40 interesting phrases that will make you think
There are many reflections that we hear throughout the day, and countless those that the millions of people who have existed throughout history have uttered. All of them have had or have their importance, as an expression of a thought or feeling or an attempt to communicate what they are. And many of them are the product of deep thoughts, remaining in history for some reason.
In this article we are going to see just a series of interesting phrases that have been pronounced or written throughout history .
Interesting thought-provoking phrases
Below you will find a selection of several interesting phrases that numerous personalities have made throughout history, along with others from tradition and popular wisdom.
1. Fall seven times, get up eight times
Motivating phrase from a Japanese proverb that urges us not to let ourselves be defeated and not to give up.
2. Fantasy never leads to madness; what leads to madness is precisely reason. Poets do not go mad, but chess players do
The writer Gilbert Keith Chesterton points out that it is the fact that wanting to control and to reason out everything is harmful and dangerous, being healthy the expression of our fantasy and desires.
3. Words are full of falsehood or art; the look is the language of the heart
William Shakespeare shows us how easy it is to manipulate language to suit our intentions, but that our gaze will tend to be sincere and express what we really feel.
4. The words wax, the works steel
Góngora’s phrase that reflects that what really counts are the acts, not the words.
5. No tree is unshaken by the wind
A curious Hindu proverb that reminds us that we have all suffered, suffer and will suffer throughout our lives when facing reality.
6. Unexpressed emotions never die. They are buried alive and come out later in worse ways
This phrase of Sigmund Freud reflects that what we keep silent is still valid inside us since we cannot give it an outlet. And this can lead to a worsening of the situation and internal malaise.
7. Today is the day of tomorrow you were so worried about yesterday
This sentence by Dale Carnegie shows us that we are gradually overcoming situations and that everything is coming, not being the concern for tomorrow something that should distress and limit us.
8. The greatest empire is one’s own empire
Seneca indicates with this phrase that it is the fact of knowing and knowing how to manage ourselves and our lives that allows us to be happy.
9. A journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step
This sentence attributed to Lao Tse tells us that to get far we must start walking .
10. The greatest declaration of love is that which is not made, the man who feels much speaks little
Although it may be debatable, this phrase from Plato reflects that we rarely say everything we feel and everything we care about the people we love.
11. Challenges make life interesting. Overcoming them is what makes life meaningful
Facing challenges and valuing them as something positive is fundamental so that we can enrich our lives by daring to act to achieve what we want, as writer, poet and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson reminds us.
12. If the whole year were a holiday, having fun would be more boring than working
Most of us like to enjoy our leisure time. This phrase from William Shakespeare does not indicate the boredom that ends up being monotony for most people.
13. The most difficult thing is to know ourselves; the easiest is to speak ill of others
Reflection of the philosopher Thales of Miletus, who already in ancient times saw that human beings find it easy to criticize the rest of the world without seeing their own characteristics, seeing the straw only in the eye of others.
14. Feeling pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional
Known phrase sometimes attributed to Buddha and others to M. Kathleen Casey. This sentence points out that although the things that happen to us can be painful, our attitude plays a major role in determining how we will react to them and how they will affect us.
15. It’s crazy to hate all the roses because one of them pricked you. Give up all your dreams because one of them didn’t come true
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry is the author of this sentence, and in fact it appears in The Little Prince , and reminds us that we cannot generalize a single situation or concrete element to the rest of situations or elements that may occur.
16. Whoever fights monsters should be careful to become a monster himself. When you look long into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you
Nietzche’s sentence in which he says that we must bear in mind that in the fight for what we consider to be fair or right, we must not reach a point where we go on to do precisely what we wanted to fight.
17. Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future
Oscar Wilde’s phrase, which tells us that not all the good ones are so good and not all the bad ones are so bad. We can all change.
18. If you are looking for different results, don’t always do the same thing
Einstein’s phrase that indicates the need to risk experimenting new options if we want to achieve things different from the usual ones.
19. We must not lose faith in humanity, for it is like the ocean: it does not become dirty because some of its drops are corrupted
Often we tend to lose faith and believe that everyone is selfish and will pretend to achieve their goals by stepping on others and hurting us. But the truth is, as this sentence of Gandhi reflects, that the fact that it has happened to us at some time does not imply that everyone is the same.
20. Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would disintegrate, I would still plant my apple tree
Martin Luther King offered us this phrase as a symbol of the need to maintain hope and bet on the future, however badly we see it.
21. There is always some madness in love, but there is always some reason in madness
Nietzche’s phrase in which he expresses the sensations and actions that appear or are carried out for love.
22. A day is worth two mornings
This phrase from Benjamin Franklin indicates that the present is much more valuable than the future, since it is only the now that we are living, without being able to know what may be to come.
23. I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave one is not the one who does not feel fear but the one who conquers that fear
Nelson Mandela’s phrase in which he expresses that courage is not to be afraid but to dare to face it.
24. Holding a grudge is like holding a hot coal with the intention of throwing it at someone else; it is one that burns
A phrase attributed to the Buddha that tells us that hating, holding a grudge against someone and wanting to get even in the end only hurts ourselves.
25. He who transforms himself transforms the world
The Dalai Lama indicates that it is the change of the person himself that will generate a change in the world or in our way of perceiving it.
26. Life is a magnificent spectacle, but we have bad seats and do not understand what we are witnessing
This sentence by Georges Clemenceau refers to the fact that we are often unable to understand the beauty of life or to appreciate the things that are really worthwhile.
27. Laughing at nothing is foolish, laughing at everything is stupid
Groucho Marx’s phrase that reminds us of the need to find a balance between seriousness and humour. We have to take life with a certain amount of humour, but without trying to make a comedy out of everything.
28. He who wants all things to his liking in this life will have many troubles
One of Quevedo’s most interesting phrases expresses the need to accept that not everything will go as we would like.
29. Neither a sublime intelligence, nor a great imagination, nor both together form the genius; love, that is the soul of the genius
Amadeus Mozart pronounced this sentence to indicate that what makes us stand out is not skill , but loving what we do.
30. The least common thing in this world is to live. Most people exist, that’s all
This phrase of Oscar Wilde makes us see that most people are limited to survive, without fighting to get their dreams and denying or fearing to fight to get them. He also tries to push us to try to live as we are and believe.
31. Experience is not what happens to you, but what you do with what happens to you
Huxley reminds us that what matters and defines us is what we do with our lives and what happens, not the things that happen in them.
32. The important thing is not to do new things but to do them as if no one had ever done them before
Possibly most things we have thought and done have been done and thought about before. What matters is not to be the first, but to do them with maximum enthusiasm and for ourselves.
33. Ask yourself if what you are doing today will get you where you want to be tomorrow
Walt Disney also made great reflections like this one. In it he pushes us to fight to achieve our dreams and act towards them.
34. Kisses are like cherries: one leads to another
This phrase is an Italian proverb that reflects the reciprocity and the desire for more in the face of kissing someone we are attracted to and/or love.
35. All the variety, all the charm, and all the beauty that exists in this world is made of light and shadow
Tolstoy reminds us that everything has its good and bad side , its lights and shadows, and that we must be able to appreciate it.
36. The only person you should compare yourself to is the person you were yesterday. That’s the person you have to get over and look at in order to be better
Attributed to Freud, this phrase criticizes the fact that we tend to continually compare ourselves and want to surpass others, when the only being we should aspire to surpass is our past self.
37. If it is good to live, even better is to dream, and best of all, to wake up
A beautiful phrase by Antonio Machado, reminds us that having dreams and fantasies and not just dreaming but fighting to achieve them is what allows us to live our lives in a happy way.
38. We can complain that the roses have thorns, or we can be happy that the thorns have roses
Attributed to Abraham Lincoln, this phrase reminds us that everything depends on the perspective from which we see things.
39. Nothing happens until something moves
Albert Einstein points out the need for action: things do not just happen.
40. The measure of love is to love without measure
The work of St. Augustine, this phrase lets us see that love is something that is not measured or calculated, it is simply felt in all its intensity.