12 Quotes for 2024

Some Year-End Inspiration

The following quotes are ones that I have pulled from texts and articles over the past year. They speak on a variety of subjects such as philosophy, politics, business, self-governance, beauty, love, wisdom, and life. Enjoy, and happy new year!

“Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.”

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

“A classic is something that everyone wants to have read and no one wants to read.”

- Mark Twain

Curiosity seeks to annihilate itself

- Unknown

He, the great experimenter with himself, discontented and insatiable, wrestling with animals, nature, and gods for ultimate dominion - he, still unvanquished, eternally directed toward the future, whose own restless energies never leave him in peace, so that his future digs like a spur into the flesh of every present

- Friedrich Nietzsche

“Until philosophers are kings, or the kings and princes of this world have the spirit and power of philosophy, and political greatness and wisdom meet in one, and those commoner natures who pursue either to the exclusion of the other are compelled to stand aside, cities will never have rest from their evils.”

– Plato

“But I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin.”

― Aldous Huxley

“Don’t tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results.”

― Phil Knight

“Love is the name for our pursuit of wholeness, for our desire to be complete.”

― Plato

“If you have an idea you’re excited about and you don’t bring it to life, it’s not uncommon for the idea to find its voice through another maker. This isn’t because the other artist stole your idea, but because the idea’s time has come.”

― Rick Rubin

“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless yet be determined to make them otherwise.”

- F. Scott Fitzgerald

“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

― Leo Tolstoy

“Become who you are!”

― Friedrich Nietzsche