Quotation Commonplace

My Quote Collection

Explore a curated selection of quotes from various people and sources. This collection has been, and still is being, cultivated and curated by me in my own personal commonplace. Some of the sources I get them from include courses/classes, YouTube videos, debates, podcasts, music, discussions, literature/reading, and more. This is by no means an exhaustive list. I hope you derive as much value and insight as I have in the process of collection and reflection.

“It is necessary for a prince, if he wants to preserve himself, to learn how to not be good, and to use this knowledge and not use it as necessity dictates.”

Niccolò Machiavelli

“The knowledge we acquire in books, at least that based on reasoning which is only probable and for which there is no proof, being composed and enlarged little by little by the opinions of many different people, does not approach the truth as closely as the simple reasoning of a man of good sense concerning things which he meets.”

René Descartes

“Who can be vain of his disease, still less swagger with it? Why do I say that, though? Everybody does it — we all show off with our diseases, and I, perhaps, more than anybody.”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

"Beware of unearned wisdom."

Carl Jung

"The unexamined life is not worth living"

Socrates/Plato

"While everyone has a right to an opinion, not every opinion is right."

Theodore Schick, Jr.

"There are two powers in the world, the sword and the mind. In the long run, the sword is always beaten by the mind."

Napoleon Bonaparte

"First sentences are doors to worlds."

Ursula K. Le Guin

"I'll die for my pride, so I can live with my honor."

Millyz

"I ain't no killer, but I'll kill you if it's me or you."

Millyz

"Literary criticism is a reasoned account of the feeling produced upon the critic by the book he is criticizing."

D.H. Lawrence

"You must look at everything in the calm and mild light of philosophy."

George Washington

"Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions, themselves."

Rainer Maria Rilke

"I could not make you a greater gift than that of enabling you to understand in the shortest time that which I have learned through hardships and danger in the course of many years."

Niccolò Machiavelli

"I desire that either nothing should honor my work, or that only the variety of its contents and the gravity of its subject should make it pleasing."

Niccolò Machiavelli

"Men's thoughts are much according to their inclination; their discourse and speeches, according to their learning and infused opinions; but their deeds, are after as they have been accustomed."

Sir Francis Bacon

"The word emotion stands for energy in motion."

Robert Kiyosaki

"By changing your perspective, you expand your possibilities until you see something you were unable to see before."

Michael Michalko

"In the end, our own creativity is decided by what we choose to do or what we refuse to do. And as we decide and choose, so are our destinies formed."

Michael Michalko

"When you realize that you just came up with an idea that betters anything that has been done, well, your hair stands up on end, you feel an incredible sense of awe; it's almost as if you heard a whisper from God."

Hank Zeller

"To be creative, you have to believe and act as if you are creative."

Michael Michalko

"The worth of the ideas you create will depend in large part upon the way you define your problems."

Michael Michalko

"Politics is the activity by which the framework of human life is sustained; it is not life itself."

Kenneth Minogue

"We are always getting ready to live, but never living."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Who speaks of victory? To endure is everything."

Rainer Maria Rilke

"Lives devoted to Beauty seldom end well."

Kenneth Clark

"Some people will never learn anything, for this reason, because they understand everything too soon."

Alexander Pope

"Life in itself is neither good nor evil, it is the place of good and evil, according to what you make it."

Michel de Montaigne

"It is not a mistake to have strong views. The mistake is to have nothing else."

Anthony Weston

"You exist as a creative being in a creative universe. A singular work of art."

Rick Rubin

"In courses concerned with teaching ever-larger sets of facts or techniques, students are seldom encouraged to ask the sorts of questions that arguments answer. Sure, the Constitution mandates the Electoral College - that's a fact - but is it still a good idea? (for that matter, was it ever a good idea? What are the reasons for it, anyway?)"

Anthony Weston

"In general, if you can't imagine how anyone could hold the view you are attacking, you probably just don't understand it yet."

Anthony Weston

"Just as trees grow flowers and fruits, humanity creates works of art."

Rick Rubin

"There's a time for certain ideas to arrive, and they find a way to express themselves through us."

Rick Rubin

"The center is the realm of compromise."

Robert Greene

"Your mind is the starting point of all war and all strategy. A mind that is easily overwhelmed by emotion, that is rooted in the past instead of the present, that cannot see the world with clarity and urgency, will create strategies that will always miss the mark."

Robert Greene

"Bravery is being the only one who knows you're afraid."

Colonel David Hackworth

"I am fond of pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals."

Winston S. Churchill

"Don't reinvent the wheel, just realign it."

Anthony D'Angelo

"It is only when we wake up that the dream seems strange. Only then do we see all the ways in which it was impossible. We were confused, but we did not know it.

Michael Huemer

"I know Judas loved Jesus. I know Brutus loved Caesar."

EST Gee