300 Deep Quotes That Make You Think
Deep and meaningful quotes on life, love, and happiness
I love getting lost in deep thought.
The kind of thought where you explore meaning, ponder happiness, reflect on life, and come away changed.
That’s why I created Fireside Philosophy, a free newsletter on life, love, meaning, and happiness. It’ll help you grow smarter, happier, and wiser with deep life lessons and practical words of wisdom.
It’s a place where you can step away from the stress, noise, and rush of everyday life and ponder deep ideas that make you reflect.
Below I gathered 300 deep quotes and sorted them into sections:
- Deep quotes on friendship
- Deep quotes on motivation
- Deep quotes on love
- Deep quotes on life
- Deep quotes on fear
- Deep quotes on happiness
- Deep quotes on kindness
- BONUS: The secret to a deep and meaningful life
I hope these inspire you to think deeply about the meaning and purpose in your own life.
Deep Quotes on Friendship
“Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, ‘What! You too? I thought I was the only one.” C.S. Lewis
“Sweet is the memory of distant friends! Like the mellow rays of the departing sun, it falls tenderly, yet sadly, on the heart.” Washington Irving
“Good friends help you to find important things when you have lost them…your smile, your hope, and your courage.” Doe Zantamata
“Have I not destroyed my enemy when I have made him into my friend?” Abraham Lincoln
“I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen.” Ernest Hemingway
“There’s not a word yet for old friends who’ve just met.” Jim Henson
“Don’t walk in front of me; I may not follow. Don’t walk behind me; I may not lead. Just walk beside me and be my friend.” Albert Camus
“The longer I go about living, I see it’s the relationship that is most meaningful.” William Shatner
“The real test of friendship is can you literally do nothing with the other person? Can you enjoy those moments of life that are utterly simple?” Eugene Kennedy
“You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.” Dale Carnegie
“Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.” Anais Nin
“Friendship marks a life even more deeply than love. Love risks degenerating into obsession, friendship is never anything but sharing.” Elie Wiesel
“Some of the biggest challenges in relationships come from the fact that most people enter a relationship in order to get something: they’re trying to find someone who’s going to make them feel good. In reality, the only way a relationship will last is if you see your relationship as a place that you go to give, and not a place that you go to take.” Anthony Robbins
“I have learned that there is more power in a good strong hug than in a thousand meaningful words.” Ann Hood
“If you go looking for a friend, you’re going to find they’re very scarce. If you go out to be a friend, you’ll find them everywhere.” Zig Ziglar
“A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you.” Elbert Hubbard
“A loyal friend laughs at your jokes when they’re not so good, and sympathizes with your problems when they’re not so bad.” Arnold H. Glasgow
“One measure of friendship consists not in the number of things friends can discuss, but in the number of things they need no longer mention.” Clifton Fadiman
“Friendship is the hardest thing in the world to explain. It’s not something you learn in school. But if you haven’t learned the meaning of friendship, you really haven’t learned anything.” Muhammad Ali
“Sometimes home isn’t four walls, it’s two eyes and a heartbeat.” Unknown
“A day without a friend is like a pot without a single drop of honey left inside.” Winnie The Pooh
“The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances; if there is any reaction, both are transformed.” Carl Jung
“I don’t need a friend who changes when I change and who nods when I nod; my shadow does that much better.” Plutarch
“Friends are those rare people who ask how we are and then wait to hear the answer.” Ed Cunningham
Deep Quotes on Motivation
“Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.” Arthur Ashe
“Motivation is a fire from within. If someone else tries to light that fire under you, chances are it will burn very briefly.” Stephen R. Covey
“Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.” Dalai Lama
“Life’s real failure is when you do not realize how close you were to success when you gave up.” Unknown
“The man who removes a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.” William Faulkner
“No matter how many mistakes you make or how slow you progress, you are still way ahead of everyone who isn’t trying.” Tony Robbins
“Things don’t have to change the world to be important.” Steve Jobs
“It is only when we take chances, when our lives improve. The initial and the most difficult risk that we need to take is to become honest.” Walter Anderson.
“Stay away from those people who try to disparage your ambitions. Small minds will always do that, but great minds will give you a feeling that you can become great too.” Mark Twain.
“Believe deep down in your heart that you’re destined to do great things.” Joe Paterno
“I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the water to create many ripples.” Mother Teresa
“Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.” Muhammad Ali
“To think is easy. To act is hard. But the hardest thing in the world is to act in accordance with your thinking.” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“Do what you have to do until you can do what you want.” Oprah Winfrey
“Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years.” Bill Gates
“Challenges are what make life interesting. Overcoming them is what makes life meaningful.” Joshua Marine
“Success is largely a matter of holding on after others have let go.” Unknown
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit.” Aristotle
“Do not let your grand ambitions stand in the way of small but meaningful accomplishments.” Bryant H. McGill
“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” Eleanor Roosevelt
“Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree.” Martin Luther
“Nothing is less productive than to make more efficient what should not be done at all.” Peter Drucker
“When the whole world is running towards a cliff, he who is running in the opposite direction appears to have lost his mind.” C.S. Lewis
“In any given moment we have two options: to step forward into growth or to step back into safety.” Abraham Maslow
“Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world.” Arthur Schopenhauer
“It’s so hard when I have to, and so easy when I want to.” Annie Gottlier
“The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers.” M. Scott Peck
“How very little can be done under the spirit of fear.” Florence Nightingale
“Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.” Abraham Lincoln
“Don’t use yesterday’s state of mind, to make today’s decision.” C. Nzingha Smith
“It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.” Henry David Thoreau
“Think like a man of action, act like a man of thought.” Henri Louis Bergson
“A year from now you may wish you had started today.” Karen Lamb
“It ain’t what they call you, it’s what you answer to.” W.C. Fields
“Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, I will try again tomorrow.” Mary Anne Radmacher
“You can’t be brave if you’ve only had wonderful things happen to you.” Mary Tyler Moore
“Do you think it is better to fail at something worthwhile, or succeed at something meaningless.” Tommy Wallach
“The better you feel about yourself, the less you feel the need to show off.” Robert Hand
“When we long for life without difficulties, remind us that oaks grow strong in contrary winds and diamonds are made under pressure.” Peter Marshall
“The best revenge is massive success.” Frank Sinatra
“If it scares you, it might be a good thing to try.” Seth Godin
“Success comes in cans; failure in can’ts.” Unknown
“Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success.” Albert Schweitzer
“For success, attitude is equally as important as ability.” Harry F. Banks
“If you don’t go after what you want, you’ll never have it. If you don’t ask, the answer is always no. If you don’t step forward, you’re always in the same place.” Nora Roberts
“To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children… to leave the world a better place… to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Each morning when I open my eyes I say to myself: I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn’t arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and I’m going to be happy in it.“ Groucho Marx
“We become what we think about.” Earl Nightingale
“One of the best pieces of advice I ever got was from a horse master. He told me to go slow to go fast. I think that applies to everything in life. We live as though there aren’t enough hours in the day but if we do each thing calmly and carefully we will get it done quicker and with much less stress.” Viggo Mortensen
“Do not be embarrassed by your failures, learn from them and start again.” Richard Branson
“A ship is always safe at shore but that is not what it’s built for.” Albert Einstein
“Show me a person who has never made a mistake and I’ll show you someone who has never achieved much.” Joan Collins
“Either you run the day or the day runs you.” Jim Rohn
“Morning is an important time of day, because how you spend your morning can often tell you what kind of day you are going to have.” Lemony Snicket
“Follow effective actions with quiet reflection. From the quiet reflection will come even more effective action.” Peter Drucker
“Nothing in the world can take the place of perseverance. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost legendary. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Perseverance and determination alone are omnipotent.” Calvin Coolidge
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” Mark Twain
“Never give up on a dream just because of the time it will take to accomplish it. The time will pass anyway.” Earl Nightingale
“Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.” Stephen King
“There are two types of people who will tell you that you cannot make a difference in this world: those who are afraid to try and those who are afraid you will succeed.” Ray Goforth
“Like success, failure is many things to many people. With positive mental attitude, failure is a learning experience, a rung on the ladder, and a plateau at which to get your thoughts in order to prepare to try again.” W. Clement Stone
“Much of the stress that people feel doesn’t come from having too much to do. It comes from not finishing what they started.” David Allen
“Aim for success, not perfection. Never give up your right to be wrong, because then you will lose the ability to learn new things and move forward with your life. Remember that fear always lurks behind perfectionism.” David M. Burns
“Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.” Mark Twain
“Just one small positive thought in the morning can change your whole day.” Dalai Lama
“If I had eight hours to chop down a tree, I’d spend six hours sharpening my ax.” Abraham Lincoln
“Slow is smooth and smooth is fast” United States Navy Seals
“It does not matter how slowly you go, so long as you do not stop.” Confucius
“Try not to become a person of success, but rather try to become a person of value.” Albert Einstein
“Dreams can come true, but there is a secret. They’re realized through the magic of persistence, determination, commitment, passion, practice, focus and hard work. They happen a step at a time, manifested over years, not weeks.” Elbert Hubbard
Deep Quotes on Love
“Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.” James Baldwin
“The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and to let it come in.” Morrie Schwartz
“Love is a better teacher than duty.” Albert Einstein
“Don’t look for big things, just do small things with great love.” Mother Teresa
“You don’t love someone for their looks, or their clothes, or for their fancy car, but because they sing a song only you can hear.” Oscar Wilde
“The truth is, everyone is going to hurt you. You just got to find the ones worth suffering for.” Bob Marley
“A man sees in the world what he carries in his heart.” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“Sometime, when you least expect it, you’ll realize that someone loved you. And that means that someone can love you again! And that will make you smile.” Homer Simpson
“Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.” Robert Heinlein
“Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone — we find it with another.” Thomas Merton
“Since loving is about knowing, we have more meaningful love relationships when we know each other and it takes time to know each other.” Bell Hooks
“There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love.” Martin Luther King Jr.
“It is only with the heart that one can see rightly. What is essential is invisible to the eye.” Antoine de Saint Exupery
“When you adopt the viewpoint that there is nothing that exists that is not part of you, that there is no one who exists who is not part of you, that any judgment you make is self-judgment, that any criticism you level is self-criticism, you will wisely extend to yourself an unconditional love that will be the light of the world.” Harry Palmer
“Love is what you’ve been through with somebody.” James Thurber
“Your work is discover your world and then with all your heart give yourself to it.” Buddha
“The way to love anything is to realize that it may be lost.” Gilbert K. Chesterton
“Love is a friendship set to music.” Joseph Campbell
“Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don’t know how to replenish its source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of witherings, of tarnishings.” Anais Nin
“It takes courage to love, but pain through love is the purifying fire which those who love generously know. We all know people who are so much afraid of pain that they shut themselves up like clams in a shell and, giving out nothing, receive nothing and therefore shrink until life is a mere living death.” Eleanor Roosevelt
“The best proof of love is trust.” Joyce Brothers
“The good life is inspired by love and guided by knowledge.” Bertrand Russell
“If you aren’t good at loving yourself, you will have a difficult time loving anyone, since you’ll resent the time and energy you give another person that you aren’t even giving to yourself.” Barbara De Angelis
“Immature love says: ‘I love you because I need you.’ Mature love says ‘I need you because I love you.’” Erich Fromm
“Loving people live in a loving world. Hostile people live in a hostile world. Same world.” Wayne Dyer
“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.” Rumi
“The art of love is largely the art of persistence.” Albert Ellis
“Love is an untamed force. When we try to control it, it destroys us. When we try to imprison it, it enslaves us. When we try to understand it, it leaves us feeling lost and confused.” Paulo Coelho
“The only thing we never get enough of is love; and the only thing we never give enough of is love.” Henry Miller
“Love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is done well.” Vincent Van Gogh
“I love you not because of who you are, but because of who I am when I am with you.” Roy Croft
“Life without love is like a tree without blossoms or fruit.” Khalil Gibran
“You know it’s love when all you want is that person to be happy, even if you’re not part of their happiness.” Julia Roberts
Deep Quotes on Life
“The more you know who you are, and what you want, the less you let things upset you.” Stephanie Perkins
“It is more fitting for a man to laugh at life than to lament over it.” Seneca
“I don’t think of all the misery but of the beauty that still remains.” Anne Frank
“Look for the thing you notice but no one else notices.” Rick Rubin
“Each new chapter of our lives requests an old part of us to fall and a new part of us to rise.” Jenna Galbut
“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.” Albert Einstein
“The ability to influence people without irritating them is the most profitable skill you can learn.” Napoleon Hill
“The best and the most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or ever touched. They must be felt with the heart.” Helen Keller
“Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but of playing a poor hand well.” Robert Louis Stevenson
“Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes, and adversity is not without comforts and hopes.” Francis Bacon
“Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.” George Bernard Shaw
“Always go too far, because that’s where you’ll find the truth.” Albert Camus
“If it doesn’t open, it’s not your door.” Unknown
“You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.” Mark Twain
“When you train your eyes to see the magic and miracles in the little things, you open the door for your whole life to shift.” Carol Woodliff
“For many men, the acquisition of wealth does not end their troubles, it only changes them.” Seneca
“We all have two lives. The second one starts when we realize we only have one.” Confucius
“Life is like a coin. You can spend it any way you wish, but you only spend it once.” Lillian Dickson
“A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life.” Charles Darwin
“The problem, often not discovered until late in life, is that when you look for things in life like love, meaning, motivation, it implies they are sitting behind a tree or under a rock. The most successful people in life recognize, that in life they create their own love, they manufacture their own meaning, they generate their own motivation.” Neil deGrasse Tyson
“We do not remember days, we remember moments.” Cesare Pavese
“Nature has given us all the pieces required to achieve exceptional wellness and health, but has left it to us to put these pieces together.” Diane McLaren
“It is better to have a meaningful life and make a difference than to merely have a long life.” Bryant H. McGill
“The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.” Albert Einstein
“Millions saw the apple fall, but Newton was the one who asked why.” Bernard Baruch
“Many things grow in the garden that were never sown there.” Thomas Fuller
“Our lives improve only when we take chances…and the first and most difficult risk we can take is to be honest with ourselves.” Walter Anderson
“Dead people receive more flowers than the living ones because regret is stronger than gratitude.” Anne Frank
“Our bravest and best lessons are not learned through success, but through misadventure.” Amos Bronson Alcott
“You are only as free as you think you are and freedom will always be as real as you believe it to be.” Robert M. Drake
“Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.” Dr Seuss
“And at the end of the day, your feet should be dirty, your hair messy and your eyes sparkling.” Shanti
“The flower doesn’t dream of the bee. It blossoms and the bee comes.” Mark Nepo
“You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.” Mae West
“Life is the most difficult exam. Many people fail because they try to copy others, not realizing that everyone has a different question paper.” Unknown
“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people just exist.” Oscar Wilde
“A man with one watch knows what time it is; a man with two watches is never quite sure.” Lee Segall
“Can you remember who you were, before the world told you who you should be?” Charles Bukowski
“You don’t drown by falling in the water; you drown by staying there.” Edwin Louis Cole
“What seems to us as bitter trials are often blessings in disguise.” Oscar Wilde
“When the ego dies, the soul awakes.” Mahatma Gandhi
“Every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.” Oscar Wilde
“I think you have to know who you are. Get to know the monster that lives in your soul, dive deep into your soul and explore it.” Tori Amos
“Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.” Albert Einstein
“You can teach a student a lesson for a day; but if you can teach him to learn by creating curiosity, he will continue the learning process as long as he lives.” Clay P. Bedford
“When it hurts — observe. Life is trying to teach you something.” Anita Krizzan
“Don’t wait for miracles, your whole life is a miracle.” Albert Einstein
“We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.” George Bernard Shaw
“Even when we do not actively participate in our destiny, we are still on a chosen path. Life has a way of making decisions for us.” Nina Guilbeau
“Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass but learning to dance in the rain.” Unknown
“I don’t want to get to the end of my life and find that I lived just the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as well.” Diane Ackerman
“New beginnings are often disguised as painful endings.” Lao Tzu
“Life is a balance of holding on and letting go.” Rumi
“Two things define you. Your patience when you have nothing & your attitude when you have everything.” Unknown
“Never idealize others. They will never live up to your expectations. Don’t over-analyze your relationships. Stop playing games. A growing relationship can only be nurtured by genuineness.” Leo F. Buscaglia
“The best years of your life are the ones in which you decide your problems are your own. You do not blame them on your mother, the ecology, or the president. You realize that you control your own destiny.” Albert Ellis
“Would you like you, if you met you?” Unknown
“Trust the wait. Embrace the uncertainty. Enjoy the beauty of becoming. When nothing is certain, anything is possible.” Mandy Hale
“After every difficulty, ask yourself two questions: “What did I do right?” and “What would I do differently?” Brian Tracy
“The trouble is, you think you have time.” Buddha
“If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.” Abraham Maslow
“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” Kierkegaard
“When a resolute young fellow steps up to the great bully, the world, and takes him boldly by the beard, he is often surprised to find it comes off in his hand, and that it was only tied on to scare away the timid adventurers.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
Deep Quotes on Fear
“There are more things to alarm us than to harm us, and we suffer more often in apprehension than reality.” Seneca
“If men would consider not so much wherein they differ, as wherein they agree, there would be far less of uncharitableness and angry feeling in the world.” Joseph Addison
“It is only in our darkest hours that we may discover the true strength of the brilliant light within ourselves that can never, ever, be dimmed.” Doe Zantamata
“The fears we don’t face become our limits.” Jim Kwik
“The beautiful thing about fear is, when you run to it, it runs away.” Robin Sharma
“Courage is knowing what not to fear.” Plato
“I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.” Mark Twain
“It’s okay to be a little afraid, it just means you’re about to learn something.” Thibaut
“Laughter is poison to fear.” George R.R. Martin
“Fears are stories we tell ourselves.” Unknown
“You don’t need it all figured out. The more you think you do, the more you’ll procrastinate and fear moving forward. Have courage and start now, even if you start small.” Thibaut
“Being scared is fine. Not taking action is not.” Maxime Lagace
“Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.” Bertrand Russell
“The universe is made up of experiences that are designed to burn out our reactivity, which is our attachment, our clinging, to pain, to pleasure, to fear, to all of it.” Ram Dass
“Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most.” Fyodor Dostoyevsky
“Rise above the storm, and you will find the sunshine.” Mario Fernandez
“You can judge your age by the amount of pain you feel when you come in contact with a new idea.” Pearl S. Buck
“Anything I’ve ever done that ultimately was worthwhile… initially scared me to death.” Betty Bender
“Understand your fears. Face your fears. Laugh at your fears. This is the sequence to self-ownership.” Adrian Iliopoulos
“Fears are educated into us, and can, if we wish, be educated out.” Karl Augustus Menninger
“Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow. It only saps today of its joy.” Leo Buscaglia
“If you are living out of a sense of obligation you are a slave.” Dr. Wayne Dyer
“Don’t judge someone just because they sin differently than you.” Unknown
“Never turn your back on fear. It should always be in front of you, like a thing that might have to be killed.” Hunter S. Thompson
“The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.” Eleanor Roosevelt
“When love prevails, fear departs.” Rumi
“Vulnerability sounds like truth and looks like courage.” Brene Brown
“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure — these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.” Steve Jobs
“One of the greatest discoveries a man makes, one of his great surprises, is to find he can do what he was afraid he couldn’t do.” Henry Ford
“Having a soft heart in a cruel world is courage, not weakness.” Katherine Henson
“Your way of thinking affects your life very deeply. So think positive and be positive.” Anurag Prakash Ray
“Fear of self is the greatest of all terrors, the deepest of all dread, the commonest of all mistakes. From it grows failure. Because of it, life is a mockery. Out of it comes despair.” David Seasbury
“Arm yourself, my heart: the thing that you must do is fearful, yet inevitable.” Euripides
Deep Quotes on Happiness
“Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.” Buddha
“The present moment is filled with joy and happiness. If you are attentive, you will see it.” Thich Nhat Hanh
“You can complain because roses have thorns, or you can rejoice because thorns have roses.” Tom Wilson
“When one door of happiness closes, another opens, but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one that has been opened for us.” Helen Keller
“To be happy, we must not be too concerned with others.” Albert Camus
“Find a place inside where there’s joy, and the joy will burn out the pain.” Joseph Campbell
“Never regret something that once made you happy.” Unknown
“For every minute you are angry you lose 60 seconds of happiness.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Be happy for this moment. This moment is your life.” Omar Khayyam
“Truth is a deep kindness that teaches us to be content in our everyday life and share with the people the same happiness.” Khalil Gibran
“Every human walks around with a certain kind of sadness. They may not wear it on their sleeves, but it’s there if you look deep.” Taraji P. Henson
“Humor is just another defense against the universe.” Mel Brooks
“As long as the ego runs your life, there are two ways of being unhappy. Not getting what you want. Getting what you want.” Eckhart Tolle
“In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.” Albert Camus
“What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly.” Thomas Paine
“You are the sky. Everything else — it’s just the weather.” Pema Chodron
“Happiness does not depend on what you have or who you are. It solely relies on what you think.” Buddha
“The unhappy derive comfort from the misfortunes of others.” Aesop
“And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.” Abraham Lincoln
“Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see a shadow.” Helen Keller
“Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory.” Albert Schweitzer
“Everything you want is on the other side of fear.” Jack Canfield
“Joy in one’s heart and some laughter on one’s lips is a sign that the person down deep has a pretty good grasp of life.” Hugh Sidey
“Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful we must carry it with us, or we find it not.” R.W. Emerson
“The two enemies of human happiness are pain and boredom.” Arthur Schopenhauer
“Everyone wants to live on top of the mountain, but all the happiness and growth occurs while you’re climbing it.” Andy Rooney
“There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will.” Epictetus
“If people did not do silly things, nothing intelligent would ever get done.” Ludwig Wittgenstein
“Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.” Maya Angelou
“Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.” Thich Nhat Hanh
“There is more to life than increasing its speed.” Mahatma Gandhi
“Most people would rather be certain they’re miserable, than risk being happy.” Dr. Robert Anthony
“Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.” Epicurus
“Men spend their lives in anticipations, in determining to be vastly happy at some period when they have time. But the present time has one advantage over every other — it is our own. Past opportunities are gone, future have not come. We may lay in a stock of pleasures, as we would lay in a stock of wine; but if we defer the tasting of them too long, we shall find that both are soured by age.” Charles Caleb Colton
“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.” Anais Nin
“If you are too busy to laugh, you are too busy.” Proverb
“A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.” Mark Twain
“Just because it didn’t last forever, doesn’t mean it wasn’t worth your while.” Unknown
“When I look back on all these worries, I remember the story of the old man who said on his deathbed that he had had a lot of trouble in his life, most of which had never happened.” Winston Churchill
“Too many people overvalue what they are not and undervalue what they are.” Malcolm S. Forbes
“Don’t rely on someone else for your happiness and self-worth. Only you can be responsible for that. If you can’t love and respect yourself — no one else will be able to make that happen. Accept who you are — completely; the good and the bad — and make changes as YOU see fit — not because you think someone else wants you to be different.” Stacey Charter
“It’s been my experience that you can nearly always enjoy things if you make up your mind firmly that you will.” L.M. Montgomery
“The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance, the wise grows it under his feet.” James Oppenheim
“The reason people find it so hard to be happy is that they always see the past better than it was, the present worse than it is, and the future less resolved than it will be.” Marcel Pagnol
“Happiness is within. It has nothing to do with how much applause you get or how many people praise you. Happiness comes when you believe that you have done something truly meaningful.” Martin Yan
“If thou wilt make a man happy, add not unto his riches but take away from his desires.” Epicurus
“On a deeper level you are already complete. When you realize that, there is a playful, joyous energy behind what you do.” Eckhart Tolle
“Follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.” Joseph Campbell
“The reason why we struggle with insecurity is because we compare our behind the scenes with everyone else’s highlight reel.” Stephen Furtick
“Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.” Soren Kierkegaard
“It is only when we truly know and understand that we have a limited time on earth — and that we have no way of knowing when our time is up — that we will begin to live each day to the fullest, as if it was the only one we had.” Elizabeth Kubler-Ross
Deep Quotes on Kindness
“A thousand words will not leave so deep an impression as one deed.” Henrik Ibsen
“No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.” Aesop
“The smallest act of kindness is worth more than the greatest intention.” Kahlil Gibran
“Sometimes it takes only one act of kindness and caring to change a person’s life.” Jackie Chan
“Empathy is really the opposite of spiritual meanness. It’s the capacity to understand that every war is both won and lost. And that someone else’s pain is as meaningful as your own.” Barbara Kingsolver
“I’ve been searching for ways to heal myself, and I’ve found that kindness is the best way.” Lady Gaga
“I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers.” Kahlil Gibran
“A letter from the heart can be read on the face.” Kenyan proverb
“Kindness does wonderful things to a face.” Dixie Doyle
“Kindness can become its own motive. We are made kind by being kind.” Eric Hoffer
“Carry out a random act of kindness, with no expectation of reward, safe in the knowledge that one day someone might do the same for you.” Princess Diana
“As the rain falls on the just and unjust alike, let your heart be untroubled by judgments and let your kindness rain down on all.” Buddha
“Kindness and a generous spirit go a long way. And a sense of humor. It’s like medicine — very healing.” Max Irons
“For beautiful eyes, look for the good in others; for beautiful lips, speak only words of kindness; and for poise, walk with the knowledge that you are never alone.” Audrey Hepburn
“We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.” Winston Churchill
“The kindest hearts have felt the most pains.” Unknown
“When I was young, I used to admire intelligent people; as I grow older, I admire kind people.” Abraham Joshua Heschel
“Never look down on anybody unless you’re helping them up.” Jesse Jackson
“If you want to be a rebel, be kind.” Pancho Ramos Stierle
“Unexpected kindness is the most powerful, least costly, and most underrated agent of human change.” Bob Kerrey
“Those who bring sunshine to the lives of others cannot keep it from themselves.” James Matthew Barrie
The Secret to a Deep and Meaningful Life
After many years of reading and study, I realized something profound:
The secret to a deep and meaningful life is to regularly take small moments to reflect on your own purpose, meaning, and happiness.
Too many of us charge ahead, day after day, without pausing to consider what it all means. It’s like living with blinders on, and it leads to burnout, regret, and a missed chance for deeper understanding.
There’s a better way, and it’s actually quite simple:
- Regularly get exposure to new ideas, deep thoughts, and practical wisdom.
- Pause to reflect on what those deep ideas mean for your own life.
If you do this regularly, you’ll live a much happier, more successful, more meaningful life. (Probably a longer life too!)
The problem is, too many people make this a once-in-a-while thing. They only reflect when they’re facing a big life moment. It needs to be a regular habit.
That’s why I created Fireside Philosophy.
It’s a place where you can get life lessons, thought-provoking questions, inspiring stories, and practical words of wisdom that make you reflect and change how you look at life.
And it’s all delivered directly to your inbox, 100% free.
Here are a few of my favorite Fireside Philosophy posts:
I regularly share the kind of ideas, stories, insights, questions, and life philosophies you might discover during a deep conversation around the fire with thoughtful friends.
So take a moment to break from the noise and come reflect by the fire.
It’ll make you a smarter, happier, wiser person.
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