When life gets tough, overwhelming or just feels too uncertain then one thing that helps me to calm down and find a way forward is the words of wisdom from the people who walked this Earth before us (and some from people who are still here).
So in today’s post I thought I’d share my favorites.
These are the 101 best words of wisdom ever about life, happiness and about what our years on this planet is all about.
I hope you’ll find something uplifting and helpful here for yourself and the people in your life that may need a positive boost too.
The Best Words of Wisdom Ever About Life
“In the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.”
– Abraham Lincoln
“For everything you have missed, you have gained something else, and for everything you gain, you lose something else.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
“We don’t stop playing because we grow old, we grow old because we stop playing.”
– George Bernard Shaw
“In the end, only three things matter: how much you loved, how gently you lived, and how gracefully you let go of things not meant for you.”
– Buddha
“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.”
– Rumi
“The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.”
– Socrates
“The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.”
– Mark Twain
“The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.”
– Aristotle
“We don’t receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us.”
– Marcel Proust
“Wisdom is not a product of schooling but of the lifelong attempt to acquire it.”
– Albert Einstein
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.”
– Steve Jobs
“Those who have a ‘why’ to live, can bear with almost any ‘how’.”
– Viktor Frankl
“Real wisdom is not the knowledge of everything, but the knowledge of which things in life are necessary, which are less necessary, and which are completely unnecessary to know.”
– Leo Tolstoy
“Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.”
– George Bernard Shaw
“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”
– Aristotle
“He who lives in harmony with himself lives in harmony with the universe.”
– Marcus Aurelius
“A man has made at least a start on discovering the meaning of human life when he plants shade trees under which he knows full well he will never sit.”
– David Elton Trueblood
“By three methods we may learn wisdom: first, by reflection, which is noblest; second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.”
– Confucius
“It is unwise to be too sure of one’s own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err.”
– Mahatma Gandhi
“The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart.”
– Helen Keller
The Best Words of Wisdom About Life That Hit Hard
“It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that things are difficult.”
– Seneca
“Life is ten percent what happens to you and ninety percent how you respond to it.”
– Lou Holtz
“Nobody can make you feel inferior without your permission.”
– Eleanor Roosevelt
“A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool.”
– William Shakespeare
“The past is behind, learn from it. The future is ahead, prepare for it. The present is here, live it.”
– Thomas S. Monson
“The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.”
– Leo Tolstoy
“How people treat you is their karma; how you react is yours.”
– Wayne Dyer
“Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.”
– Martin Luther King Jr.
“A man is but a product of his thoughts. What he thinks he becomes.”
– Mahatma Gandhi
“We will be known forever by the tracks we leave.”
– Dakota (Native American saying)
“It all begins and ends in your mind. What you give power to, has power over you, if you allow it.”
– Leon Brown
“The day you plant the seed is not the day you eat the fruit.”
– Paulo Coelho
“Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.”
– John F. Kennedy
“Wise men speak because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something.”
– Plato
“We are masters of the unsaid words, but slaves of those we let slip out.”
– Winston Churchill
“The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.”
– Isaac Asimov
“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.”
– Carl Jung
“There is more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philosophy.”
– Friedrich Nietzsche
“It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.”
– Seneca
“We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.”
– Winston Churchill
The Funniest Words of Wisdom About Life
“Do not take life too seriously. You will never get out of it alive.”
– Elbert Hubbard
“If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito.”
– Dalai Lama
“I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.”
– Mark Twain
“You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.”
– Mae West
“Before you marry a person, you should first make them use a computer with slow Internet to see who they really are.”
– Will Ferrell
“Knowledge is like underwear. It is useful to have it, but not necessary to show it off.”
– Bill Murray
“Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.”
– Abraham Lincoln
“A day without laughter is a day wasted.”
– Charlie Chaplin
“The elevator to success is out of order. You’ll have to use the stairs, one step at a time.”
– Joe Girard
“If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn’t sit for a month.”
– Theodore Roosevelt
“My grandmother started walking five miles a day when she was sixty. She’s ninety-seven now, and we don’t know where the hell she is.”
– Ellen DeGeneres
“I have noticed that even people who claim everything is predetermined and that we can do nothing to change it look before they cross the road.”
– Stephen Hawking
“Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit; wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.”
– Miles Kington
“People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing – that’s why we recommend it daily.”
– Zig Ziglar
“I always wanted to be somebody, but now I realize I should have been more specific.”
– Lily Tomlin
“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”
– Thomas A. Edison
“The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.”
– Albert Einstein
“When I hear somebody sigh, ‘Life is hard,’ I am always tempted to ask, ‘Compared to what?’”
– Sydney J. Harris
“Never follow anyone else’s path. Unless you’re in the woods and you’re lost and you see a path. Then by all means follow that path.”
– Ellen DeGeneres
“Wisdom comes from experience. Experience is often a result of lack of wisdom.”
– Terry Pratchett
The Best Short Words of Wisdom
“It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.”
– Henry David Thoreau
“To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.”
– Bertrand Russell
“Turn your wounds into wisdom.”
– Oprah Winfrey
“Don’t gain the world and lose your soul; wisdom is better than silver or gold.”
– Bob Marley
“Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens.”
– Jimi Hendrix
“Patience is the companion of wisdom.”
– Saint Augustine
“Knowing others is wisdom, knowing yourself is enlightenment.”
– Lao Tzu
“Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.”
– Marcus Aurelius
“Wisdom begins in wonder.”
– Socrates
“The greatest wealth is to live content with little.”
– Plato
“Cleverness is not wisdom.”
– Euripides
“Wisdom is knowing when to end.”
– Robert Greene
“Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.”
– Immanuel Kant
“Silence is the sleep that nourishes wisdom.”
– Francis Bacon
“No man was ever wise by chance.”
– Seneca
“Kindness is more important than wisdom, and the recognition of this is the beginning of wisdom.”
– Theodore Isaac Rubin
“A loving heart is the truest wisdom.”
– Charles Dickens
“Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers.”
– Lord Alfred Tennyson
“The truest wisdom is a resolute determination.”
– Napoleon Bonaparte
“Wisdom is the supreme part of happiness.”
– Sophocles
The Best Words of Wisdom About Living a Happy Life
“Happiness is not something readymade. It comes from your own actions.”
– Dalai Lama
“In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks.”
– John Muir
“Happiness and freedom begin with one principle. Some things are within your control and some are not.”
– Epictetus
“Be happy. It’s one way of being wise.”
– Sidonie Gabrielle Colette
“The most certain sign of wisdom is cheerfulness.”
– Michel de Montaigne
“The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
“All change is hard at first, messy in the middle and gorgeous at the end.”
– Robin Sharma
“The simple things are also the most extraordinary things, and only the wise can see them.”
– Paulo Coelho
“What wisdom can you find that is greater than kindness?”
– Jean-Jacques Rousseau
“It’s better to be alone than to spend time with toxic people. It’s better to do nothing than to work on something that doesn’t matter. It’s better to rest than to climb the wrong mountain.”
– James Clear
“Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.”
– Aristotle
“To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.”
– Winston Churchill
“If you’re walking down the right path and you’re willing to keep walking, eventually you’ll make progress.”
– Barack Obama
“Seek the wisdom of the ages, but look at the world through the eyes of a child.”
– Ron Wild
“It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.”
– Andre Gide
“Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.”
– Mark Twain
“Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace and gratitude.”
– Denis Waitley
“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”
– Albert Einstein
“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.”
– Helen Keller
“Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting a few drops on yourself.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
Want more timeless inspiration and words of wisdom? Then have a look at these positive quotes about life, the 10 fundamentals of happiness from Seneca and also these 7 pearls of wisdom from Epictetus.