Philosophy Quotes

I don't believe you have to be better than everybody else. I believe you have to be better than you ever thought you could be.

If you want to conquer fear, don't sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.

The more man meditates upon good thoughts, the better will be his world and the world at large.

The weeds keep multiplying in our garden, which is our mind ruled by fear. Rip them out and call them by name.

I want it said of me by those who knew me best, that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow.

Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people.

Strength is a matter of a made up mind.

Prepare yourself for the world, as athletes used to do for their exercises; oil your mind and your manners, to give them the necessary suppleness and flexibility; strength alone will not do.

There is no limit to what you can imagine. And with commitment, with effort, what you can imagine you can become. Put your mind to work for you. Believe that you can do it. The world will tell you that you can't. Yet, in your belief you'll find the strength, you'll find the ability, to do it anyway.

In lazy apathy let stoics boast, their virtue fix'd: 't is fix'd as in a frost; contracted all, retiring to the breast; but strength of mind is exercise, not rest.

. . . You must do the thing you think you cannot do.

I remember hearing in a talk that the more we express our gratitude to God for our blessings, the more he will bring to our mind other blessings. The more we are aware of to be grateful for, the happier we become.

The happiest person is the person who thinks the most interesting thoughts.

Man, alone, has the power to transform his thoughts into physical reality; man, alone, can dream and make his dreams come true.

All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity; but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, to make it possible.

Toil, feel, think, hope; you will be sure to dream enough before you die, without arranging for it.

Remember that to change your mind and follow him who sets you right is to be none the less free than you were before.

The human mind is as driven to understand as the body is driven to survive.

Thoughts lead on to purposes; purposes go forth in action; actions form habits; habits decide character; and character fixes our destiny.

Those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.

It isn't what you know that counts, It's what you think of in time.

The conqueror and king in each of us is the . . . Knower of truth. . . . Let that Knower awaken in us and drive the horses of the mind, emotions, and physical body on the pathway which that king has chosen.

Only as you do know yourself can your brain serve you as a sharp and efficient tool. Know your failings, passions, and prejudices so you can separate them from what you see. Know also when you actually have thought through to the nature of the thing with which you are dealing and when you are not thinking at all.

Nurture your mind with great thoughts, for you will never go any higher than you think.

He who thinks he can find in himself the means of doing without others is much mistaken; but he who thinks that others cannot do without him is still more mistaken.

Readers are plentiful; thinkers are rare.

Read every day something no one else is reading. Think every day something no one else is thinking. It is bad for the mind to be always part of unanimity.

Nothing is so irrevocable as mind.

Know the self to be sitting in the chariot, the body to be the chariot, the intellect the charioteer, and the mind the reins.

Whatever is expressed is impressed. Whatever you say to yourself, with emotion, generates thoughts, ideas and behaviors consistent with those words.

If you will discipline yourself to make your mind self-sufficient you will thereby be least vulnerable to injury from the outside.

The great end of education is to discipline rather than to furnish the mind; to train it to the use of its own powers, rather than fill it with the accumulation of others.

Your own mind is a sacred enclosure into which nothing harmful can enter except by your promotion.

No man is ever whipped, until he quits -- in his own mind.

He that can heroically endure adversity will bear prosperity with equal greatness of soul; for the mind that cannot be dejected by the former is not likely to be transported with the latter.

Ill-health of body or of mind, is defeat. Health alone is victory. Let all men, if they can manage it, contrive to be healthy!

It is with disease of the mind, as with those of the body; we are half dead before we understand our disorder, and half cured when we do.

Nine-tenths of our sickness can be prevented by right thinking plus right hygiene, nine-tenths of it!?

Die when I may, I want it said by those who knew me best that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow.

Whether you be man or woman you will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the greatest quality of the mind next to honor.

Keep your thinking right And your business will be right.

Reputation is what the world thinks a man is; character is what he really is.

Thought creates character.

Even as water carves monuments of stone, so do our thoughts shape our character.

Our character is what we do when we think no one is looking.

Character isn't inherited. One builds it daily by the way one thinks and acts, thought by thought, action by action. If one lets fear or hate or anger take possession of the mind, they become self-forged chains.

Essential characteristics of a gentleman: The will to put himself in the place of others; the horror of forcing others into positions from which he would himself recoil; the power to do what seems to him to be right, without considering what others may say or think.

Every man has three characters: That which he exhibits, that which he has, and that which he thinks he has.

Character is like a tree and reputation its shadow. The shadow is what we think it is; the tree is the real thing.

What comes out of your mouth is determined by what goes into your mind.

Reputation is what men and women think of us; character is what God and angels know of us.

Sow a Thought, and you reap an Act; Sow an Act, and you reap a Habit; Sow a Habit, and you reap a Character; Sow a Character, and you reap a Destiny.

A certain bygone philosophy - which certainly must have quite forgotten all about the real child - used to speak of the child's nature as a tabula rasa, or 'blank page,' upon which experience and training might write what they pleased. As a matter of fact, the child's nature at birth, like that of a calf or a chick, is pretty well scribbled over by the experience of its ancestors. It is far from being blank, for as soon as the little organism comes into the world, it begins to do certain things and do them with much zeal and determination, as every one knows who knows real children.

Be more concerned with your character than with your reputation. Your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.

Quiet minds cannot be perplexed or frightened, but go on in fortune or misfortune at their own private pace, like a clock during a thunderstorm.

What we think or what we believe is, in the end, of little consequence. The only thing of consequence is what we do.

There will always be a Frontier where there is an open mind and a willing hand.

While we stop to think, we often miss our opportunity.

Will power is to the mind like a strong blind man who carries on his shoulders a lame man who can see.

You can do what you have to do, and sometimes you can do it even better than you think you can.

The Bhagavad-Gita is an empire of thought and in its philosophical teachings Krishna has all the attributes of the full-fledged montheistic deity and at the same time the attributes of the Upanisadic absolute.

The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.

You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.

The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.

Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.

Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.

Never esteem anything as of advantage to you that will make you break your word or lose your self-respect.

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.

For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun?

People learn, early in their lives, what is their reason for being.

Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself.

We are all, in private life, decent people; and we are all, in public life, savage people.

The natural loves are not all selfless. Even the best of them is partly self-regarding.

We do not want merely to see beauty, though that is bad enough. We want something else which can hardly be put into words: to be united with the beauty we see.