101 Thought-Provoking Quotes That Will Make You Think Deeply

Last Updated on January 6, 2023

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Some quotes have the power to make us stop and think deeply about the world around us and our place in it.

These thought-provoking quotes offer insight and perspective on a wide range of topics, from love and relationships to life and death, and everything in between. They challenge us to consider new ideas, question our assumptions, and look at things from a different perspective.

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In this article, we will explore some of the most profound quotes that make you think deeply. These quotes come from a diverse array of sources, including philosophers, writers, and world leaders. Each one offers a unique perspective on the human experience and invites us to consider the deeper questions of life.

This post is perfect for you if you are the type of person who takes pleasure in being pushed to think more deeply and to contemplate novel ideas. So read on and let these profound sayings make you ponder the meaning of life and your place in it.

Quotes That Will Make You Think Deeply

1. “The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.” – Socrates

2. “The unexamined life is not worth living.” – Socrates

3. “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” – Edmund Burke

4. “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” – Martin Luther King Jr.

5. “The whole secret of existence is to have no fear.” – Buddha

6. “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” – Maya Angelou

7. “The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.” – Albert Einstein

8. “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt

9. “The only way to do great work is to love what you do.” – Steve Jobs

10. “The only thing that stands between a man and what he wants from life is often merely the will to try it and the faith to believe that it is possible.” – Richard M. DeVos

11. “The only way to deal with fear is to face it head on.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

12. “The only thing that overcomes hard luck is hard work.” – Harry Golden

13. “The only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work.” – Steve Jobs

14. “The only way to find true happiness is to risk being completely cut open.” – Chuck Palahniuk

15. “The only way to do great work is to be passionate about what you do.” – Steve Jobs

16. “The only thing standing between you and your goal is the will to try and the belief that it is actually possible.” – Joel Brown

17. “The only thing that ever sat its way to success was a hen.” – Sarah Brown

18. “The only way to achieve the impossible is to believe it is possible.” – Charles Kingsley

19. “The only thing standing between you and your goal is the will to try and the belief that it is actually possible.” – Joel

20. “Happiness depends upon ourselves.” – Aristotle

21. “The only real wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.” – Socrates

22. “No one is a slave to another unless they are first a slave to themselves.” – Plato

Confusing Quotes that Make You Think

23. “Knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind.” – Plato

24. “There is no good or bad without us, there is only perception. There is the event itself and the story we tell ourselves about what it means.” – Marcus Aurelius

25. “Knowledge is the food of the soul.” – Plato

26. “Ignorance, the root and stem of all evil.” – Plato

27. “Wise men speak because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something.” – Plato

28. “Happiness is a choice that requires effort at times.” – Aristotle

29. “The only true wisdom is knowing that you know nothing.” – Socrates

30. “To be conscious of yourself is to be conscious of your own limitations.” – Plato

31. “The measure of a man is what he does with power.” – Plato

32. “The beginning of wisdom is the definition of terms.” – Socrates

33. “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool.” – Richard Feynman

34. “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” – Aristotle

35. “The Law of Win/Win says, ‘Let’s not do it your way or my way; let’s do it the best way’.” – Greg Anderson

36. “The only place where your dream becomes impossible is in your own thinking.” – Robert H Schuller

37. “Happiness often sneaks in through a door you didn’t know you left open.” – John Barrymore

38. “He who does not understand your silence will probably not understand your words.” – Elbert Hubbard

39.“If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.” – Mark Twain

40.“If you look at what you have in life, you’ll always have more.” – Oprah Winfrey

Deep Quotes That Make You Think

41. “Be the change that you wish to see in the world.” – Mahatma Gandhi

42. “Happiness is not by chance, but by choice.” – Jim Rohn

43. “A champion is defined not by their wins but by how they can recover when they fall.” – Serena Williams

44. “To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.” – Oscar Wilde

45. “Spread love everywhere you go.” – Mother Teresa

46. “Happening Good things may not make you positive. You have to be positive. And, when you’re positive, good things are bound to happen.”- Mukund Kapoor

47. “To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

48. “We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.” – Joseph Campbell

49. “It is never too late to be what you might have been.” – George Eliot

50. “Every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.” – Oscar Wilde

51. “You will face many defeats in life, but never let yourself be defeated.” – Maya Angelou

52. “The only impossible journey is the one you never begin.” – Tony Robbins

53. “Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.” – Confucius

54. “When one door of happiness closes, another opens, but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one that has been opened for us.” – Helen Keller

55. “Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.” – Maya Angelou

56. “Never to suffer would never to have been blessed.” – Edgar Allan Poe

57. “Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.” – Soren Kierkegaard

58. “Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.” – Lao Tzu

59. “Always remember that you are absolutely unique. Just like everyone else.” – Margaret Mead

60. “Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.” – Robert Louis Stevenson

61. “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

62. “Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” – Benjamin Franklin

63. “You know you’re in love when you can’t fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.” – Dr. Seuss

64. “Don’t handicap your children by making their lives easy.” – Robert A. Heinlein

65. “If my life is going to mean anything, I have to live it myself.” – Rick Riordan

66. “Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.” – Arthur Ashe

67. “The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance, the wise grows it under his feet.” – James Oppenheim

68. “It does not matter how slowly you go, so long as you do not stop.” – Confucius

69. “It is a sad fate for a man to die too well known to everybody else, and still unknown to himself.” – Francis Bacon

70. “If you continue to think the way you’ve always thought, you’ll continue to get what you’ve always got.” – Kevin Trudeau

71. “Try not to become a person of success, but rather try to become a person of value.” – Albert Einstein

72. “Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

73. “To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream, not only plan, but also believe.” – Anatole France

74. “If I had eight hours to chop down a tree, I’d spend six hours sharpening my axe.” – Abraham Lincoln

75. “Don’t wait for your feelings to change to take the action. Take the action and your feelings will change.” – Barbara Baron

76. “Just one small positive thought in the morning can change your whole day.” – Dalai Lama

77. “Not how long, but how well you have lived is the main thing.” – Seneca

78. “Action may not always bring happiness; but there is no happiness without action.” – Benjamin Disraeli

79. “Never to suffer would never to have been blessed.” – Edgar Allan Poe

80. “Challenges are what make life interesting. Overcoming them is what makes life meaningful.” – Joshua J. Marine

81. “It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light.” – Aristotle.

82. “Whoever is happy will make others happy too.” – Anne Frank

83. “Opportunities don’t happen, you create them.” – Chris Grosser

84. “We become what we think about most of the time, and that’s the strangest secret.” – Earl Nightingale

85. “Never do tomorrow what you can do today. Procrastination is the thief of time.” – Charles Dickens

86. “You can never cross the ocean until you have the courage to lose sight of the shore.” – Christopher Columbus

87. “Sometimes you win, sometimes you learn.” – John C. Maxwell

88. “Perfection is boring. Getting better is where all the fun is.” – Dragos Roua

89. “The best way to predict the future is to create it.” – Abraham Lincoln

90. “Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.” – Jim Ryun

91. “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” – Joe Kennedy

92. “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” – Aristotle

93. “Don’t spend time beating on a wall, hoping to transform it into a door.” – Coco Chanel

94. “As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others.” – Bill Gates

95. “Success comes from having dreams that are bigger than your fears.” – Bobby Unser

96. “Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.” – Dalai Lama

97. “Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.” – Epicurus

98. “Men spend their lives in anticipations, in determining to be vastly happy at some period when they have time. But the present time has one advantage over every other – it is our own. Past opportunities are gone, future have not come. We may lay in a stock of pleasures, as we would lay in a stock of wine; but if we defer the tasting of them too long, we shall find that both are soured by age.” – Charles Caleb Colton

99. “Together we can face any challenges as deep as the ocean and as high as the sky.” – Sonia Gandhi