Curated journeys

The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.

A different language is a different vision of life.

All language is an alphabet of symbols whose use presupposes a past shared by all.

Language is the dress of thought.

Learning another language is not only learning different words for the same things, but learning another way to think about things.

Learn a new language and get a new soul.

He who knows no foreign languages knows nothing of his own.

Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.

The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.

Words ought to be a little wild, for they are the assault of thoughts on the unthinking.

One language sets you in a corridor for life. Two languages open every door along the way.

Language is the blood of the soul into which thoughts run and out of which they grow.

A room without books is like a body without a soul.

The desire to write grows with writing.

If a book is well written, I always find it too short.

Brevity is the soul of wit.

I have made this longer than usual because I have not had time to make it shorter.

The unexamined life is not worth living.

Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.

You have power over your mind — not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.

The only thing I know is that I know nothing.

Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.

We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.

Knowing others is wisdom; knowing yourself is enlightenment.

No man is free who is not master of himself.

Joy is not in things; it is in us.

It is not length of life, but depth of life.

He who conquers others is strong; he who conquers himself is mighty.

Wonder is the beginning of wisdom.

The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.

No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.

Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.

It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see.

Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood.

The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.

It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.

Fall seven times, stand up eight.

Smooth seas do not make skillful sailors.

What does not kill me makes me stronger.

Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.

The wound is the place where the light enters you.

The gem cannot be polished without friction, nor a person perfected without trials.

In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.

Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish.

It is not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.

Dripping water hollows out stone, not through force but through persistence.

Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul.

The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.

I attribute my success to this: I never gave or took any excuse.

No man ever steps in the same river twice.

An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.

Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.

Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.

I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious.

The more I read, the more I acquire, the more certain I am that I know nothing.

Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.

I am still learning.

Learning never exhausts the mind.

By three methods we may learn wisdom: by reflection, by imitation, and by experience.

The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity; the optimist sees opportunity in every difficulty.

Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.

The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled.

Practice is the best of all instructors.

What we hope ever to do with ease, we must first learn to do with diligence.

Knowledge is power.

Begin at the beginning, and go on till you come to the end: then stop.

Treat people as if they were what they ought to be, and you help them become what they are capable of being.

Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others.

To be prepared is half the victory.

Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees all others.

Courage is grace under pressure.

Fortune favors the bold.

The secret of happiness is freedom, and the secret of freedom is courage.

He who fears being conquered is sure of defeat.

To dare is to lose one's footing momentarily. Not to dare is to lose oneself.

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear — not absence of fear.

Do one thing every day that scares you.

A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.

Well done is better than well said.

Begin, be bold, and venture to be wise.

In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity.

Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; now put the foundations under them.

Improvement makes straight roads, but the crooked roads without improvement are roads of genius.

You can't cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water.

Lost time is never found again.

Time is the most valuable thing a man can spend.

It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it.

Time is what we want most, but what we use worst.

The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.

Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.

The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago. The second best time is now.

Nothing is worth more than this day.

If you should put even a little on a little, and should do this often, soon this too would become big.

Someone will remember us, I say, even in another time.

Slowly, slowly, the egg will walk.

A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other.

Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.