A library of wisdom
Quotes, every concept, every voice
622 hand-picked quotes from the world's wisdom traditions, each linked to its source concept. Filter by concept below, or scroll through the whole library.
“Choose not to be harmed — and you will not feel harmed. Choose not to feel harmed — and you have not been.”
“The first rule is to keep an untroubled spirit. The second is to look things in the face and know them for what they are.”
“It is not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.”
“No man is free who is not master of himself.”
“Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.”
“Don't explain your philosophy. Embody it.”
“First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.”
“He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.”
“We have two ears and one mouth, so we should listen more than we say.”
“Make the best use of what is in your power, and take the rest as it happens.”
“Some things are in our control and others are not. Therein lies the entire foundation of philosophy.”
“You become what you give your attention to.”
“We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.”
“Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end.”
“It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.”
“Difficulties strengthen the mind, as labour does the body.”
“Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.”
“As long as you live, keep learning how to live.”
“While we are postponing, life speeds by.”
“Life, if well lived, is long enough.”
“All cruelty springs from weakness.”
“A gem cannot be polished without friction, nor a man perfected without trials.”
“You were born with wings. Why prefer to crawl through life?”
“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.”
“What you seek is seeking you.”
“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I will meet you there.”
“When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.”
“Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder.”
“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”
“I have lived on the lip of insanity, wanting to know reasons, knocking on a door. It opens. I have been knocking from the inside.”