The world does not need tourists who ride by in a bus clucking their tongues. The world as it is needs those who will love it enough to change it, with what they have, where they are.
—Robert Fulghum (b.1937) American Unitarian Universalist Author, Essayist, Clergyman
Most people are quiet in the world, and live in it tentatively, as if it were not their own.
—E. L. Doctorow (b.1931) American Writer, Editor, Academic
The world moves, and ideas that were once good are not always good.
—Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) American Head of State, Military Leader
This world is but a canvas to our imagination.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
Among true and real friends, all is common; and were ignorance and envy and superstition banished from the world, all mankind would be friend.
—Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) English Poet, Dramatist, Essayist, Novelist
The free world must not prove itself worthy of its own past.
—Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) American Head of State, Military Leader
The real trouble with this world of ours is not that it is an unreasonable one. The trouble is that it is nearly reasonable, but not quite.
—G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) English Journalist, Novelist, Essayist, Poet
It takes all sorts of people to make a world.
—Douglas William Jerrold (1803–57) English Writer, Dramatist, Wit
The world is too must: with us; late and soon, getting and spending we lay waste our powers. Little we see in nature that is ours.
—William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Poet
The kind of power I’m talking about leaves you free, since you don’t expect the rest of the world to fill you up. It’s not the ability to get someone else to do what you want them to do. It’s the ability to get yourself to do what you want to do.
—Susan Jeffers (1938–2012) American Psychologist, Self-Help Author
Sometimes, when one person is missing, the whole world seems depopulated.
—Alphonse de Lamartine (1790–1869) French Poet, Politician, Historian
To understand the world one must not be worrying about one’s self.
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born Physicist
It’s a small world, but I wouldn’t want to have to paint it.
—Steven Wright (b.1955) American Comedian, Actor, Writer
The task for us now, if we are to survive, is to build the earth.
—Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881–1955) French Jesuit Philosopher, Paleontologist
What you cannot see in the world is far more powerful than anything you can see.
—T. Harv Eker (b.1954) American Motivational Speaker, Lecturer, Author
Everything is for the best in this best of all possible worlds.
—Voltaire (1694–1778) French Philosopher, Author
I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution.
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born Physicist
Half the world is composed of people who have something to say and can’t, and the other half who have nothing to say and keep on saying it.
—Robert Frost (1874–1963) American Poet
Some of us still get all weepy when we think about the Gaia Hypothesis, the idea that earth is a big furry goddess-creature who resembles everybody’s mom in that she knows what’s best for us. But if you look at the historical record — Krakatoa, Mt. Vesuvius, Hurricane Charley, poison ivy, and so forth down the ages — you have to ask yourself: Whose side is she on, anyway?
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b.1941) American Social Critic, Essayist
The biggest problem in the world could have been solved when it was small.
—Witter Bynner (1881–1968) American Poet, Writer, Scholar
He, in his developed manhood, stood, a little sunburn by the glare of life.
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–61) English Poet
Whatever results you’re getting, be they rich or poor, good or bad, positive or negative, always remember that your outer world is simply a reflection of your inner world. If things aren’t going well in your outer life, it’s because things aren’t going well in your inner life. It’s that simple.
—T. Harv Eker (b.1954) American Motivational Speaker, Lecturer, Author
That is one good thing about this world…there are always sure to be more springs.
—Lucy Maud Montgomery (1874–1942) Canadian Novelist
The shortest and surest way to live with honor in the world, is to be in reality what we would appear to be; and if we observe, we shall find, that all human virtues increase and strengthen themselves by the practice and experience of them.
—Socrates (469BCE–399BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher
The affairs of life embrace a multitude of interests, and he who reasons in any one of them, without consulting the rest, is a visionary unsuited to control the business of the world.
—James Fenimore Cooper (1789–1851) American Novelist
That one vast thought of God which we call the world.
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton (1803–73) British Novelist, Poet, Politician
Cherish your visions. Cherish your ideals. Cherish the music that stirs in your heart, the beauty that forms in your mind, the loveliness that drapes your purest thoughts, for out of them will grow all delightful conditions, all heavenly environment; of these, if you but remain true to them, your world will at last be built.
—James Allen (1864–1912) British Philosophical Writer
It is ridiculous ever to forget that you and your business are each implanted in the society of the moment…. We cannot ignore the world of our time. We had better understand it.
—J. Irwin Miller (1909–2004) American Industrialist, Philanthropist
The universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.
—Eden Phillpotts (1862–1960) English Author, Poet, Dramatist
You do not reform a world by ignoring it.
—George H. W. Bush (1924–2018) American Republican Statesman, 41st President
They say the world has become too complex for simple answers. They are wrong. There are no easy answers, but there are simple answers. We must have the courage to do what we know is morally right.
—Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American Head of State
Is it possible that I am not alone in believing that in the dispute between Galileo and the Church, the Church was right and the center of man’s universe is the earth?
—Stephen Vizinczey (b.1933) Hungarian-born Canadian Novelist, Literary Critic, Author
There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869–1948) Indian Hindu Political leader
Man will never be entirely willing to give up this world for the next nor the next world for this.
—William Ralph Inge (1860–1954) English Anglican Clergyman, Priest, Mystic
Start thinking about yourself as a lifetime student at a large university. Your curriculum is your total relationship with the world you live in, from the moment you’re born to the moment you die.
—Susan Jeffers (1938–2012) American Psychologist, Self-Help Author
A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.
—Winston Churchill (1874–1965) British Head of State, Political leader, Historian, Journalist, Author
The sword is the axis of the world, and grandeur is indivisible.
—Charles de Gaulle (1890–1970) French General, Statesman
I’ve been up the mountain and I had a choice. Should I come down? So I came down. God said, “Okay, you’ve been up on the mountain, now you go down. You’re on your own, free. Check in later, but now you’re on your own.”
—Bob Dylan (b.1941) American Singer-songwriter
Each blade of grass has its spot on earth whence it draws its life, its strength; and so is man rooted to the land from which he draws his faith together with his life.
—Joseph Conrad (1857–1924) Polish-born British Novelist
The world is getting to be such a dangerous place, a man is lucky to get out of it alive.
—W. C. Fields (1880–1946) American Actor, Comedian, Writer
Imagine all the people living life in peace. You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. I hope someday you’ll join us, and the world will be as one.
—John Lennon (1940–80) British Singer, Songwriter, Musician, Activist
Remember, you can’t drain the ocean with a teaspoon.
—Ignaz Bernstein (1836–1909) Russian-Jewish Bibliophile
This world is a dream within a dream; and as we grow older, each step is an awakening. The youth awakes, as he thinks, from childhood; the full-grown man despises the pursuits of youth as visionary; and the old man looks on manhood as a feverish dream. Death the last sleep? No! It is the last and final awakening!
—Walter Scott (1771–1832) Scottish Novelist, Poet, Playwright, Lawyer
Everything that is done in the world is done by hope. No merchant or tradesman would set himself to work if he did not hope to reap benefit thereby.
—Martin Luther (1483–1546) German Protestant Theologian
The world has to learn that the actual pleasure derived from material things is of rather low quality on the whole and less even in quantity than it looks to those who have not tried it.
—Unknown
The only true method of action in this world is to be in it, but not of it.
—Sophie Swetchine (1782–1857) Russian Mystic, Writer
For one man is my world of all the men this wide world holds; O love, my world is you.
—Christina Rossetti (1830–94) English Poet, Hymn Writer
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright