Famous Quotations

Famous English Quotations

List of famous English quotations from
politicians, authors, actors, scientists and philosophers.

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	Quotation	Author
A	"After all is said and done, more is said than done."	Aesop
	"Persuasion is often more effectual than force."	Aesop
	"United we stand, divided we fall."	Aesop
	"When I was born, I was so surprised I didn't talk for a year and a half."	Gracie Allen
	"If you're not failing every now and again, it's a sign you're not doing  anything very innovative."	Woody Allen
	"I'm not afraid to die.  I just don't want to be there when it happens."	Woody Allen
	"Time is nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once."	Woody Allen
	"The secret of life is not to do what you like, but to like what you do."	Anonymous
	"Love is not about who you live with. It's about who you can't live  without."	Anonymous
	"A real friend is someone who walks in when the rest of the world walks  out"	Anonymous
	"Opportunity may knock only once, but temptation leans on the  doorbell."	Anonymous
	"Good supervision is the art of getting average people to do superior  work."	Anonymous
	"Wit is educated insolence."	Aristotle
	"Education is the best provision for the journey to old age."	Aristotle
	"One swallow does not make the spring."	Aristotle
	"Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work."	Aristotle
	"We are what we repeatedly do."	Aristotle
	"Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow ripening  fruit."	Aristotle
	"There is safety in numbers."	Anonymous
B	"The worst solitude is to be destitute of sincere friendship."	Sir Francis Bacon
	"Knowledge is power."	Sir Francis Bacon
	"A prudent question is one-half of wisdom."	Sir Francis Bacon
	"Behind every great fortune there is a crime."	Honore de Balzac
	"It is easy to sit up and take notice, What is difficult is getting up and  taking action."	Honore de Balzac
	"An error doesn't become a mistake until you refuse to correct it."	Orlando A. Battisa
	"There is no such thing as a long piece of work, except one that you   dare not start.	Charles Baudelaire
	"When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and   so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which   has opened for us."	Alexander Graham Bell
	"Happiness lies in good health and a bad memory."	Ingrid Bergman
	"Only a fool learns from his own mistakes. The wise man learns from   the mistakes of others.	Otto von Bismarck
	"Ability is nothing without opportunity."	Napoleon Bonaparte
	"Glory is fleeting but obscurity is forever."	Napoleon Bonaparte
	"Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake."	Napoleon Bonaparte
	"The heart has reasons that reason does not understand."	Jacques Bossuet
	"Never make fun of someone who speaks broken English.  It means they know another language.”	H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

C	"Never stand begging for that which you have the power to earn."	Miguel de Cervantes
	"Nature gives you the face you have at twenty; it is up to you to merit  the face you have at fifty."	Coco Chanel
	"There are people who have money and people who are rich."	Coco Chanel
	"Don't ever take a fence down until you know the reason it was put up."	G.K. Chesterton
	"A woman used her intelligence to find reasons to support her intuition."	G.K. Chesterton
	"I married an archaeologist because the older I grow the more he  appreciates me."	Agatha Christie
	"Very few of us are what we seem."	Agatha Christie
	"All great things are simple, and many can be expressed in single  words : freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope."	Winston Churchill
	"A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get  its pants on."	Winston Churchill
	"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees  the opportunity in every difficulty."	Winston Churchill
	"Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of  enthusiasm."	Winston Churchill
	"If you are going through hell, keep going."	Winston Churchill
	"History will be kind to me for I intend to write it."	Winston Churchill
	"The price of greatness is responsibility."	Winston Churchill
	"Out of intense complexities, intense simplicities emerge."	Winston Churchill
	"You have enemies? Good.  That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life."	Winston Churchill
	"We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give."	Winston Churchill
	"Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others."	Cicero
	"Progress is the injustice each generation commits with regard to its  predecessors."	E.M.Cioran
	"I believe in luck; how else can you explain the success of those you  dislike?"	Jean Cocteau
	"Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your   life.	Conficius
	"Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it."	Conficius
	"Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall."	Conficius
	"Respect yourself and others will respect you."	Conficius
	"The superior man is slow in his words and earnest in his conduct."	Conficius
	"Nothing in life is to be feared; it is only to be understood."	Marie Curie
D	"The only difference between me and  a madman is that I'm not mad."	Salvador Dali
	"Have no fear of perfection; you'll never reach it."	Salvador Dali
	"It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most  intelligent, but the one most responsive to change."	Charles Darwin
	"It's the friends you can call up at 4 a.m. that matter."	Marlene Dietrich
	"Talk to a man about himself and he will listen for hours."	Benjamin Disraeli
	"The greatest good you can do for another is not just share your riches,  but reveal to him his own."	Benjamin Disraeli
	"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics."	Benjamin Disraeli
	"Little things affect little minds."	Benjamin Disraeli
	"My idea of an agreeable person is a person who agrees with me."	Benjamin Disraeli
	"The secret of success is constancy of purpose."	Benjamin Disraeli
	"Success is the child of audacity."	Benjamin Disraeli
	"Pure love and suspicion cannot dwell together; at the door where the  latter enters, the former makes its exit.	Alexandre Dumas
	"All for one and one for all."	Alexandre Dumas

E	"Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration."	Thomas Edison
	"Creativity is contagious, pass it on."	Albert Einstein
	"Only two things are infinite - the universe and human stupidity, and  I'm not sure about the former."	Albert Einstein
	"Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that  counts can be counted."	Albert Einstein
	"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its  limits."	Albert Einstein
	"It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer."	Albert Einstein
	"Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new."	Albert Einstein
	"Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish."	Albert Einstein
	"Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a  tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid."	Albert Einstein
	"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre  minds."	Albert Einstein
	"Gravitation cannot be held responsible for people falling in love."	Albert Einstein
	"I never think of the future.  It comes soon enough."	Albert Einstein
	"Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow."	Albert Einstein
	"Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value."	Albert Einstein
	"When you are courting a nice girl, an hour seems like a second.  When you sit on a red-hot cinder, a second seems like an hour.  That's relativity."	Albert Einstein
	"You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play  better than anyone else."	Albert Einstein
	“You don’t really understand something unless you can explain it to  your grandmother.”	Albert Einstein
	"Love of beauty is taste. The creation of beauty is art."	Ralph Waldo Emerson
	"The only way to have a friend is to be one."	Ralph Waldo Emerson
	"In case of dissension, never dare to judge till you've heard the other  side."	Euripedes
	"Man's best possession is a sympathetic wife."	Euripedes
F	"A writer is congenitally unable to tell the truth, and that is why we call  what he writes fiction."	William Faulkner
	"A business that makes nothing but money is a poor kind of business."	Henry Ford
	"Don't find fault, find a remedy."	Henry Ford
	"Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes  off your goal."	Henry Ford
	"You can't build a reputation on what you are going to do."	Henry Ford
	"The biggest mistake people make in life is not trying to make a living  at doing what they most enjoy."	Malcolm Forbes
	"To accomplish great things, we must not only act but also dream; not  only plan but also believe."	Anatole France
	"Admiration is the daughter of ignorance."	Benjamin Franklin
	“In order for three people to keep a secret, two must be dead.”	Benjamin Franklin
	"By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail."	Benjamin Franklin
	"Most fools think they are only ignorant."	Benjamin Franklin
	"Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed."	Benjamin Franklin
	"Creative minds have always been known to survive any kind of bad  training."	Anna Freud
	"Men are more moral than they think, and far more immoral that they  can imagine."	Sigmund Freud

G	"We cannot teach people anything; we can only help them discover it  within themselves."	Galileo Gallilei
	"I believe in equality for everyone, except reporters and photographers."	Mahatma Gandhi
	"I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles; but today it means  getting along with people."	Mahatma Gandhi
	“There is enough on earth for everybody’s need, but not for everyone’s  greed.”	Mahatma Gandhi
	"You must be the change you wish to see in the world."	Mahatma Gandhi
	"Live as if you were to die tomorrow; learn as if you were to live forever."	Mahatma Gandhi
	"Don't let yourself be lulled into inaction."	Bill Gates
	"Nothing strengthens authority as much as silence."	Charles de Gaulle
	"Graveyards are full of indispensable men."	Charles de Gaulle
	"Formula for success : rise early, work hard, strike oil."	J. Paul Getty
	"Money isn't everything but it sure keeps you in touch with your children"	J. Paul Getty
	"If you can actually count your money then you are not a rich man."	J. Paul Getty
	"All the world over I will back the masses against the classes."	William Gladstone
	"Enjoy when you can and endure when you must."	J.W. van Goethe
	"Knowing is not enough; we must apply.   Willing is not enough; we must do."	J.W. van Goethe
	"Whatever you can do or dream, begin it."	J.W. van Goethe
	"A man can stand anything except a succession of ordinary days."	J.W. van Goethe
	"Talent develops in tranquillity, character in the full current of human life."	J.W. van Goethe
H	"However difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do  and succeed at."	Stephen Hawking
	"Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change."	Stephen Hawking
	"Life would be tragic if it weren't funny."	Stephen Hawking
	"Work gives you meaning and purpose, and life is empty without it."	Stephen Hawking
	"Never confuse movement with action."	Ernest Hemmingway
	"There is no better friend than a book."	Ernest Hemmingway
	"Drama is life with the dull bits cut out."	Alfred Hitchcock
	"Seize the day, put no trust in tomorrow."	Horace
	"Forty is the old age of youth; fifty is the youth of old age."	Victor Hugo
	"He who opens a school door, closes a prison."	Victor Hugo
	"Life is the flower for which love is the honey."	Victor Hugo
	"Intelligence is the wife, imagination is the mistress, memory is the  servant."	Victor Hugo
	"Experience is not what happens to a man. It is what a man does with  what happens to him."	Aldous Huxley
	"Maybe this world is another planet's hell."	Aldous Huxley
J	"In matters of style, swim with the current, in matters of principle, stand  like a rock."	Thomas Jefferson
	"Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower."	Steve Jobs
	"Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn't matter to me.  Going to bed at night saying we've done something wonderful, that's  what matters to me."	Steve Jobs
	"Man alone is born crying, lives complaining, and dies disappointed."	Samuel Johnson
	"Our brightest blazes are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks."	Samuel Johnson
	"Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without  integrity is dangerous and dreadful.	Samuel Johnson
	"Love is the wisdom of the fool and the folly of the wise."	Samuel Johnson
	"The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him  absolutely no good."	Samuel Johnson
	"When making your choices in life, do not forget to live."	Samuel Johnson

K	"Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life."	Immanuel Kant
	“Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or the  present are certain to miss the future.”	John F. Kennedy
	"Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names."	John F. Kennedy
	"When written in Chinese, the word crisis is composed of two  characters. One represents danger, the other represents opportunity."	John F. Kennedy
	"Man is still the most extraordinary computer of all."	John F. Kennedy
	"Liberty without learning is always in peril;  learning without liberty is  always in vain."	John F. Kennedy
	"There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why...  I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?"	Robert Kennedy
	"More business is lost every year through neglect than through any  other cause."	Rose Kennedy
	"Education : the inculcation of the incomprehensible into the indifferent  by the incompetent.	John Maynard Keynes
	"In the end we will remember not the words of our enemies but the  silence of our friends."	Martin Luther King
	"The time is always right to do what is right."	Martin Luther King
	"We may have all come on different ships, but we're in the same boat  now."	Martin Luther King
	"Take everything you like seriously, except yourselves."	Rudyard Kipling
	"A woman's guess is much more accurate than a man's certainty."	Rudyard Kipling
	"Gardens are not made by sitting in the shade."	Rudyard Kipling
	"He travels the fastest who travels alone."	Rudyard Kipling
	"The absence of alternatives clears the mind marvellously."	Henry Kissinger
	"The nice thing about being a celebrity is that if you bore people they  think it's their fault."	Henry Kissinger
L	"We can live without religion and meditation, but we cannot survive  without human affection."	Dalai Lama
	"Life is what happens when you are busy making other plans."	John Lennon
	"In the end it's not the years in your life that count, it's the life in your  years."	Abraham Lincoln
	"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's  character, give him power."	Abraham Lincoln
	"You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today."	Abraham Lincoln
	"You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people  all of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time."	Abraham Lincoln
M	"No enterprise is more likely to succeed than one concealed from the  enemy until it is ripe for execution."	Niccolo Machiavelli
	"People ask for criticism, but they only want praise."	Somerset Maugham
	"It is cruel to discover one's mediocrity only when it is too late."	Somerset Maugham
	"The greater the obstacle, the more glory in overcoming it."	Moliere
	"To the soul there is hardly anything more healing than friendship."	Thomas Moore

N	"Tact is the knack of making a point without making an enemy."	Isaac Newton
	"The advantage of a bad memory is that one enjoys several times the  same good things for the first time."	Friedrich Nietzsche
	"What doesn't kill you will make you stronger."	Friedrich Nietzsche
	"When one has much to put into them, a day has a hundred pockets."	Friedrich Nietzsche
	"We don't see things as they are; we see things as we are."	Anais Nin
	"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage."	Anais Nin
O	"Burdens become light when cheerfully borne."	Ovid
P	"In the field of observation, chance favours only the prepared mind."	Louis Pasteur
	"Avoid popularity; it has many snares and no real benefit."	William Penn
	"Time is what we want most, but what we use worst."	William Penn
	"Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working."	Pablo Picasso
	"The chief enemy of creativity is good taste."	Pablo Picasso
	"The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled."	Plutarch
	"Fools rush in where angels fear to tread."	Alexander Pope
	"The voyage to discovery is not in seeking new landscapes but in having  new eyes."	Marcel Proust
R	"If you wish to avoid seeing a fool, you must break your mirror."	Francois Rabelais
	"A statesman is a successful politician who is dead."	Thomas Brackett Reed
	"The customer is never wrong."	Cesar Ritz
	"Instruction ends in the schoolroom, but education ends only with life."	F.W. Robertson
	"Many people despise wealth but few know how to give it away."	F. de la Rochefoucauld
	"Men give away nothing so liberally as their advice."	F. de la Rochefoucauld
	"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent."	Eleanor Roosevelt
	"The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.	Eleanor Roosevelt
	"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."	Franklin D. Roosevelt
	"Rules are not necessarily sacred; principles are."	Franklin D. Roosevelt
	"I ask you to judge me by the enemies I have made."	Franklin D. Roosevelt
	"It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed."	Theodore Roosevelt
	"The only man who never makes mistakes is the man who never does  anything."	Theodore Roosevelt
	"With self-discipline most anything is possible."	Theodore Roosevelt
	"If it can't be cured it must be endured."	Salman Rushdie
	"When love and skill work together, expect a masterpiece."	John Ruskin

S	"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but  when there is nothing left to take away."	Antoine de St Exupery
	"Life has taught us that love does not consist in gazing at each other  but in looking outward together in the same direction.	Antoine de St Exupery
	"Hell is other people."	Jean-Paul Sartre
	"It is wise to learn; it is God-like to create."	John Saxe
	"For success, attitude is equally as important as ability."	Sir Walter Scott
	"Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity."	Lucius Annaeus Seneca
	"Life is a play.  It's not its length but its performance that counts."	Lucius Annaeus Seneca
	"Action is eloquence."	William Shakespeare
	"All that glitters is not gold."	William Shakespeare
	"Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none."	William Shakespeare
	"Our bodies are our gardens to which our wills are gardeners."	William Shakespeare
	"Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind."	William Shakespeare
	"A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the  support of Paul."	George Bernard Shaw
	"Great Britain and the United States are nations separated by a  common language."	George Bernard Shaw
	"The greatest of our evils and the worst of our crimes is poverty."	George Bernard Shaw
	"Youth is a wonderful thing.  What a crime to waste it on children!"	George Bernard Shaw
	"Martyrdom ... is the only way in which a man can become famous  without ability."	George Bernard Shaw
	"We don't stop playing because we grow; we grow old because we  stop playing."	George Bernard Shaw
	"Reasonable men adapt to the world. Unreasonable men adapt  the world to themselves. That's why all progress depends on  unreasonable men."	George Bernard Shaw
	"Can a man who is warm understand one who is freezing?"	Alexander Solzhenitsyn
	"Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap ... but by the seeds  you plant!"	Robert Louis Stevenson
	"Politics is perhaps the only profession for which no preparation is  thought necessary."	Robert Louis Stevenson
	"Vision is the art of seeing things invisible.	Jonathan Swift
	"May you live every day of your life."	Jonathan Swift
T	"I am more afraid of an army of a hundred sheep led by a lion, than by  an army of a hundred lions led by a sheep."	Talleyrand
	"'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all."	Alfred Lord Tennyson
	"A good laugh is sunshine in a house."	William Thackery
	"If you want something said, ask a man; if you want something done,  ask a woman."	Margaret Thatcher
	"It is not the creation of wealth that is wrong, but the love of money for  its own sake."	Margaret Thatcher
	"I'm extraordinarily patient provided I get my own way in the end."	Margaret Thatcher
	"It may be the cock that crows, but it is the hen that lays the eggs."	Margaret Thatcher
	"Love is real only when a person can sacrifice himself for another."	Leo Tolstoy
	"Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter."	Mark Twain
	"Be careful of reading health books. You may die of a misprint."	Mark Twain
	"Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you  nothing. It was here first."	Mark Twain
	"It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a  fool than to open it and remove all doubt."	Mark Twain
	"Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been."	Mark Twain

U	"The only thing in life achieved without effort is failure."	Unknown
	"The speed of the leader determines the rate of the pack."	Unknown
	"Many receive advice; only the wise profit from it."	Unknown
	"Remember, no one can make you feel inferior without your consent."	Unknown
	"Genius is the ability to reduce the complicated to the simple."	Unknown
	"The secret of happiness is not doing what one likes, but in liking what  one does."	Unknown
	"Only those who keep trying eventually win."	Unknown
	"Getting something done is an accomplishment; getting something done  right is an achievement."	Unknown
	"Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do."	Unknown
	"The best time to do something worthwhile is between yesterday and  tomorrow."	Unknown
V	"Conscience is a man's compass."	Vinvent Van Gogh
	"The progress of rivers to the ocean is not as rapid as that of man to  error."	Voltaire
	"Anything that is too stupid to be spoken is sung."	Voltaire
	"God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh."	Voltaire
	"The greatest consolation in life is to say what one thinks."	Voltaire
	"Doubt is not an agreeable condition, but certainty is an absurd one."	Voltaire
	"The secret of being a bore is to tell everything."	Voltaire
	"Think for yourself and let others enjoy the privilege of doing so too."	Voltaire
W	"The only way to get rid of a temptation is to get rid of it."	Oscar Wilde
	"Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go."	Oscar Wilde
	"My own business always bores me to death; I prefer other people's."	Oscar Wilde
	"Experience is the name so many people give to their mistakes."	Oscar Wilde
	"Wisdom is knowing how little we know."	Oscar Wilde
	"To live is the rarest thing in the world.  Most people exist, that's all."	Oscar Wilde
	"The old believe everything, the middle-aged suspect everything, the  young know everything."	Oscar Wilde
	"No man is rich enough to buy back his past."	Oscar Wilde
	"There are only two tragedies in life : one is not getting what one wants,  the other is getting it."	Oscar Wilde
	"True friends stab you in the front."	Oscar Wilde
	"Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every  six months."	Oscar Wilde
	"All cruel people describe themselves as paragons of frankness."	Tennessee Williams
Y	"Education is not the filling of a pail but rather the lighting of a fire."	William Butler Yeats
	"There are no strangers here, only friends you haven't yet met."	William Butler Yeats
Z	"The artist is nothing without the gift, but the gift is nothing without work."	Emile Zola