40 interesting phrases that will make you think

A selection of aphorisms, thoughts and reflections that address varied and interesting topics.

There are many reflections that we hear throughout the day, and innumerable those that the millions of people who have existed throughout history have pronounced. All of them have had or have their importance, as the expression of a thought or feeling or attempt to communicate that 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 uttered or written throughout history..

Interesting phrases that invite you to think

Below you will find a selection a selection of several interesting sentences that numerous personalities have made throughout historyalong with others coming from tradition and popular wisdom.

1. Fall down seven times, get up eight times.

Motivating phrase from a Japanese proverb that encourages 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 tells us that it is the fact that wanting to control and rationalize 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 tells us how easy it is to manipulate language to suit our intentions, but that our look will tend to be sincere and to express what we really feel.

4. Words wax, works steel

Góngora's phrase that reflects that what really counts are actions, not words.

5. There is no tree that the wind has not shaken

Curious Hindu proverb that reminds us that we all have 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 forms.

This sentence by Sigmund Freud reflects that what we keep silent about is still alive inside us, since we do not manage to give it an outlet. And this can generate a worsening of the situation and internal discomfort.

7. Today is the day of tomorrow that worried you so much yesterday.

This phrase by Dale Carnegie tells us that little by little we are overcoming situations and that everything is coming, not being the concern for tomorrow something that should distress us and limit us.

8. The greatest empire is the empire of oneself

Seneca indicates with this phrase that it is the fact of knowing ourselves 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 phrase attributed to Lao Tzu tells us that to go far we must start walking.

10. The greatest declaration of love is the one that 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 the writer, poet and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson reminds us.

12. If the whole year were a holiday, then having fun would be more boring than working.

Most of us like to enjoy our leisure time. This phrase by William Shakespeare does not indicate the boredom that monotony ends up being for most people.

13. The hardest thing is to know ourselves; the easiest thing is to speak ill of others.

Reflection of the philosopher Thales of Miletus, who already in antiquity saw that human beings find it easy to criticize the rest of the world without seeing their own characteristics, seeing the speck only in someone else's eye.

14. To feel Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional

A well-known phrase sometimes attributed to Buddha and sometimes to M. Kathleen Casey. This phrase 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 pricked you. To give up all your dreams because one of them did not come true.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry is the author of this phrase, and in fact it appears in The Little PrinceIt reminds us that we cannot generalize a single situation or concrete element to the rest of the situations or elements that may occur.

16. He who fights with monsters beware of becoming a monster himself. When you look for a long time into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you.

Nietzsche's phrase in which he expresses that we must take into account that in the fight for what we consider just or correct, we should not reach a point in which we start doing precisely what we wanted to fight against.

17. Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future.

Oscar Wilde's phrase, which indicates that not all good people are so good and not all bad people 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 shows us the need to take the risk of experimenting with new options if we want to achieve things that are different from the usual.

19. We must not lose faith in humanity, for it is like the ocean: it does not get dirty because some of its drops are corrupted.

We often tend to lose faith and believe that everyone is selfish and will try to achieve their own goals. and will try to achieve their goals by stepping on others and hurting us. But the truth is, as this sentence by Gandhi reflects, that the fact that it has happened to us on some occasion does not imply that everyone is the same.

20. Even if I knew that tomorrow the world was going to 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, no matter how bad we see it.

21. There is always a little madness in love, but there is always a little reason in madness.

Nietzsche's phrase in which he expresses the sensations and actions that appear or are carried out for love.

22. A today is worth two tomorrows

This phrase of Benjamin Franklin tells us 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 man is not he who feels no fear, but he who conquers that fear.

Nelson Mandela's phrase expressing that courage is not having fear but daring to face it.

24. Holding a grudge is like holding a hot coal with the intention of throwing it at someone else; it is you who gets burned.

A phrase attributed to Buddha that tells us that hating, holding a grudge against someone and wanting to take revenge in the end only harms ourselves.

25. Whoever 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 we do not understand what we are witnessing

This quote 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. To laugh at nothing is foolish, to laugh at everything is stupid.

A quote by Groucho Marx that reminds us of the need to find a balance between seriousness and humor. We must take life with a certain humor, but without trying to make comedy out of everything.

28. He who wants everything in this life to his liking, will have many displeasures.

One of Quevedo's most interesting phrases that expresses the need to accept that not everything will go as we would like it to.

Neither a sublime intelligence, nor a great imagination, nor both together form genius; love, that is the soul of genius.

Amadeus Mozart pronounced this phrase to indicate that what makes us stand out is not skillbut to love what we do.

30. The least frequent thing in this world is to live. Most people exist, that's all.

This quote by Oscar Wilde makes us see that most people are just surviving, not striving to achieve their dreams and denying or fearing to struggle to achieve them. It also tries to encourage us to try to live as we are and as we 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 what defines us is what we do with our lives and what happens to us, not the things that happen in our lives.

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 of the things we have thought of and done have been done and thought of before. What matters is not to be the first, but to do them with the utmost enthusiasm and by 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 strive to achieve our dreams and act in the direction of 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 when kissing someone we are attracted to and/or whom we love.

35. All the variety, all the charm and all the beauty that exists in this world is made up of light and shadow.

Tolstoy reminds us that everything has its good and bad sides.We should be able to appreciate it, its lights and shadows, and that we should be able to appreciate it.

36. The only person you should compare yourself to is the person you were yesterday. That is the person you should surpass and look up to 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, it is even better to dream, and best of all, to awaken.

Beautiful phrase of Antonio Machado, reminds us that to have dreams and fantasies and not to limit ourselves to dream but to fight to achieve them is what allows us to live our life in a happy way.

38. We can complain that roses have thorns, or we can rejoice that 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 to act: things don't just happen.

40. The measure of love is to love without measure

A work of St. Augustine, this phrase shows us that love is something that cannot be measured or calculated, it is simply felt in all its intensity.