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Looking for a new favorite quote? Here are the most famous quotes of all time to get you going.
Quotes are a great way to inspire and express yourself, and some have been used for so long they are now famous in their own right.
You may have even heard a few of these famous sayings used your whole life and don’t know who said them first. Maybe you’ve even used a few and helped them remain famous.
Either way, enjoy these words and expressions from famous people and find some new favorites today.
The Most Famous Quotes
The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.
Lao Tzu
That which does not kill us makes us stronger.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.
John Lennon
When the going gets tough, the tough get going.
Joe Kennedy
You must be the change you wish to see in the world.
Mahatma Gandhi
You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.
Mae West
Tough times never last but tough people do.
Robert H. Schuller
Get busy living or get busy dying.
Stephen King
Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right.
Henry Ford
Tis better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all.
Alrded Lord Tennyson
A man is but what he knows.
Francis Bacon
You miss 100 percent of the shots you never take.
Wayne Gretzky
If you’re going through hell, keep going.
Winston Churchill
Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.
Albert Einstein
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.
Mark Twain
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.
Eleanor Roosevelt
Those who dare to fail miserably can achieve greatly.
John F. Kennedy
The opposite of love is not hate; it’s indifference.
Elie Wiesel
Never let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game.
Babe Ruth
Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re going to get.
Forrest Gump
He that falls in love with himself will have no rivals.
Benjamin Franklin
Life is ten percent what happens to you and ninety percent how you respond to it.
Charles Swindoll
Dream big and dare to fail.
Norman Vaughan
A great man is always willing to be little.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.
Neil Armstrong
Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do.
Voltaire
Quotes from Famous People
Some quotes are well-known simply because they were first said by famous people.
These are famous quotes from historical figures, influential thinkers, and celebrities whose words have influenced others.
Historical Figures
A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks others have thrown at him.
David Brinkley
In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: It goes on.
Robert Frost
If you judge people, you have no time to love them.
Mother Teresa
The future belongs to those who prepare for it today.
Malcolm X
Don’t be afraid to give up the good to go for the great.
John D. Rockefeller
The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.
Nelson Mandela
When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hang on.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
Eleanor Roosevelt
In the long run, the sharpest weapon of all is a kind and gentle spirit.
Anne Frank
Sing like no one’s listening, love like you’ve never been hurt, dance like nobody’s watching, and live like it’s heaven on earth.
Mark Twain
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
Teddy Roosevelt
People are just as happy as they make up their minds to be.
Abraham Lincoln
Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.
Harriet Tubman
Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.
Winston Churchill
Remember that the happiest people are not those getting more, but those giving more.
H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
The only impossible journey is the one you never begin.
Tony Robbins
When I dare to be powerful – to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.
Audre Lorde
I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious.
Albert Einstein
The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
May you live all the days of your life.
Jonathan Swift
We have nothing to fear but fear itself.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Famous Thinkers
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
George Santayana
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
Edmund Burke
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Albert Einstein
Life would be tragic if it weren’t funny.
Stephen Hawking
It is never too late to be what you might have been.
George Eliot
The power of imagination makes us infinite.
John Muir
Everything you’ve ever wanted is on the other side of fear.
George Addair
We design our lives through the power of choices.
Richard Bach
Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.
Les Brown
If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.
Mark Twain
Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.
Aristotle
We are what we repeatedly do; excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.
Aristotle
Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.
Søren Kierkegaard
All that we see and seem is but a dream within a dream.
Edgar Allen Poe
The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me.
Ayn Rand
Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift of God, which is why we call it the present.
Bil Keane
What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Those who make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.
Voltaire
You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.
Plato
Once you’ve accepted your flaws, no one can use them against you.
George R. R. Martin
When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too.
Paolo Coelho
Our greatest fear should not be of failure… but of succeeding at things in life that don’t really matter.
Francis Chan
You will face many defeats in life, but never let yourself be defeated.
Maya Angelou
Challenges are what make life interesting and overcoming them is what makes life meaningful.
Joshua J. Marine
Keep your face to the sunshine and you can never see the shadow.
Helen Keller
Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.
Oscar Wilde
Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
John Dalberg-Acton
Do not go where the path may lead; go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
George Santayana
Celebrities and Icons
Nothing is impossible, the word itself says, ‘I’m possible!’
Audrey Hepburn
Always remember that you are absolutely unique. Just like everyone else.
Margaret Meade
It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.
Herman Melville
A mind is like a parachute. It doesn’t work if it isn’t open.
Frank Zappa
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
It is our choices, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.
J.K. Rowling
A lion doesn’t concern himself with the opinions of the sheep.
Lionel Messi
The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.
Walt Disney
Originality is nothing but judicious imitation.
Voltaire
A friend is someone who gives you total freedom to be yourself.
Jim Morrison
I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the water to create many ripples.
Mother Teresa
It’s never too late to be who you might have been.
George Eliot
If you aren’t going all the way, why go at all?
Joe Namath
Science is what you know. Philosophy is what you don’t know.
Bertrand Russell
The successful warrior is the average man, with laser-like focus.
Bruce Lee
You know you’re in love when you can’t fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.
Dr. Seuss
Ability is of little account without opportunity.
Lucille Ball
In order to write about life first you must live it.
Ernest Hemingway
The big lesson in life, baby, is never be scared of anyone or anything.
Frank Sinatra
We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.
George Bernard Shaw
If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants.
Isaac Newton
Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.
Thomas Edison
When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too.
Paolo Coelho
Holding onto anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.
Buddha
The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those that speak it.
George Orwell
All our dreams can come true if we have the courage to pursue them.
Walt Disney
You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.
C.S. Lewis
Life itself is the most wonderful fairy tale.
Hans Christian Andersen
It isn’t where you came from. It’s where you’re going that counts.
Ella Fitzgerald
Short Famous Quotes
Turn your wounds into wisdom.
Oprah Winfrey
Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave.
Frederick Douglas
Happiness is a direction, not a place.
Sydney J. Harris
Great geniuses have the shortest biographies.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Try to be a rainbow in someone else’s cloud.
Maya Angelou
In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.
Albert Einstein
Happiness depends upon ourselves.
Aristotle
Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.
Oscar Wilde
I am, therefore I think.
Ayn Rand
Whatever you do, do with all your might.
Marcus Tullius Cicero
All limitations are self-imposed.
Oliver Wendel Holmes
Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.
Marthe Troly-Curtin
Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.
Al Pacino,
The Godfather Part II
The time is always right to do what is right.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Well done is better than well said.
Benjamin Franklin
There is nothing impossible to him who will try.
Alexander the Great
This above all: to thine own self be true.
William Shakespeare
Actions speak louder than words.
Abraham Lincoln
The purpose of our lives is to be happy.
Dalai Lama
All that we are is the result of what we have thought.
Buddha
Arguing with a fool proves there are two.
Doris Smith
A penny saved is a penny earned.
Benjamin Franklin
Famous Sayings
Some quotes are used so often for so long they become part of culture and language.
These famous sayings have been around a long time, and chances are you use a few of them already.
All’s well that ends well.
William Shakespeare
The end doesn’t justify the means.
Sergey Nechayev
Look before you leap.
Charlotte Brontë
Two heads are better than one.
John Heywood
Leave no stone unturned.
Euripides
The more things change, the more they remain the same.
Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr
Leave nothing for tomorrow which can be done today.
Abraham Lincoln
There’s a sucker born every minute.
P. T. Barnum
Everyone will be famous for 15 minutes.
Andy Warhol
An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
A fool and his money are soon parted.
Thomas Tusser
He who angers you conquers you.
Elizabeth Kenny
A mind is a terrible thing to waste.
Arthur Fletcher
Two wrongs don’t make a right.
Benjamin Rush
You can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs.
Francois de Charette
Beggars can’t be choosers.
John Heywood
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
Bert Lance
All good things must come to an end.
Geoffrey Chaucer
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
Familiarity breeds contempt.
Geoffrey Chaucer
All things come to those who wait.
Lady Mary Montgomerie Currie
A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.
Thomas Reid
Honesty is the best policy.
Edwin Sandys
Appearances are often deceiving.
Aesop
Don’t count your chickens before they hatch.
Thomas Howell
Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach
Great minds think alike.
Carl Theodor von Unlanski
We hope you enjoyed these famous quotes and sayings and found some new favorites.
Check out more of the best quotes from famous people below and let us know your favorites in the comments below!
More Quotes from Famous People
- Abraham Lincoln Quotes
- Alexander The Great Quotes
- Aristotle Quotes
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- Audrey Hepburn Quotes
- Benjamin Franklin Quotes
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- Bruce Lee Quotes
- Buddha Quotes
- C.S. Lewis Quotes
- Confucius Quotes
- Dr. Seuss Quotes
- Eleanor Roosevelt Quotes
- George Washington Quotes
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- Johnny Cash Quotes
- Julia Child Quotes
- Lao Tzu Quotes
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- Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes
- Maya Angelou Quotes
- Michael Jordan Quotes
- Mother Theresa Quotes
- Oprah Winfrey Quotes
- Oscar Wilde Quotes
- Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes
- Ronald Reagan Quotes
- Rumi Quotes
- Socrates Quotes
- Thomas Jefferson Quotes
- Tupac Quotes
- Vince Lombardi Quotes
- Voltaire Quotes
- Walt Disney Quotes
- Winston Churchill Quotes
Spend your time wisely, for it is the only wealth you will ever possess.
Lovell Dyett
Success doesn’t come easily. It has to exchange tears, life force, physical power. Thank for sharing
these are amazing quotes that make me feel better and change my direction of thinking, thank you so much
Thanks Barkat! We really appreciate you saying that and are glad you like them.
Failure to prepare is preparing to fail