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 created world is but a small parenthesis in eternity, and a short interposition for a time, between such a state of duration as was before it, and may be after it.
—Thomas Browne (1605–82) English Author, Physician
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
Maybe this world is another planet’s hell.
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) English Humanist, Pacifist, Essayist, Short Story Writer, Satirist
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
If there be light, then there is darkness; if cold, then heat; if height, depth also; if solid, then fluid; hardness and softness; roughness and smoothness; calm and tempest; prosperity and adversity; life and death.
—Pythagoras (570–495 BCE) Greek Philosopher
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
God has made no one absolute. The rich depend on the poor, as well as the poor on the rich. The world is but a magnificent building; all the stones are gradually cemented together. No one subsists by himself.
—Owen Feltham (1602–1668) English Essayist
The sword is the axis of the world, and grandeur is indivisible.
—Charles de Gaulle (1890–1970) French General, Statesman
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
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 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
The great see the world at one end by flattery, the little at the other end by neglect; the meanness which both discover is the same; but how different, alas! are the mediums through which it is seen?
—George Greville, 2nd Earl of Warwick (1746–1816) British Nobleman, Politician
Trust not the world, for it never payeth what it promiseth.
—Augustine of Hippo (354–430) Roman-African Christian Philosopher
This world’s a bubble.
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English Philosopher
In utter loneliness a writer tries to explain the inexplainable… The writer must believe that what he is doing is the most important thing in the world. And he must hold to this illusion even when he knows it is not true.
—John Steinbeck (1902–68) American Novelist, Short Story Writer, Journalist
The world in which we were called to exist was an absurd world, and there was no other in which we could take refuge.
—Albert Camus (1913–60) Algerian-born French Philosopher, Dramatist, Essayist, Novelist, Author
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
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
When you deplore the conditions in the world, ask yourself, am I part of the problem or part of the solution?
—Unknown
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
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
You’ll never have a quiet world till you knock the patriotism out of the human race.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
He who imagines he can do without the world deceives himself much; but he who fancies the world cannot do without him is still more mistaken.
—Francois de La Rochefoucauld (1613–80) French Writer
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
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
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
He, in his developed manhood, stood, a little sunburn by the glare of life.
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–61) English Poet