Words of Wisdom

Read about insightful words of wisdom that can help you grow and become a better person in life. Words that can help you understand the myths of life.

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres... And now these three remain: faith hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” —Bible (I Corinthians 13:4-7, 13)

“When you were born, you were crying and everyone around you was smiling. Live your life so that when you die, you’re the one smiling and everyone around you is crying.” —Unknown

“There will come a time when you believe everything is finished. That will be the beginning.” —Louis L’Amour

“Life is really simple, but men insist on making it complicated.” —Confucius

“Only through love can we obtain communion with God.” —Albert Schweitzer

“The soul would have no rainbow if the eyes had no tears.” —Native American proverb

“Help me never to judge another until I have walked a mile in his moccasins.” —Indian prayer

“In the place of stillness, rises potential. From the place of potential, emerges possibility. Where there is possibility, there is choice. And where there is choice, there is freedom!” —Gabrielle Goddard

“All major religious traditions carry basically the same message that is love, compassion and forgiveness ... the important thing is they should be part of our daily lives.” —Dalai Lama

“You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.” —Buddha

“Blessed are those who can give without remembering and take without forgetting.” —Elizabeth Bibesco

“This above all; to your own self be true.” —William Shakespeare

Meaning of Namaste: “I honor the place in you in which the entire universe dwells. I honor the place in you, which is of love, of truth, of light and of peace. When you are in that place in you, and I am in that place in me, we are one.”

“To love yourself right now, just as you are, is to give yourself heaven. Don’t wait until you die. If you wait, you die now. If you love, you live now.” —Alan Cohen

“Man is lost and is wandering in a jungle where real values have no meaning. Real values can have meaning to man only when he steps on to the spiritual path, a path where negative emotions have no use.” —Sai Baba

“The most common ego identifications have to do with possessions, the work you do, social status and recognition, knowledge and education, physical appearance, special abilities, relationships, personal and family history, belief systems, and often political, nationalistic, racial, religious, and other collective identifications. None of these is you.” —Eckhart Tolle

“God is the mind that imagines physical reality. We are each like a cell in that mind.” —Peter Shepherd.

“It’s never too late to change the programming imprinted in childhood, carried in our genes or derived from previous lives; the solution is mindfulness in the present moment.” —Peter Shepherd

“Talk to yourself in two languages - what do I need and what do I love - in order to balance the body and the soul.” —Peter Shepherd

“Survival is for the human animal; fear the motivation. For the spiritual being survival is irrelevant. Curiosity, compassion and creativity are the name of the game; unconditional love the motivation.” —Peter Shepherd.

“When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.” —Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi

“The most common form of despair is not being who you are.” —Søren Kierkegaard

“To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.” —Lewis B. Smedes

“Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.” —Mahatma Gandhi

“Be patient with yourself. Self-growth is tender; it’s holy ground. There is no greater investment.” —Stephen Covey

“God experiences Life through each of us, and we experience Life thanks to God.” —Peter Shepherd

“To speak gratitude is courteous and pleasant, but to live gratitude is to touch heaven.” —Johannes A. Gaertner

“Just listen to the still voice within. This is the mind to trust. This is god consciousness speaking, not the ego that is seeking recognition.” —Angela Walker

“The first step toward change is acceptance. Once you accept yourself, you open the door to change.” —Will Garcia

“It is not the answer that enlightens, but the question.” —Decouvertes

“Choose being kind over being right, and you’ll be right every time.” —Richard Carlson

“How do we nurture the soul? By revering our own life. By learning to love it all, not only the joys and the victories, but also the pain and the struggles.” —Nathaniel Branden

“When there is love in your heart, everything outside of you also becomes lovable.” —Veeresh

“You are free to believe what you choose and what you do attests to what you believe.” —A Course in Miracles

“When we focus on clarifying what is being observed, felt, and needed rather than on diagnosing and judging, we discover the depth of our own compassion.” —Marshall B. Rosenberg

“Only in quiet waters things mirror themselves undistorted. Only in a quiet mind is adequate perception of the world.” —Hans Margolius

“All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another.” —Anatole France

“Every human has four endowments - self-awareness, conscience, independent will and creative imagination. These give us the power to discern, to choose, to respond, and to change.” —Stephen R. Covey

“If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.” —Rene Descartes

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, and always perseveres.” —1 Corinthians 13:4-7

“It is love alone that leads to right action. What brings order in the world is to love and let love do what it will.” —Krishnamurti

“It is only by grounding our awareness in the living sensation of our bodies that the ‘I Am,’ our real presence, can awaken.” —G.I. Gurdjieff

“Love gives us in a moment what we can hardly attain by effort after years of toil.” —Goethe

COMMUNICATION & RELATIONSHIPS

“Communication is the solvent of all problems and is the foundation for personal development.” —Peter Shepherd

“A good listener is not only popular everywhere, but after a while he knows something.” —Wilson Mizner

“Nothing lowers the level of conversation more than raising the voice.” —Stanley Horowitz

“What greater thing is there for two human souls than to feel that they are joined... to strengthen each other... to be at one with each other in silent unspeakable memories.” —George Eliot

“Love is like the truth, sometimes it prevails, and sometimes it hurts.” —Victor M. Garcia Jr.

“To love leaves we open to loss. But we do it to ourselves because it is worth it.” —from Lark Rise to Candleford (BBC drama)

“An open ear is the only believable sign of an open heart.” —David Augsburger

“At the touch of love, everyone becomes a poet.” —Plato

“People who do not understand you will never settle for any proof, and people who appreciate you do not need any proof. “ —Seth (Jane Roberts)

“It is much easier to be critical than to be correct.” —Benjamin Disraeli

“Love can make a summer fly, or a night seem like a lifetime.” —Andrew Lloyd Webber

“Someone’s opinion of you does not have to become your reality.” —Les Brown

“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.” —Carl Jung

“What is most beautiful in virile men is something feminine; what is most beautiful in feminine women is something masculine.” —Susan Sontag

“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” —Eleanor Roosevelt

“Have the courage to be sincere, clear and honest. This opens the door to deeper communication all around. It creates self-empowerment and the kind of connections with others we all want in life. Speaking from the heart frees us from the secrets that burden us. These secrets are what make us sick or fearful. Speaking truth helps you get clarity on your real heart directives.” —Sara Paddison

MOTIVATION & LEADERSHIP

“Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.” —Ambrose Redmoon

“It is your decisions not your conditions that truly shape the quality of your life.” —Anthony Robbins

“Life is found in the dance between your deepest desire and your greatest fear.” —Anthony Robbins

“How do we keep our inner fire alive? Two things, at minimum, are needed: an ability to appreciate the positives in our life - and a commitment to action. Every day, it’s important to ask and answer these questions: ‘What’s good in my life?’ and ‘What needs to be done?’” —Nathaniel Branden

“The price of excellence is discipline; the cost of mediocrity is disappointment.” —William Arthur Ward

“If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant; if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.” —Anne Bradstreet

“Sometimes our fate resembles a fruit tree in winter. Who would think that those branches would turn green again and blossom, but we hope it, we know it.” —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“Even if you encounter opposition, have conviction and finish what you start. In the end, people will understand.” —Kotaku Wamura (Mayor of Japanese village who built a sea wall, against many protests, which recently saved the town when the tsunami hit NE Japan)

“My grandfather once told me that there were two kinds of people: those who do the work and those who take the credit. He told me to try to be in the first group; there was much less competition.” —Indira Gandhi

“A moment of choice is a moment of truth. It’s the testing point of our character and competence.” —Stephen Covey

“If your ship doesn’t come in, swim out to it!” —Jonathan Winters

“If doubt is challenging you and you do not act, doubts will GROW. Challenge the doubts with action and YOU will grow.” —John Kanary

“Those who turn good organizations into great organizations are motivated by a deep creative urge and an inner compulsion for sheer unadulterated excellence for its own sake.” —Jim Collins

“Compromise: The art of dividing a cake in such a way that everybody believes he got the biggest piece.” —Sherry Rothfield

“We cannot direct the wind but we can adjust the sails.” —anonymous

“Life’s not about waiting for the storms to pass... it’s about learning to dance in the rain.” —B.J. Gallagher

“When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hang on.” —Thomas Jefferson

“Power is of two kinds. One is obtained by the fear of punishment and the other by acts of love. Power based on love is a thousand times more effective and permanent than the one derived from fear of punishment.” —Mahatma Gandhi

“Keep your thoughts positive because your thoughts become your words. Keep your words positive because your words become your behaviors. Keep your behaviors positive because your behaviors become your habits. Keep your habits positive because your habits become your values. Keep your values positive because your values become your destiny.” —Gandhi

“A smooth sea never made a skilled mariner.” —English proverb

“Great masters merit emulation, not worship.” —Alan Cohen

“Clear, written goals have a wonderful effect on your thinking. They motivate you and galvanize you into action. They stimulate your creativity, release your energy, and help you to overcome procrastination as much as any other factor.” —Brian Tracy

“Planning is bringing the future into the present so that you can do something about it now.” —Alan Lakein

“Confidence is contagious. So is the lack of confidence.” —Vince Lombardi

“Optimism may sometimes be delusional, but pessimism is always delusional.” —Alan Cohen

“Few things help an individual more than to place responsibility upon them and to let them know that you trust them.” —Booker T. Washington

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE

“As human beings we all want to be happy and free from misery... we have learned that the key to happiness is inner peace. The greatest obstacles to inner peace are disturbing emotions such as anger, attachment, fear and suspicion, while love and compassion and a sense of universal responsibility are the sources of peace and happiness.” —Dalai Lama quote

“Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.” —Khalil Gibran

“Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs.” —Charlotte Brontë

“He who smiles rather than rages is always the stronger.” —Japanese proverb

“Maturity is achieved when a person postpones immediate pleasures for long-term values.” —Joshua L. Liebman

“Fame is a vapor, popularity an accident. Riches take wing. Only one thing endures. And that is character.” —Horace Greeley

“When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.” —Kahlil Gibran

“There’s enough for everyone’s need, but not for everyone’s greed.” —Ghandi

“Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else: you are the one who gets burned.” —Buddha

“Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future.” —Paul Boese

“Jealousy sees things always with magnifying glasses which make little things large, of dwarfs giants, of suspicions truths.” —Miguel de Cervantes

“Never react emotionally to criticism. Analyze yourself to determine whether it is justified. If it is, correct yourself. Otherwise, go on about your business.” —Norman Vincent Peale

“We cannot tell what may happen to us in the strange medley of life. But we can decide what happens in us —how we can take it, what we do with it —and that is what really counts in the end.” —Joseph Fort Newton

“We plant seeds that will flower as results in our lives, so best to remove the weeds of anger, avarice, envy and doubt...” —Dorothy Day

“Any person capable of angering you becomes your master.” —Epictetus

“Because fear is insatiable, everything that is insatiable is born of fear.” —Alan Cohen

“There are two cardinal sins from which all the others spring: impatience and laziness.” —Franz Kafka

“Love the heart that hurts you, but never hurt the heart that loves you.” —Vipin Sharm

“Our feelings are our most genuine paths to knowledge.” —Audre Lorde

“Instead of resisting any emotion, the best way to dispel it is to enter it fully, embrace it and see through your resistance.” —Deepak Chopra

“We are dangerous when we are not conscious of our responsibility for how we behave, think, and feel.” —Marshall B. Rosenberg

PARENTING & EDUCATION

“Knowledge is learning something new every day. Wisdom is letting go of something every day.” —Zen Proverb

“Education is the great engine of personal development. It is through education that the daughter of a peasant can become a doctor, that a son of a mineworker can become the head of the mine, that a child of farm workers can become the president of a nation.” —Nelson Mandela

“He who asks is a fool for five minutes, but he who does not ask remains a fool forever.” —Chinese Proverb

“The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.” —William Arthur Ward

“An investment in knowledge pays the best dividends.” —Benjamin Franklin

“There are obviously two educations. One should teach us how to make a living and the other how to live.” —James Truslow Adams

“Education is not the filling of a pail but the lighting of a fire.” —William Butler Yeats

“Curiosity is the very basis of education and if you tell me that curiosity killed the cat, I say only that the cat died nobly.” —Arnold Edinborough

“Learning is not attained by chance. It must be sought for with ardor and attended to with diligence.” —Abigail Adams

“Minds are like parachutes, they only function when they are open.” —James Dewar

“The mind is like the stomach. It is not how much you put into it that counts, but how much it digests.” —A.J. Nock

“The best thing parents can do for their children is to love each other.”

“If he is indeed wise, the teacher does not bid you enter the house of wisdom, but rather he leads you to the threshold of your own mind.” —Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

“The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher regard those who think alike than those who think differently.” —Nietzsche

“Tell me and I’ll forget. Show me and I’ll remember. Involve me and I’ll understand.” —Confucius

“If you think that education is expensive, try ignorance.” —Derek Botz

“He who asks is a fool for five minutes, but he who does not remains a fools for life.” —Chinese proverb

“Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.” —Albert Einsten

“The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled.” —Plutarch

“A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.” —William James

“Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
and though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love, but not your thoughts.
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
for their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward, nor tarries with yesterday.”
—Kahlil Gibran

“When inquiry is suppressed by previous knowledge, or by the authority and experience of another, then learning becomes mere imitation, and imitation causes a human being to repeat what is learned without experiencing it.” —J. Krishnamurti

“Children need models rather than critics.”
—Joseph Joubert

“It is what we think we know already that often prevents us from learning.” —Claude Bernard

“The way to make learning a lesson a celebration, instead of a cause for regret, is to ask ... How can I put this to use today?”

“If someone feels that he has never made a mistake in his life, it only means that he has never tried anything new in his life.” —Albert Einstein

“Learning without thinking is labor lost; thinking without learning is perilous.” —Confucius

“Prejudice is the child of ignorance.” —Hazlitt

“The young do not know enough to be prudent, and therefore they attempt the impossible, and achieve it, generation after generation.” —Pearl S. Buck

“The only stupid question is one not asked.”

“We have not passed that subtle line between childhood and adulthood until we have stopped saying ‘It got lost,’ and say, ‘I lost it.’ “ —Sydney J. Harris

“Education is nothing more, nor less, than learning to think!” —Peter Facione

“An educated mind is useless without a focused will and dangerous without a loving heart.” —Winfried Deijmann

“In their freedom, birds make expanding circles in the sky.
How do they learn to be free?
They fall—and by falling are given wings to fly.” —Rumi

“The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.” —Bertrand Russell

“The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.” —Albert Einstein

“Our vision is more obstructed by what we think we know than by our lack of knowledge.” —Kristen Stendahl

“Every act of conscious learning requires the willingness to suffer injury to our self-esteem. That is why young children, before they are aware of their self-importance, learn so easily; and why older people, especially if vain or arrogant, cannot learn at all.” —Thomas Szasz

“The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence that it is not utterly absurd; indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more often likely to be foolish than sensible...” —Bertrand Russell

“It takes more courage to alter an opinion than to stick with it.”

“Comfort is found among those who agree with you; growth among those who don’t.”

“The fact that someone says something doesn’t mean it’s true. Doesn’t mean they’re lying, but it doesn’t mean it’s true.”
—Carl Sagan