I hope that real love and truth are stronger in the end than any evil or misfortune in the world.
—Charles Dickens (1812–70) English Novelist
Trust not the world, for it never payeth what it promiseth.
—Augustine of Hippo (354–430) Roman-African Christian Philosopher
If the world were a logical place, men would ride side saddle.
—Rita Mae Brown (b.1944) American Writer, Feminist
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 (1933–2021) Hungarian-Canadian Writer
Live your beliefs and you can turn the world around.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
The only fence against the world is a thorough knowledge of it.
—John Locke (1632–1704) English Philosopher, Physician
That’s what every uncomfortable feeling is for—that’s what pain is for, what money is for, what everything in the world is for: your self-realization.
—Byron Katie (b.1942) American Speaker, Author
A soul disengaged from the world is a heavenly one; and then are we ready for heaven when our heart is there before us.
—John Newton (1725–1807) English Clergyman, Writer
This world surely is wide enough to hold both thee and me.
—Laurence Sterne (1713–68) Irish Anglican Novelist, Clergyman
We are citizens of the world. The tragedy of our times is that we do not know this.
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) American Head of State
The world remains ever the same.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German Poet
As far as I know, everyone feels fear as he or she moves forward through life. It is absolutely possible that there are some evolved souls in this world who never experience fear, but I have not met them.
—Susan Jeffers (1938–2012) American Psychologist, Self-Help Author
Until you can see everything in the world as your friend, your work is not done.
—Byron Katie (b.1942) American Speaker, Author
What should I have known or written had I been a quiet, mercantile politician or a lord in waiting? A man must travel, and turmoil, or there is no existence.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron) (1788–1824) English Romantic Poet
But in this world nothing is sure but death and taxes.
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–90) American Political Leader, Inventor, Diplomat
Here is the world, sound as a nut, perfect, not the smallest piece of chaos left, never a stitch nor an end, nor a mark of haste, or botching, or a second thought; but the theory of the world is a thing of shreds and patches.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
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
People do not seem to realize that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
You do not reform a world by ignoring it.
—George H. W. Bush (1924–2018) American Republican Statesman, 41st President
The sword is the axis of the world, and grandeur is indivisible.
—Charles de Gaulle (1890–1970) French General, Statesman
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
The heavens and the earth alike speak of God, and the great natural world is but another Bible, which clasps and binds the written one; for nature and grace are one—grace the heart of the flower, and nature its surrounding petals.
—Henry Ward Beecher (1813–87) American Clergyman, Writer
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
The world moves, and ideas that were once good are not always good.
—Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) American Head of State, Military Leader
Thou must content thyself to see the world imperfect as it is. Thou wilt never have any quiet if thou vexest thyself because thou canst not bring mankind to that exact notion of things and rule of life which thou hast formed in thy own mind.
—Thomas Fuller (1608–61) English Cleric, Historian
God had created the world in play.
—Ramakrishna Paramahamsa (1836–86) Indian Hindu Philosopher
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
The reason why the world lacks unity, and lies broken and in heaps, is, because man is disunited with himself.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
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
As you start to see the possibilities in the impossible, you will begin to see that the world works “perfectly”. You can find reason and purpose in everything—if you open your mind to it.
—Susan Jeffers (1938–2012) American Psychologist, Self-Help Author
The earth is the Lord s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it.
—The Holy Bible Scripture in the Christian Faith
You have too much respect upon the world: they lose it that do buy it with much care.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
When the world is destroyed, it will be destroyed not by its madmen but by the sanity of its experts and the superior ignorance of its bureaucrats.
—John le Carre (1931–2020) English Spy Thriller Novelist
The earth is the very quintessence of the human condition.
—Hannah Arendt (1906–75) German-American Philosopher, Political Theorist
Jesus said love one another. He didn’t say love the whole world.
—Mother Teresa (1910–97) Roman Catholic Missionary, Nun
The whole world is simply my story, projected back to me on the screen of my own perception. All of it.
—Byron Katie (b.1942) American Speaker, Author
This world’s a bubble.
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English Philosopher
The people of the world genuinely want peace. Some day the leaders of the world are going to have to give in and give, it to them.
—Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) American Head of State, Military Leader
The mark of the man of the world is absence of pretension. He does not make a speech; he takes a low business-tone, avoids all brag, is nobody, dresses plainly, promises not at all, performs much, speaks in monosyllables, hugs his fact. He calls his employment by its lowest name, and so takes from evil tongues their sharpest weapon. His conversation clings to the weather and the news, yet he allows himself to be surprised into thought, and the unlocking of his learning and philosophy.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
Our sun is one of 100 billion stars in our galaxy. Our galaxy is one of the billions of galaxies populating the universe. It would be the height of presumption to think that we are the only living things within that enormous immensity.
—Wernher von Braun (1912–77) German-born American Engineer, Scientist
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
This world, after all our science and sciences, is still a miracle, wonderful, inscrutable, magical and more, to whosoever will think of it.
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish Historian, Essayist
The Work reveals that what you think shouldn’t have happened should have happened. It should happened because it did, and no thinking in the world can change it. This doesn’t mean that you condone it or approve of it. It just means that you can see things without resistance and without the confusion of your inner struggle. No one wants their children to get sick, no one wants to be in a car accident; but when these things happen, how can it be helpful to mentally argue with them? We know better than to do that, yet we do it, because we don’t know how to stop.
—Byron Katie (b.1942) American Speaker, Author
He, in his developed manhood, stood, a little sunburn by the glare of life.
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–61) English Poet
We live in a world of transgressions and selfishness, and no pictures that represent us otherwise can be true, though, happily, for human nature, gleamings of that pure spirit in whose likeness man has been fashioned are to be seen, relieving its deformities, and mitigating if not excusing its crimes.
—James Fenimore Cooper (1789–1851) American Novelist
All the people like us are We, And everyone else is They. And They live over the sea, While We live over the way. But-would you believe it?-They look upon We As only a sort of They.
—Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) British Children’s Books Writer, Short story, Novelist, Poet, Journalist
The world is a fine place worth the fighting for and I hate very much to leave it.
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American Author, Journalist, Short Story Writer
Our roots are in the dark; the earth is our country. Why did we look up for blessing—instead of around, and down? What hope we have lies there. Not in the sky full of orbiting spy-eyes and weaponry, but in the earth we have looked down upon. Not from above, but from below. Not in the light that blinds, but in the dark that nourishes, where human beings grow human souls.
—Ursula K. Le Guin (b.1929) American Science Fiction and Fantasy Writer
The world is full of beauty, as other worlds above, And if we did our duty, it might be as full of love.
—Gerald Massey (1828–1907) English Mystic, Poet, Egyptologist
Once you kick the world, and the world and you will live together at a reasonably good understanding.
—Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) Irish Satirist