77 Deep Quotes About Life From Mankind’s Greatest Minds And Personalities

Published May 13, 2015
Updated March 20, 2022

Read these deep quotes about life that make you think to get a better understanding of your world.

From love to leadership to philosophy to achieving your ambitions, read and contemplate these deep quotes about life from some of the most prolific thinkers, authors, and innovators in human history:

Deep Quotes About Life That Make You Think
You will not be punished for your anger, you will be punished by your anger. - Buddha

Anne Frank Quote On Beauty
I don’t think of all the misery but of the beauty that still remains. - Anne Frank

Martin Luther King On Staying Silent
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. - Martin Luther King Jr.

Homer Simpson Quotes About Life
Sometime, when you least expect it, you'll realize that someone loved you. And that means that someone can love you again! And that will make you smile. - Homer Simpson

Bruce Lee On Limits
If you always put limit on everything you do, physical or anything else. It will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them. Bruce Lee

Steve Jobs Deep Quotes About Life
Things don't have to change the world to be important. - Steve Jobs

Deep Quotes About Courage
Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage. - Anaïs Nin

Building Strong Children
It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. - Frederick Douglass

Mitch Hedberg Funny Quote
I find that a duck’s opinion of me is very much influenced over whether or not I have bread. - Mitch Hedberg

Oprah Winfrey On Integrity
Real integrity is doing the right thing, knowing that nobody's going to know whether you did it or not. - Oprah Winfrey

Cookie Monster
Today me will live in the moment, unless it is unpleasant, in which case I will eat a cookie. - Cookie Monster

Quotes About Death
Don't be afraid of death; be afraid of an unlived life. You don't have to live forever, you just have to live. - Natalie Babbitt

Live The Width Of Life
I don’t want to get to the end of my life and find that I have lived just the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as well. - Diane Ackerman

CS Lewis Quote
When the whole world is running towards a cliff, he who is running in the opposite direction appears to have lost his mind. - C.S. Lewis

Small Things With Great Love
Don’t look for big things, just do small things with great love. - Mother Teresa

Elon Musk Quote
When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor. - Elon Musk

Quotes About Love
Love isn't a state of perfect caring. It is an active noun like "struggle." To love someone is to strive to accept that person exactly the way he or she is, right here and now - and to go on caring even through times that may bring us pain. - Mr. Rogers

Quotes About Life Tina Fey
Don’t waste your energy trying to educate or change opinions; go over, under, through, and opinions will change organically when you’re the boss. Or they won’t. Who cares? Do your thing, and don’t care if they like it. - Tina Fey

Eleanor Roosevelt Deep Quotes That Make You Think
The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience. - Eleanor Roosevelt

Amelia Earhart
Women, like men, should try to do the impossible. And when they fail, their failure should be a challenge to others. - Amelia Earhart

Stephen Hawking Quote On Being Curious
Look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see, and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious. - Stephen Hawking

Dr. Seuss Deep Quotes
Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened. - Dr. Seuss

Anne Frank On Improving The World
How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world. - Anne Frank

Charles Dickens Quote On Suffering
Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but - I hope - into a better shape. - Charles Dickens

Deep Quotes About Understanding Life
Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards. - Søren Kierkegaard

The Best Index Of Character
The best index to a person's character is how he treats people who can't do him any good, and how he treats people who can't fight back. - Abigail Van Buren

How To Attract Butterflies
Don't waste your time chasing butterflies. Mend your garden, and the butterflies will come. - Mario Quintana

Quotes About Life
Don't compromise yourself. You are all you've got. - Janis Joplin

Hunter S. Thompson Quote
Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming "Wow! What a ride!” - Hunter S. Thompson

Why We Struggle With Insecurity
The reason we struggle with insecurity is because we compare our behind-the-scenes with everyone else's highlight reel. - Steve Furtick

Mark Twain On Truth
If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything. - Mark Twain

Quotes About Leadership
A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves. - Lao Tzu

Be Happy
The most important thing is to enjoy your life - to be happy - it's all that matters. - Audrey Hepburn

Find A Way
If you really want to do something, you'll find a way. If you don't, you'll find an excuse. - Jim Rohn

Mike Tyson Deep Quotes
Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth. - Mike Tyson

Emptiness Of Being Busy
Beware the barrenness of a busy life. - Socrates

Deep Quotes On Pain And Suffering
Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. The really great men must, I think, have great sadness on earth. - Fyodor Dostoevsky

Life After Death
What happens after you die? Lot's of things happen after you die - they just don't involve you. - Louis CK

David Foster Wallace Quote
You will become way less concerned with what other people think of you when you realize how seldom they do. - David Foster Wallace

Louis CK Quotes On Life
You'll be fine. You're 25. Feeling unsure and lost is part of your path. Don't avoid it. See what those feelings are showing you and use it. Take a breath. You'll be okay. Even if you don't feel okay all the time. - Louis CK

Love Blinds Hate Blinds
If love blinds you from seeing the faults of the one you love, then hatred blinds you from seeing the good things in the one you hate. - Abdul Aziz bin Marzuq

Arthur Clarke Quotes On Life
Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying. - Arthur C. Clarke

What Is The Good Life
The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge. - Bertrand Russell

Making Mistakes
A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing. - George Bernard Shaw

Mark Twain On The Ideal Life
Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life. - Mark Twain

Society Grows Great
A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.

Be Loved For Who You Are
It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not. - André Gide

Quotes About Life Charlie Chaplin
Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot. - Charlie Chaplin

Bruce Lee Deep Quotes
Mistakes are always forgivable, if one has the courage to admit them. - Bruce Lee

Maya Angelou Quote
I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. - Maya Angelou

Not One Recipe For Life
The shoe that fits one person pinches another; there is no recipe for living that suits all cases. - Carl Jung

Quotes About Life Being Normal
Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal. - Albert Camus

The Price Of Anything
The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it. - Henry David Thoreau

Purpose Of Life Dalai Lama Quote
The purpose of our lives is to be happy. - Dalai Lama

Write The Book You Want To Read
If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it. - Toni Morrison

The King And The Pawn
At the end of the game, the king and the pawn go back in the same box.

Interesting Quotes About Life
Maturing is realizing how many things don’t require your comment. - Rachel Wolchin

You Will Never Be Happy
You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life. - Albert Camus

Life Decisions At 18 Quote
We ask 18-year-olds to make huge decisions about their career and financial future, when a month ago they had to ask to go to the bathroom. - Adam Kotsko

Marilyn Monroe Quote Keep Smiling
Keep smiling, because life is a beautiful thing and there’s so much to smile about. - Marilyn Monroe

Deep Quotes About Failure
No man is a failure who is enjoying life. - William Feather

Ralph Waldo Emerson Quotes
Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Deep Quotes About Life Enjoyed
Life is to be enjoyed, not endured. - Gordon B. Hinckley

Sad Words It Might Have Been
Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these, 'It might have been.” - John Greenleaf Whittier

Advice Is What We Ask For
Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn't. - Erica Jong

Secret Sorrows
Every heart has its secret sorrows, which the world knows not, and oftentimes we call a man cold, when he is only sad. - Henry Longfellow

Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes
Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?' - Martin Luther King, Jr.

Stephen King On Monsters
Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win. - Stephen King

Motivational Steve Jobs Quote
Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. - Steve Jobs

The Fairness Of Life
Expecting the world to treat you fairly because you’re a good person is like expecting a bull not to attack you because you’re a vegetarian. - Dennis Wholey

The Gods Envy Quote By Achilles
I'll tell you a secret. Something they don't teach you in your temple. The Gods envy us. They envy us because we're mortal, because any moment might be our last. Everything is more beautiful because we're doomed. You will never be lovelier than you are now. We will never be here again. - The character Achilles in the film Troy.

The Value Of A Moment
Sometimes you will never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory. - Dr. Seuss

Deep Quotes About Life Helen Keller
Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved. - Helen Keller

You Only Live Once
You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough. - Mae West

Mahatma Gandhi Deep Quotes About Life
Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony. - Mahatma Gandhi

Thank you to Goodreads, Brainy Quote, and us for the some of the powerful, deep quotes above. And if you enjoyed these fantastic quotes about life, check out All That Is Interesting's other posts on inspirational quotes and Bruce Lee quotes that will change your outlook on life! Then, check out some of history's most interesting quotes.

author
Alec
author
Alexander is a Brooklyn-based cofounder of All That's Interesting with an undergraduate degree from the University of Virginia in History and Economics and an MSc from the School of Oriental and African Studies in Economics. He specializes in American history, the Cold War, and true crime.
editor
John Kuroski
editor
John Kuroski is the editorial director of All That's Interesting. He graduated from New York University with a degree in history, earning a place in the Phi Alpha Theta honor society for history students. An editor at All That's Interesting since 2015, his areas of interest include modern history and true crime.