Famous Quotes by Great Writers

Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify.

Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)

No man is an island, entire of itself.

We know what we are, but know not what we may be.

There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.

Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.

All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.

To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

To be, or not to be: that is the question.

If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

“Hope” is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul.

Lives of great men all remind us we can make our lives sublime, and, departing, leave behind us footprints on the sands of time.

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.

Hope springs eternal in the human breast.

I’m not afraid of storms, for I’m learning how to sail my ship.

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter.

To see a World in a Grain of Sand and a Heaven in a Wild Flower, hold Infinity in the palm of your hand and Eternity in an hour.

Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.

Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.

With faith, discipline and selfless devotion to duty, there is nothing worthwhile that you cannot achieve.

To be great is to be misunderstood.

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.

Hitch your wagon to a star.

Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.

Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster and treat those two impostors just the same.

Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.

Well done is better than well said.

This above all: to thine own self be true.

Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon ’em.

To err is human; to forgive, divine.

The only way to have a friend is to be one.

The quality of mercy is not strained; it droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven.

What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult to each other?

Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs.

With malice toward none, with charity for all.