Here are some favorite wise sayings, mostly from quote collections by Kathryn and Ross Petras, such as Don’t Forget to Sing in the Lifeboats (borrow for free).
Whatever you are, be a good one. — Abraham Lincoln
Avoid foolhardiness, do not attempt to match four or six opponents at once. Restrain your ambition, this will benefit you. It is no shame to flee from four or six. — Johannes Liechtenauer (fencing master)
Before you start some work, always ask yourself three questions: Why am I doing it? What will the results be? Will I be successful? Only when you think deeply and find satisfactory answers to these questions, go ahead. — Chanakya
One should respect public opinion insofar as is necessary to avoid starvation and keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny. — Bertrand Russell
Keep the other person’s well-being in mind when you feel an attack of soul-purging truth coming on. — Betty White
Always, in all circumstances, wear comfortable shoes. You never know when you may have to run for your life. — Callie Khouri
Life is bristling with thorns, and I know no other remedy than to cultivate one’s garden. — Voltaire
Dare to be naive. — R. Buckminster Fuller
I don’t consider myself a pessimist. I think of a pessimist as someone who is waiting for it to rain. And I feel soaked to the skin. — Leonard Cohen
It is easy to be independent when you’ve got money. But to be independent when you haven’t got a thing — that’s the Lord’s test. — Mahalia Jackson
If I would be a young man again and had to decide how to make my living, I would not try to become a scientist or a teacher. I would rather choose to be a plumber or a peddler in the hope to find that modest degree of independence still available under present circumstances. — Albert Einstein
Enjoy every sandwich. — Warren Zevon
Forget past mistakes. Forget failures. Forget everything except what you’re going to do now and do it. — Will Durant
When making a decision of minor importance, I have always found it advantageous to consider all the pros and cons. In vital matters, however, such as the choice of a mate or profession, decisions should come from the unconscious, from somewhere within ourselves. In the important decisions of our personal lives we should be governed by the deep inner needs of our nature. — Sigmund Freud
If you can’t be kind, at least be vague. — Miss Manners (Judith Martin)
If you’re going to be crazy, you have to get paid for it or else you’re going to be locked up. — Hunter S. Thompson
Before doing someone a favor, make sure that he isn’t a madman. — Eugène Labiche
The best thing one can do when it’s raining is to let it rain. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined. — Henry David Thoreau
Look at a stone cutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred-and-first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not the last blow that did it, but all that had gone before. — Jacob A. Riis
If you want to have good ideas you must have many ideas. Most of them will be wrong, and what you have to learn is which ones to throw away. — Linus Pauling
There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats. — Albert Schweitzer
Never be late. When you’re late, what you’re saying is that your time is more important than the other person’s time. That’s pretty egotistical. — Alice Cooper
Never contend with a man who has nothing to lose. — Baltasar Gracián y Morales
Never play checkers with a man who carries his own board. — Branch Rickey
It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change. — Charles Darwin
It is fatal to look hungry. It makes people want to kick you. — George Orwell
It’s no good running a pig farm badly for thirty years while saying, “Really, I was meant to be a ballet dancer.” By that time, pigs will be your style. — Quentin Crisp
If you’re about to get into a fight, and you know for sure you’re going to fight, make sure you punch first. — Vincent Lecavalier
Don’t be afraid of missing opportunities. Behind every failure is an opportunity somebody wishes they had missed. — Jane Wagner
The boss is never your friend, even if you’re sleeping with him. — Jacob M. Appel
Take it easy, but take it. — Woody Guthrie
Never tell people how you are. They don’t want to know. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Stop eating while still hungry and do not continue until you are satisfied. — Saint John Cassian
If you liked a book, don’t meet the author. — Raymond Chandler
Truth is always exciting. Speak it, then. Life is boring without it. — Pearl S. Buck
Don’t carry a grudge. While you’re carrying the grudge, the other guy’s dancing. — Buddy Hackett
It’s the way you play that makes it. What I say is, for Christ’s sake, you don’t have to kill yourself to swing. Play like you play. Play like you think, and then you got it, if you’re going to get it. And whatever you get, that’s you, so that’s your story. — Count Basie
Don’t hang a dismal picture on the wall…. Don’t be a cynic and disconsolate preacher. Don’t bewail and bemoan. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
Fill yourself with silence, you will find life, and your body shall flourish upon earth. — Amenemope
The important thing is not to stop questioning; curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when contemplating the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of the mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity. — Albert Einstein
Be happy. It’s one way of being wise. — Colette
Hit the ball over the fence and you can take your time going around the bases. — John W. Raper
Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it. — Albert Einstein
Eighty percent of the people who hear [your troubles] don’t care and the other twenty percent are glad you’re having them. — Tommy Lasorda
It’s better to be a pirate than to join the navy. — Steve Jobs
The best ideas come as jokes. Make your thinking as funny as possible. — David Ogilvy
Don’t be afraid to be a fool. Remember, you cannot be both young and wise. Young people who pretend to be wise to the ways of the world are mostly just cynics. Cynicism masquerades as wisdom, but it is the farthest thing from it. Because cynics don’t learn anything. Because cynicism is a self-imposed blindness, a rejection of the world because we are afraid it will hurt us or disappoint us. Cynics always say no. But saying yes begins things. Saying yes is how things grow. Saying yes leads to knowledge. “Yes” is for young people. So for as long as you have the strength to, say yes. — Stephen Colbert
Nobody really cares if you’re miserable, so you might as well be happy. — Cynthia Nelms
The day, water, sun, moon, night — I do not have to purchase these things with money. — Titus Maccius Plautus
Is not disease the rule of existence? There is not a lily pad floating on the river but has been riddled by insects. Almost every shrub and tree has its gall, oftentimes esteemed its chief ornament and scarcely to be distinguished from the fruit. If misery loves company, misery has company enough. Now, at midsummer, find me a perfect leaf or fruit. — Henry David Thoreau
One of the oddest things in life, I think, is the things one remembers. — Agatha Christie
If you knew that you were going to die tonight, or merely that you would have to go away and never return, would you, looking upon men and things for the last time, see them in the same light that you have hitherto seen them? Would you not love as you never yet have loved? — Maurice Maeterlinck
Don’t ever underestimate the importance of money. I know it’s often been said that money won’t make you happy, and this is undeniably true, but everything else being equal, it’s a lovely thing to have around the house. — Groucho Marx
If you cannot accomplish a thing, leave it and pass to another which you can accomplish. — Al Kali
Accept whatever happens to you, and be patient in humiliating vicissitudes. For gold is tested with fire, and men who are approved must be tested in the furnace of humiliation. — Ben Sira
You must do the thing you think you cannot do. — Eleanor Roosevelt
We couldn’t possibly know where it would lead, but we knew it had to be done. — Betty Friedan
Concern should drive us into action and not into a depression. — Karen Horney
Throughout history it has been the inaction of those who could have acted, the indifference of those who should have known better, the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most, that has made it possible for evil to triumph. — Haile Selassie
People today distinguish between knowledge and action and pursue them separately, believing that one must know before he can act…. They say [they will wait] till they truly know before putting their knowledge into practice. Consequently, to the end of their lives, they will never act and also will never know. — Wang Yang-ming
In doubt if an action is just, abstain. — Zoroaster
You have started out on the good earth;
You have started out with good moccasins;
With moccasin strings of the rainbow, you have started out;
With moccasin strings of the sun’s rays, you have started out;
In the midst of plenty you have started out. — Apache song sung at the “womanhood” rite marking puberty
The “Way” of the sage consists neither in imitating the past nor in following the present, but in acting as the times demand. —Shang-shu
At times of distress, strengthen your heart,
Even if you stand at death’s door.
The lamp has light before it is extinguished.
The wounded lion still knows how to roar. — Samuel ha-Nagid
If you listen to every said-thing in this world, you cannot achieve anything or you the wrong thing will do. If you inside says this is a straight thing, do it. Let not people’s said things you inside spoil. — Gabriel Okara
Back up your hard drive. What do I mean by that? Although your life may be cruising along smoothly, I recommend that every once in a while, you stop and envision a sudden shipwreck occurring. Then think, re-think and remember what you would really want to hold on to if disaster should strike. — Larry Bock
Sweet are the uses of adversity;
Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head…. — William Shakespeare
The things to do are: the things that need doing, that you see need to be done, and that no one else seems to see need to be done. Then you will conceive your own way of doing that which needs to be done — that no one else has told you to do or how to do it. — R. Buckminster Fuller
It is said an Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent him a sentence which should be true and appropriate in all times and situations. They presented him the words: “And this, too, shall pass away.” — Abraham Lincoln
Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great. — Mark Twain
Don’t worry about people stealing an idea. If it’s original, you’ll have to ram it down their throats. — Howard Aiken
Love with your mouth shut, help without breaking your ass or publicizing it, keep cool but care. — Thomas Pynchon