interfere with my education. ~ Mark Twain

Don’t worry when you are not recognized but strive to be worthy of recognition. ~ Abraham Lincoln

Don’t find fault, find a remedy: anyone can complain. ~ Henry Ford

It’s fine to celebrate success, but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure. ~ Bill Gates

Don’t be distracted by criticism. Remember — the only taste of success some people get is to take a bite out of you. ~ Zig Ziglar

You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. ~ Wayne Gretzky

A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes. ~ Mark Twain

Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it. ~ Henry David Thoreau

Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe. ~ Albert Einstein

Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. ~ Helen Keller

Never tell the truth to people who are not worthy of it. ~ Mark Twain

Never leave till tomorrow that which you can do today. ~ Benjamin Franklin

High expectations are the key to everything. ~ Sam Walton

 A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on. ~ John F. Kennedy

Leave nothing for tomorrow which can be done today. ~ Abraham Lincoln

Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom. ~ Aristotle

 Everything you can imagine is real. ~ Pablo Picasso

I didn’t fail the test. I just found 100 ways to do it wrong. ~ Benjamin Franklin

Don’t watch the clock; do what it does. Keep going. ~ Sam Levenson

Do what you can, with what you have, where you are. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

If you want to make your dreams come true, the first thing you have to do is wake up. ~ J.M. Power

It’s the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting. ~ Paulo Coelho,

In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer. ~ Albert Camus

A room without books is like a body without a soul. ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero

 May you live all the days of your life. ~ Jonathan Swift

Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood. ~ George Orwell

Folks are usually about as happy as they make their minds up to be. ~ Abraham Lincoln

Don’t you dare underestimate the power of your own instinct. ~ Barbara Corcoran

If you want to achieve excellence, you can get there today. As of this second, quit doing less-than-excellent work. ~ Thomas J. Watson

We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are. ~ Anaïs Nin

 Life is a long lesson in humility. ~ James M. Barrie

Success is not final; failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that count. ~ Winston S. Churchill

You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me. ~ C.S. Lewis

Success is walking from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm. ~ Winston Churchill

When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us. ~ Helen Keller

If you genuinely want something, don’t wait for it — teach yourself to be impatient. ~ Gurbaksh Chahal

No matter what people tell you, words and ideas can change the world. ~ Robin Williams

Never let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game. ~ Babe Ruth

Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead. ~ Charles Bukowski

If you look at what you have in life, you’ll always have more. If you look at what you don’t have in life, you’ll never have enough. ~ Oprah Winfrey

When you undervalue what you do, the world will undervalue who you are. ~ Oprah Winfrey

You become what you believe. ~ Oprah Winfrey

Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving. ~ Albert Einstein

Life itself is the most wonderful fairy tale. ~ Hans Christian Andersen

Lack of direction, not lack of time, is the problem. We all have twenty-four-hour days. ~ Zig Ziglar

If you don’t build your dream, someone else will hire you to help them build theirs. ~ Tony Gaskins

Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind. ~ Bernard M. Baruch

In this life we cannot do great things. We can only do small things with great love. ~ Mother Teresa

You’ve gotta dance like there’s nobody watching,
Love like you’ll never be hurt,
Sing like there’s nobody listening,
And live like it’s heaven on earth. ~ William W. Purkey

The road to success is always under construction. ~ Lily Tomlin

If you set your goals ridiculously high and it’s a failure, you will fail above everyone else’s success. ~ James Cameron

Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm. ~ Winston Churchill

 The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary. ~ Vidal Sassoon

Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up. ~ Thomas A. Edison

 Do not let making a living prevent you from making a life. ~ John Wooden

The only way to do great work is to love what you do. ~ Steve Jobs

You know you’re in love when you can’t fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams. ~ Dr. Seuss

People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing. That’s why we recommend it daily. ~ Zig Ziglar

Luck is a dividend of sweat. The more you sweat, the luckier you get. ~ Ray Kroc

You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. ~ Dr. Seuss

“If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people or things. ~ Albert Einstein

You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough. ~ Mae West

Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier. ~ Mother Teresa

If life were predictable, it would cease to be life and be without flavor. ~ Eleanor Roosevelt

Life is made of ever so many partings welded together. ~ Charles Dickens

The most difficult thing is the decision to act; the rest is merely tenacity. ~ Amelia Earhart

 Don’t be afraid to give up the good to go for the great. ~ John D. Rockefeller

Be the change that you wish to see in the world. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world. ~ Albert Einstein

Logic will get you from A to Z; imagination will get you everywhere. ~ Albert Einstein

The difference between successful people and unsuccessful people is that successful people do all the things unsuccessful people don’t want to do. ~ John Paul DeJoria

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the water to create many ripples. ~ Mother Teresa

How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world. ~ Anne Frank

I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living. ~ Dr. Seuss

In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on. ~ Robert Frost

It is better to offer no excuse than a bad one. ~ George Washington

Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier. ~ Mother Teresa

If you want to know what a man’s like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals. ~ J.K. Rowling

Believe you can, and you’re halfway there. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

The price of inaction is far greater than the cost of a mistake. ~ Meg Whitman

If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader. ~ John Quincy Adams

An unexamined life is not worth living. ~ Socrates

The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing. ~ Socrates

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past. ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald

Don’t walk in front of me… I may not follow
Don’t walk behind me… I may not lead
Walk beside me… just be my friend. ~ Albert Camus

A day without laughter is a day wasted. ~ Nicolas Chamfort

Life is trying things to see if they work. ~ Ray Bradbury

Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile. ~ Albert Einstein

We cannot solve problems with the kind of thinking we employed when we came up with them. ~ Albert Einstein

The purpose of our lives is to be happy. ~ Dalai Lama

You can never be overdressed or overeducated. ~ Oscar Wilde

Take time to deliberate; but when the time for action arrives, stop thinking and go in. ~ Andrew Jackson

The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Everything you’ve ever wanted is on the other side of fear. ~ George Addair

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt

I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity. ~ Edgar Allan Poe

For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

I have learned over the years that when one’s mind is made up, this diminishes fear. ~ Rosa Parks

The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt

If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything. ~ Mark Twain

I’m not upset that you lied to me, I’m upset that from now on I can’t believe you. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

I’m convinced that about half of what separates successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance. ~ Steve Jobs

Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So, throw off the bowlines, sail away from safe harbor, catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore, Dream, Discover. ~ Mark Twain

The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom. ~ Isaac Asimov

Dream big and dare to fail. ~ Norman Vaughan


If you judge people, you have no time to love them. ~ Mother Teresa

I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. ~ Maya Angelou

Friendship … is born at the moment when one man says to another “What! You too? I thought that no one but myself . . . ~ C.S. Lewis

 It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation. ~ Herman Melville

If you can’t explain it to a six year old, you don’t understand it yourself. ~ Albert Einstein

A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you. ~ Elbert Hubbard

When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor. ~ Elon Musk

The road to success and the road to failure are almost exactly the same. ~ Colin R. Davis

The question isn‘t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me. ~ Ayn Rand

If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking. ~ Haruki Murakami

When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. ~ Haruki Murakami

To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all. ~ Oscar Wilde

Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much. ~ Oscar Wilde

You may say I‘m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. I hope someday you’ll join us. And the world will live as one. ~ John Lennon

Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that. ~ Martin Luther King Jr.

Well done is better than well said. ~ Benjamin Franklin

Winning isn’t everything, but wanting to win is. ~ Vince Lombardi

Try not to become a man of success. Rather become a man of value. ~ Albert Einstein

The only impossible journey is the one you never begin. ~ Tony Robbins

Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

If you‘re offered a seat on a rocket ship, don’t ask what seat! Just get on. ~ Sheryl Sandberg

We accept the love we think we deserve. ~ Stephen Chbosky

The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched – they must be felt with the heart. ~ Helen Keller

Without music, life would be a mistake. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

 Courage is grace under pressure. ~ Ernest Hemingway

Time is more valuable than money. You can get more money, but you cannot get more time. ~ Jim Rohn

 If you are not willing to risk the usual, you will have to settle for the ordinary.~ Jim Rohn

Either you run the day or the day runs you. ~ Jim Rohn

Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life. ~ Mark Twain

I am so clever that sometimes I don’t understand a single word of what I am saying. ~ Oscar Wilde

Let the future tell the truth, and evaluate each one according to his work and accomplishments. The present is theirs; the future, for which I have really worked, is mine. ~ Nikola Tesla

It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light. ~ Aristotle

Time and tide wait for no man. ~ Geoffrey Chaucer

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to reform (or pause and reflect). ~ Mark Twain

The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall. ~ Nelson Mandela

 With great power comes great responsibility. ~ Stan Lee

First, have a definite, clear, practical ideal; a goal, an objective. Second, have the necessary means to achieve your ends: wisdom, money, materials, and methods. Third, adjust all your means to that end. ~ Aristotle

Do one thing every day that scares you. ~ Eleanor Roosevelt

A goal is a dream with a deadline. ~ Napoleon Hill

Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

 Life is never fair, and perhaps it is a good thing for most of us that it is not. ~ Oscar Wilde

All great achievements require time. ~ Maya Angelou

Always remember, your focus determines your reality. ~ George Lucas

To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Don’t let yesterday take up too much of today. ~ Will Rogers

 I would rather die of passion than of boredom. ~ Vincent van Gogh

You will face many defeats in life, but never let yourself be defeated. ~ Maya Angelou

If you set your goals ridiculously high and it‘s a failure, you will fail above everyone else’s success. ~ James Cameron

Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

In three words, I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on. ~ Robert Frost

It is never too late to be what you might have been. ~ George Eliot

Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself. ~ George Bernard Shaw

To be successful, you have to be selfish, or else you will never achieve. And once you get to your highest level, then you have to be unselfish. ~ Michael Jordan


It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not. ~ Andre Gide


Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You. ~ Dr. Seuss

Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right. ~ Henry Ford

I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work. ~ Thomas A. Edison

Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning. ~ Gloria Steinem

There is never enough time to do everything, but there is always enough time to do the most important thing. ~ Brian Tracy

A woman is like a tea bag; you never know how strong it is until it’s in hot water. ~ Eleanor Roosevelt

It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

It is still best to be honest and truthful; to make the most of what we have; to be happy with simple pleasures; and have courage when things go wrong. ~ Laura Ingalls Wilder

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. ~ Lao Tzu

Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve. ~ Napoleon Hill

Time is money. ~ Benjamin Franklin

Sometimes the road less traveled is less traveled for a reason. ~ Jerry Seinfeld

Doing nothing is very hard to do. You never know when you’re finished. ~ Leslie Nielsen

 You may delay, but time will not. ~ Benjamin Franklin

I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious. ~ Albert Einstein

I’m not here to be perfect, I’m here to be real. ~ Lady Gaga

Life is what happens to us while we are making other plans. ~ Allen Saunders

If you don’t know where you’re going, any road’ll take you there. ~ George Harrison

What is the point of being alive if you don’t at least try to do something remarkable? ~ John Green

And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a harder battle. ~ Plato

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