Wisdom in Words: 73 Impactful Quotes I've Collected over 14 years

Reading is a BIG part of my life. I love to read. I'm a self-development junkie. I also love classic literature that stands the test of time.

While I was in college in 2009, my husband and I started tracking the books we read on the Notes app on our iPhones. We also started writing down our favorite quotes from the books we read. It is a practice we both keep up to this day.

When I'm feeling down, unmotivated, or just interested in remembering key takeaways I've had at different points in my life, I pop open those gems. They aren't some "most famous quotes list." They are treasures I've naturally come across in my reading and personal.

Perhaps some of them will bless your life this week as well. Warning: this list is pretty long, so feel free to skim and find something that pops out to you. This is only a portion of my list.

• "Hard work is a prison sentence only if it doesn't have meaning." (Outliers)
• "What a terrible disease that must be if it could kill God in a man." (The Secret Life of Pi)
• "There are always those who take it upon themselves to defend God, as if the sustaining frame of existence were something weak. These people walk by a widow deformed by leprosy begging for a few paise, walk by children dressed in rags in the street, and they think, "Business as usual." But if they perceive a slight against God, it is a different story. Their faces go red, their chests heave mightily, they sputter angry words. Their resolve is frightening. These people fail to realize thatit is on the inside that God must be defended, not on the outside. They should direct their anger at themselves. For evil in the open is but evil from within that has been let out. The main battlefield for good is not the open ground of the public arena but the small clearing of each heart. Meanwhile, the lot of widows and homeless children is very hard, and it is to their defence, not God's, that the self-righteous should rush."(The Secret Life of Pi)
• "Dantes had exhausted every human resource. Inevitably, as we said earlier, he turned to God. Every pious notion ever sown in the world and gleaned by some wretch, bowed beneath the yoke of destiny, now came to refresh his soul. He recalled the prayers that his mother had taught him and discovered a significance in them that he had not previously understood: to a happy man, a prayer is a monotonous composition, void of meaning, until the day when suffering deciphers the sublime language through which the poor victim addresses God." Alexander Dumas
• "It has always seemed somewhat paradoxical to me that we must constantly have the Lord command us to do things which are for our own good." Marion G. Romney
• "The merit of all things lies in their difficulty." Alexander Dumas
• "To look at everything always as though you were seeing it either for the first or last time: this is your time on earth filled with glory." B. Smith
• "Happiness is not a certain set of circumstances but, rather, a certain set of attitudes."
• "A man is what he thinks about all day long." R. Emerson
• "Everybody's private motto: It's better to be popular than to be right." M. Twain
• "Here is a beautiful tribute by a son to his mother: "I don't remember much about her views of voting nor her social prestige; and what her ideas on child training, diet, and eugenics were, I cannot recall. The main thing that sifts back to me now through the thick undergrowth of years is that she loved me. She liked to lie on the grass with me and tell stories, or to run and hide with us children. She was always hugging me. And I liked it. She had a sunny face. To me it was like God, and all the beatitudes saints tell of Him. And sing! Of all the sensations pleasurable to my life nothing can compare with the rapture of crawling up into her lap and going to sleep while she swung to and fro in her rocking chair and sang. Thinking of this, I wonder if the woman of today, with all her tremendous notions and plans, realizes what an almighty factor she is in shaping of her child for weal or woe. I wonder if she realizes how much sheer love and attention count for in a child's life." Ezra Benson
• "To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness." B. Russell
• "Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power." Lincoln
• "All appears to change when we change." H. Amiel
• "The ordinary acts we practice everyday at home are of more importance to the soul than their simicity might suggest." Thomas Moore
• "Virtue is indeed its own reward. But it is the highest reward of all-- a contented mind and soul." Hutcheson
• "A goal should be the shadow of your heart."
• "I declare, it is like some other part of me made up some rules about happiness and I just went along with them without thinking." These Is My Words
• "The best tool the enemy has is discouragement." Filmmaker?
• "D'Artagnan thought of the miseries of poor human nature, always dissatisfied with what it has, ever desirous of what it has not." Twenty Years After
• "I have learned, in whatever state I am, therewith to be content." Paul
• "I believe when we determine within our hearts that by and with the blessings of God our Heavenly Father we will accomplish a certain labor, God gives the ability to accomplish that labor; but when we lay down, when we become discouraged, when we look at the top of the mountain and say it is impossible to climb to the summit, while we never make an effort it will never be accomplished." Heber J. Grant
• "Our nature has changed when our inner thoughts and feelings are consistent with our behavior. Integrity is the wisest investment we can ever make." Tad Callister
• "The choice isn't always about what you do, son, but why you do it." The Gathering Storm
• "There is nothing women like better than finding men who are relaxing and giving them orders" Wheel of Time
• "I wonder if we sometimes put the White Tower-as an institution- before the people we serve. I wonder if we let it become a goal in itself, instead of a means to help us achieve greater goals." Towers of Midnight
• "The point of real education is an ability to recognize the spirit that is in a real human being, even though it may be obscured for a time by lack of education or opportunity to observe certain social customs." Eleanor Roosevelt
• "Love is lak da sea. It's uh movin' thing, but still and all, it takes its shape from de shores it meets, and it's different with every shore." Their Eyes Were Watching God
• "Two things everybody's got tuh do fuh themselves. They got tuh go tuh God, and they got tuh find out about livin' fuh themselves." Their Eyes Were Watching God
• "Living so that you beautify your name, even if it wasn't beautiful to begin with...making it stand in people's thoughts for something do lovely and pleasant that they never think of it by itself." Anne of Avonlea
• "I've kind of contracted a habit of enjoying things. It's got so chronic that I believe I even enjoy the disagreeable things." Anne's House of Dreams
• "Little Jem had said "Wow-ga" that morning. What were principalities and powers, the rise and fall of dynasties, the overthrow of Grit or Tory, compared with that miraculous occurrence?" Anne's House of Dreams
• "Silence is sometimes the most costly of commodities." Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie
• "The kids and I had often over the years made fun of Deborah as she sat for hours creating those books, stacks of them, painstakingly pasting in treasured photographs. But she hasn't made them for her; she had made them for such a time as this, and by turning their plastic-covered pages, we were able to travel back in time." The Same Kind of Different As Me
• "His house was perfect, whether you liked food, or sleep, or work, or story-telling, or singing, or just sitting and thinking best, or a pleasant mixture of them all." The Hobbit
• "When you encounter another person, when you have dealings with anyone at all, it is as if a question is being put to you. So you must think, What is the Lord asking of me in this moment, in this situation?" Gilead
• "I have decided the two choices open to me are 1- to torment myself 2-to trust in The Lord. There is no earthly solution to the problems that confront me. But I can add to my problems, as I believe I have done, by dwelling on them." Gilead
• "Light griefs are loquacious, but the great are dumb." Seneca
• Do something today that your future will thank you for.
• "Don't waste your time crying over what you are not given. When you have tears in your eyes, you can't see all the beautiful things around you." Tending Roses
• "Our lives are in the hands of God and our particular situations are carefully, not capriciously, designed for our ultimate individual happiness. I believe the same thing about every person who is living a faithful and obedient life." Pat Holland
• " Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water." Zen Buddhist
• "We die, not because we are Ill but because we are complete. Illness is the occasion of our dying, but not the cause." Tibetan lama
• "Walk to be happy; walk and be healthy. The best way to lengthen out our days is to walk steadily and with a purpose." Charles Dickens
• "In the presence of this naive greatness of soul, Aramis felt very small. It was the second time he has been compelled to bend before real superiority of heart, much more powerful than splendor of mind." Man in the Iron Mask
• "But the more I see of life the more I do perceive that there is nothing particularly great in its greatest walks, and therefore nothing particularly small in mine of furze-cutting. If I feel that the greatest blessings vouchsafed us are not very valuable, how can I feel it to be any great hardship when they are taken away? So I sing to pass the time." Return of the Native
• "Mrs. Lynde was complaining the other day that it wasn't much of a world. She said whenever you looked forward to anything pleasant you were sure to be more or less disappointed . . . perhaps that is true. But there is a good side to it too. The bad things don't always come up to your expectations either . . . they nearly always turn out ever so much better than you think." Anne of Avonlea" by Lucy Maud,Montgomery.
• "That's the worst . . . or the best . . . of real life, Anne. It WON'T let you be miserable. It keeps on trying to make you comfortable . . . and succeeding...even when you're determined to be unhappy and romantic...The little things of life, sweet and excellent in their place, must not be the things lived for; the highest must be sought and followed; the life of heaven must be begun here on earth." Anne of the Island"
• "Don't dream the small dreams of other men" -The Way of Kings book
• “One thing I learned there on that beautiful front porch was if I wanted to be successful, if I wanted to do important work one day, I would have to increase my capacity. I had to learn to manage disappointment.” -Chip & Joanna Autobiography
• If you think my hands are full, you should see my heart!
• "The trick to happiness wasn’t in freezing every momentary pleasure and clinging to each one, but in ensuring one’s life would produce many future moments to anticipate." Oathbringer
• "It was a morning like other mornings and yet perfect among mornings." the Pearl John Steinbeck
• "God is here. We are loved. It is enough." Kate Bowler
• “What would really satisfy us would be a God who said of anything we happened to like doing, ‘What does it matter so long as they are contented?’ We want, in fact, not so much a Father in Heaven as a grandfather in heaven —a senile benevolence who, as they like to say, ‘liked to see young people enjoying themselves’ and who plan for the universe was simply that it might be truly said at the end of each day, ‘a good time was had by all.’” -C.S. Lewis
• "You must choose to be happy, grateful & fulfilled. If you make that choice every single day, regardless of where you are or what’s happening, you will be happy." -Girl Wash Your Face Rachel Hollis
• "The most beautiful of alters is the soul of an unhappy creature consoled and thanking God" Victor Hugo, Les Mis
• "My father never complained. He remained an Iranian who loved his native country but who also believed in American ideals. He only said how sad it was that people so easily hate an entire population simply because of the actions of a few. What a waste it is to hate, he always said. What a waste." Firoozeh Dumas, Funny in Farsi
• “Sit all day in a moping posture, sigh, and reply to everyone with a dismal voice, and your melancholy lingers.....smooth your brow, brighten your eye, contract the dorsal rather than the ventricle aspect of the frame....and your heart must be frigid indeed if it does not generally thaw. (Do something, even if it’s the last thing we want to do. Get the blood flowing. Inactivity is the enemy.)" William James
• "Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good." Voltaire
• “What upsets people is not things themselves their judgements about things.” -Epicetes
• “You’ve begun to grasp the absurdity of life. Invest in the effort, not the result, and you will sleep better.” Albert Camus
• “The best way to predict your future is to create it.” -Abraham Lincoln
• The things which hurt instruct.” Benjamin Franklin
• “True security lies not in the things one has but in the things one can do without” Og Mandino
• “That which you acquire with most difficulty you retain the longest; as those who have earned a fortune are more careful of it than those by whom it was inherited.” Og Mandino
• “A person's success in life can usually be measured by the number of uncomfortable conversations he or she is willing to have.” Tim Ferris
• “Remember that your thoughts are the primary cause of everything.” Rhonda Byrne
• “Look around your environment. Rather than seeing items as objects, see them as magnets for your attention. Each object gently pulls a certain amount of your attention toward it. Whenever you discard something, the tug of that object is released. You get some of your attention back.” James Clear
• "Watching somebody else totally go for it can be incredibly upsetting to the person who has spent a lifetime building a solid case why they themselves can’t....Give yourself the gift of a joyous life while you’re still among the living.” -Jen Sincero
• Never take advice from someone you wouldn’t want to trade places with. Darren Hardy.
• “One of the sturdiest precepts of the study of human delusion is that every Golden Age is either past or is in the offing.” Michael Chabon (Cavalier Clay book)
• “Discomfort is the price of admission to a meaningful life.” Susan David

I hope you found at least one message you needed to hear today.

Hope you have a wonderful week out there!

Jamie

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