Wisdom Quotes
Shmoop or Shmoop not. There is no try.
ALL QUOTES POPULAR BROWSE BY AUTHOR BROWSE BY SOURCE BROWSE BY TOPIC BROWSE BY SUBJECTWisdom Quotes
Fun fact: Owls represent wisdom in pop culture because in ancient Greece, they were sidekicks to Athena, goddess of wisdom. Click on any wisdom quote below to see it in context and find out where it falls on Shmoop's pretentious scale. We'll give you details on who said it, when they said it, and in some cases, why on earth they thought it was okay to say it.
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"'Cause you know I love the players, and you love the game."Source: Blank Space | Speaker: Taylor Swift
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"A lie keeps growing and growing until it's as clear as the nose on your face."Source: Pinocchio | Speaker: The Blue Fairy
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"Beauty is an enormous, unmerited gift given randomly, stupidly."Source: And the Mountains Echoed | Author: Khaled Hosseini
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"Because when we love, we always strive to become better than we are."Source: The Alchemist | Author: Paulo Coelho
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"Dear frozen yogurt: you are the celery of desserts. Be ice cream or nothing. Zero stars."Source: Parks and Recreation | Speaker: Ron Swanson
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"Do not call for Black power or green power. Call for brain power."Source: Campus Speeches, Quoted in the Chicago Tribune | Author: Barbara Jordan
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"Face it, girls. I'm older and I have more insurance."Source: Fried Green Tomatoes | Speaker: Evelyn Couch
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"Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten."Source: Coraline | Author: Neil Gaiman & G.K. Chesterton
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"Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life, son."Source: National Lampoon's Animal House | Speaker: Dean Vernon Wormer
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"Get busy living or get busy dying."Source: The Shawshank Redemption | Speaker: Andy Dufresne and "Red" Redding
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"Human subtlety will never devise an invention more beautiful."Source: The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci | Author: Leonardo da Vinci
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"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."Speaker: Voltaire
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"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be."Source: The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul | Author: Douglas Adams
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"I think that I may be the voice of my generation. Or at least a voice. Of a generation."Source: Girls | Speaker: Hannah Horvath
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"I wouldn't give you two cents for all your fancy rules."Source: Mr. Smith Goes to Washington | Speaker: Jefferson Smith
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"I'm an adult, and I'm responsible. Let's go get some candy."Source: Broad City | Speaker: Abbi Jacobson
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"I'm no hero. I put my bra on one boob at a time like everyone else."Source: Bob's Burgers | Speaker: Tina Belcher
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"If you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best"Source: Marilyn Monroe | Speaker: Marilyn Monroe
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"If you don't like how the table is set, turn over the table."Source: House of Cards | Speaker: Frank Underwood
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"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it."Source: Misquote | Speaker: Joseph Goebbels
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"In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, and they had 500 years of democracy and peace. And what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."Source: The Third Man | Speaker: Harry Lime
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"It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live."Source: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone | Author: J. K. Rowling
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"It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life."Source: Star Trek: The Next Generation | Speaker: Jean-Luc Picard
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"It's not the men in your life that counts. It's the life in your men."Source: I'm No Angel | Speaker: Tira
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"Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer."Source: The Godfather: Part II | Speaker: Michael Corleone
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"Kids, you tried your best, and you failed miserably. The lesson is: never try."Source: The Simpsons | Speaker: Homer Simpson
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"Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get."Source: Forrest Gump | Speaker: Forrest Gump
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"Love fades away. But things...things are forever."Source: Parks and Recreation | Speaker: Tom Haverford
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"Now it's Istanbul, not Constantinople."Source: Istanbul (Not Constantinople) | Speaker: They Might Be Giants
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"Personally, Veda's convinced me that alligators have the right idea. They eat their young."Source: Mildred Pierce | Speaker: Ida Corwin
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"Seize the moment. 'Cause tomorrow you might be dead."Source: Buffy the Vampire Slayer | Speaker: Buffy Summers
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"Some infinities are bigger than other infinities."Source: The Fault in Our Stars | Author: John Green
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"Some say love, it is a hunger, an endless aching need. I say love, it is a flower and you its only seed."Source: The Rose | Speaker: Bette Midler
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"Sometimes being stuck inside my own head is so exhausting it makes me want to cry."Source: Girls | Speaker: Marnie Michaels
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"Struggle is a never-ending process. Freedom is never really won. You earn it and win it in every generation."Source: My Life with Martin Luther King Jr. | Author: Coretta Scott King
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"That man lives badly who does not know how to die well."Source: On Tranquility of Mind | Author: Seneca
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"The gift of a good liar is making people believe you lack a talent for lying."Source: House of Cards | Speaker: Frank Underwood
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"The life of man [is] solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."Source: Leviathan or The Matter, Forme and Power of a Common Wealth Ecclesiasticall and Civil | Author: Thomas Hobbes
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"The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative the day after the revolution."Source: The New Yorker | Author: Hannah Arendt
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"The most savage controversies are about those matters as to which there is no good evidence either way."Source: An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish | Author: Bertrand Russell
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"The mystery of life isn't a problem to solve, but a reality to experience."Source: Dune | Author: Frank Herbert
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"The seaweed is always greener in somebody else's lake."Source: The Little Mermaid | Speaker: Sebastian
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"The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it."Source: Diggers (The Bromeliad Trilogy) | Author: Terry Pratchett
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"The way up and the way down are one and the same."Source: Refutations by Hippolytus | Author: Heraclitus
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"The world, that understandable and lawful world, was slipping away."Source: Lord of the Flies | Author: William Golding
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"There’s only one rule that I know of, babies—God damn it, you’ve got to be kind."Source: God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater | Author: Kurt Vonnegut
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"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."Source: Reason in Common Sense | Author: George Santayana
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"Watch the skies. Everywhere. Keep looking. Keep watching the skies."Source: The Thing from Another World | Speaker: Ned "Scotty" Scott
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"We are what we pretend to be, so we must be very careful what we pretend to be."Source: Mother Night | Author: Kurt Vonnegut
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"We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are."Source: Seduction of the Minotaur | Author: Anaïs Nin
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"What's so funny 'bout peace, love, and understanding?"Source: "Peace, Love, and Understanding" | Speaker: Elvis Costello
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"Whenever you're wrong, admit it Whenever you're right, shut up."Source: A Word to Husbands | Author: Ogden Nash
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"You are from New York; therefore, you are just naturally interesting."Source: Girls | Speaker: Hannah Horvath
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"You don't have to live forever. You just have to live."Source: Tuck Everlasting | Speaker: The Narrator
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"You know the difference between you and me? I make this look good."Source: Men in Black | Speaker: J
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"You must never lend any money to anybody unless they don't need it."Source: Bankers Are Just Like Anybody Else, Except Richer | Author: Ogden Nash
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"You never know what worse luck your bad luck has saved you from."Source: No Country for Old Men | Author: Cormac McCarthy
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"You think I'm licked. You all think I'm licked. Well, I'm not licked."Source: Mr. Smith Goes to Washington | Speaker: Jefferson Smith
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"You want weapons. We're in a library. Books are the best weapon in the world."Source: Doctor Who | Speaker: Tenth Doctor
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"You're the sanest man that ever walked into this courtroom."Source: Mr. Deeds Goes to Town | Speaker: Judge May