17 Sayings From Some Famous Thinkers to Help You Reflect on Life
Certain great communicators have managed to shape their thoughts and life in a wonderfully melodic way. The harmony of their words often sparks tunes in your mind which suddenly makes you understand how you really feel. In this article, we’ll discover 17 sayings from some of the most important thinkers.
As a matter of fact, our desire is to bring you a little closer to the thoughts of some of these greatest thinkers of all time.
1. “Love as you can, love who you can, love as much as you can. Don’t worry about the purpose of your love”.
The first of our 17 sayings belongs to Amado Nervo (1870-1919). He was a Mexican poet, novelist, and essayist. With this saying, he’s suggesting that love is an immeasurable feeling, capable of everything.
Love for yourself, your parents, your children, your relatives, your partner, or your friends. Love for nature and for life, love for your work, for feeling useful and making a difference to the world…
Any truly healthy love makes you a better person.
2. “Love is invisible and enters and leaves where it wants without anyone asking it to account for its actions”.
The magnificent creator of Don Quixote de la Mancha, Miguel de Cervantes, makes you wonder why you never hold love to account. As a matter of fact, it’s because you know all about its benefits and you assume that love is always the most wonderful of feelings.
3. “True love is not known for what it demands, but for what it offers”.
This phrase is by Jacinto Benavente (1866-1954), the renowned Spanish playwright. It concerns a truth that you might often forget or get confused about. It’s the fact that true love isn’t selfish, it doesn’t prioritize the one who feels it. Indeed, a healthy and sincere love makes no demands.
4. “Perhaps we are in the world to search for love, find it and lose it, again and again”.
Isabel Allende (1942), Chilean writer completes this saying with “With each love, we are born anew, and with each love that ends we collect a new wound. I am covered with proud scars. You are the storyteller of your own life and you can create your own legend”.
Love never means failure. With each new love you reinvent yourself and grow.
5. “And to be totally, completely, absolutely in love, one must be fully aware that one is also loved, that one also inspires love”.
A phrase of the well-known Mario Benedetti (1920-2009). The Uruguayan writer and poet claims that love isn’t only about loving another, it’s recognizing that you’re loved too. Indeed, you inspire those same feelings in the one you love.
6. “Sex happens like memory, if it’s not used, it disappears”.
Eduard Punset suggests that the ability to experience excitement and pleasure through your own body is essential for your well-being. It’s got nothing to do with whether it’s necessary or not, but nature has endowed you with this precious capacity so why not enjoy it? Sex is great.
7. “Unlearning most of the things we have been taught is more important than learning”.
Another of Eduard Punset’s sayings. This one allows you to reflect on the fact that you tend to make the mistake of thinking that what you’ve learned has to be forever without realizing that life changes and you change too.
8. “Sometimes we can go years without living at all, and suddenly our whole life is concentrated in a single instant”.
The eighth of our 17 sayings comes from Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), Irish writer, poet, and playwright. In this phrase, he claims that life can change in an instant and, with it, your perception that better times will come.
The best time we have is the present, because we only have one way to go and we don’t know our destination.
9. “The best way to get rid of temptation is to fall into it”.
Another of Oscar Wilde’s sayings. This one suggests that temptation is the enemy of prudence (or its excess). Falling into the arms of what you want and enjoying it is the only way to avoid the uneasiness that not having it produces.
10. “Beauty does not look, it’s just a look”.
Albert Einstein (1879-1955) the famous German scientist states that beauty was made to be looked at. Indeed, beauty was created to be enjoyed and contemplated. Take advantage of it!
11. “Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character”.
Another of Albert Einstein’s sayings. It allows you to reflect on the fact that if your intentions and motivations get turned off, your light also goes out.
12. “You can do anything – but not everything”.
David Allen, an influential American thinker imparts this wonderful nugget of wisdom. You’re not infinite, you must determine your objectives and focus on them step by step. Trying to do everything at once is the best guarantee of failure.
13. “Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away”.
This saying is by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1900-1944), French writer and aviator. It was he who wrote The Little Prince. Here, he claims that perfection is achieved when you carry your backpack loaded with the priceless value of immaterial things.
14. “Laughing at our mistakes can lengthen our own life. Laughing at someone else’s can shorten it”.
Cullen Hightower (1923-2008) was an American politician. In this saying, he suggests that making use of mockery, derision, and humiliation is synonymous with being an empty person without much to contribute.
There’s a virtue in understanding and laughing at yourself while respecting others.
15. “I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail”.
Abraham Maslow (1908-1970) was an American psychologist. He claims that a lack of vision and ambition is dangerous, because it makes you limit yourself, both in your possibilities and your knowledge. The ideal is to achieve clarity.
16. “Watch your thoughts, they become your words”.
The complete sentence of Lao-Tzu, the famous Chinese philosopher, continues with “Watch your words, they become your actions; watch your actions; they become your habits; watch your habits, they become your character; watch your character it becomes your destiny”.
Always exercise prudence and care in your relationships. In order not to do anything that you may regret, let respect flow both toward others and yourself in the way you behave.
17. “The richest man is not the one who has the most, but the one who needs the least”.
We don’t know the author of this, the final of our 17 sayings, but its meaning is extremely important. Not needing means being whole. In fact, you don’t need money when you know that you’re rich in something that can’t be bought.
We wanted to share these 17 sayings with you because they’re so full of wise teachings that may well help you in your daily life. In fact, it’s the wonderful way these thinkers have of putting words to everyday feelings that makes them so special.
Image courtesy of nuvolanevicata
