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Philosophy Quotes

180 quotes on philosophy and the big questions — from the classics to the everyday.

“Sadness is but a wall between two gardens.”

Kahlil Gibran · Sand and Foam, 1926

“Behind every sweet smile, there is a bitter sadness that no one can ever see and feel.”

Tupac Shakur

“Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.”

Carl Jung

“Summer doesn't care what you choose to do with it.”

Richard Ford · The Sportswriter

“You know how paradise is supposed to be a place on Earth in the summer time.”

Diane Arbus · Photographic essay and interviews

“The summer night is like a perfection of thought.”

Wallace Stevens · Harmonium

“Dignity under pressure is its own kind of answer to the world.”

Original

“Each day is a little life: every waking and rising a little birth, every fresh morning a little youth.”

Arthur Schopenhauer · "Counsels and Maxims", 1851

“When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive, to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.”

Marcus Aurelius · "Meditations", Book II, c. 161–180 AD

“You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment.”

Henry David Thoreau · Journal, 1859

“Think in the morning. Act in the noon. Eat in the evening. Sleep in the night.”

William Blake · "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell", 1793

“In the depth of winter I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.”

Albert Camus · Return to Tipasa, 1954

“Deep summer is when laziness finds respectability.”

Sam Keen

“In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.”

Albert Einstein · widely attributed to Einstein

“I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor.”

Henry David Thoreau · Walden, 1854

“The greater the obstacle, the more glory in overcoming it.”

Molière · Le Dépit Amoureux, 1656

“Difficulties are meant to rouse, not discourage. The human spirit is to grow strong by conflict.”

William Ellery Channing · Self-Culture, 1838