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Proverbs and Quotes to Think About

Quotes To Ponder – The 100 Best Sayings To Think About Life

You search inspirational quotes to think about about love, gratitude, friendship and other important values in life? Then you've come to the right place! Every now and then you just want to think about life, don't you? And you're probably in one of those moods right now, longing for new inspiration or a positive change.

In this post, I would therefore like to give you a collection of my favorite quotes about life. Here you will find the 10 best sayings to think about...

My please: Keep in mind that many of the quotes to think about have been translated into English from other languages. I cannot guarantee that it is the original quote in each case. Therefore, double check them before you share them. If you like and share any of the quotes in the internet, please link this elaborately created collection. Thank you for your support!

Quotes to think about love

  1. "The only thing of importance, when we depart, will be the traces of love we have left behind." (Albert Schweitzer)
  2. "Where there is love there is life; hatred leads to destruction." (Mahatma Gandhi)
  3. "To love or have loved, that is enough. Ask nothing further. There is no other pearl to be found in the dark folds of life." (Victor Hugo)
  4. "In the heart of a man rests the beginning and end of all things."f (Leo Tolstoy)
  5. "What is uttered from the heart alone, will win the hearts of others to your own." (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)
  6. "There hardly is a more exhilarating emotion than to feel that you can be something for another." (Dietrich Bonhoeffer)
  7. "There are no limits, neither to thoughts nor feelings. It’s anxiety that sets limits." (Ingmar Bergman)
  8. "A mother is the only person in the world who loves you before knowing you." (Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi)
  9. "You can err with an idea, but you can't err with your heart." (Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky)
  10. "Everything is beautiful if you love it." (Christian Morgenstern)

Tip: At Love Quotes you will find more rousing sayings that will make you think.

Quotes to think about nature

  1. "Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience." (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
  2. "To think about the end in everything you do, that is sustainability." (Eric Schweitzer)
  3. "He who finds the way to nature also finds the way to himself." (Klaus Ender)
  4. "If you truly love nature, you will find beauty everywhere." (Vincent van Gogh)
  5. "All people are the same; only their habits differ." (Confucius)
  6. "Babies and animals are the mirrors of nature." (Epicurus of Samos)
  7. "In the smallest things, nature shows its greatest wonders." (Carl von Linné)
  8. "The greatest threat to our planet is the belief that someone else will save it." (Robert Swan)
  9. "The love of nature is the only love that does not deceive human hopes." (Honore de Balzac)
  10. "The world changes by your example, not by your opinion." (Paulo Coelho)

Secret tip: Quotes can have a big impact! Especially if you have them in front of you every day. The sayings from this collection that you particularly like can be print here as a personalized poster*.

Quotes to think about gratitude

  1. "Gratitude usually has a short expiration date." (Fred Ammon)
  2. "There shall be eternal summer in the grateful heart." (Celia Thaxter)
  3. "It is not happy people who are thankful. It is thankful people who are happy." (Francis Bacon)
  4. "There is a pleasure in meeting the eyes of a person whom we have lately oblig'd." (Jean de La Bruyère)
  5. "Many misunderstandings arise from the fact that thanks are not said, but only felt." (Ernst R. Hauschka)
  6. "There is no excess in the world so commendable as excessive gratitude." (Jean de La Bruyèr)
  7. "The poor lack much, the greedy everything." (Publilius Syrus)
  8. "In gratitude for your good fortune, you must remember in return some sacrifice of your own life for another life." (Albert Schweitzer)
  9. "Grateful people are like fertile fields. You give back what you have received tenfold." (August von Kotzebue)
  10. "Our lives become bright when you learn to give thanks for the smallest thing." (Friedrich von Bodelschwingh)

Tip: Want even more quotes to think about? Then take a look at the best sayings about gratitude.

Quotes to think about empathy

  1. "No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of it for another." (Charles Dickens)
  2. "Mockery ends where understanding begins." (Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach)
  3. "Who was in distress and misery himself, knows to recognize the misery and distress of his neighbor." (Sebastian Kneipp)
  4. "Empathy is seeing with the eyes of another, listening with the ears of another and feeling with the heart of another." (Alfred Adler)
  5. "It is difficult to achieve a spirit of genuine cooperation as long as people remain indifferent to the feelings and happiness of others." (Dalai Lama)
  6. "It is ever true that he who does nothing for others, does nothing for himself." (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)
  7. "Those whom we support hold us up in life." (Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach)
  8. "Empathetic men are clairvoyant, clairaudient and clairsentient." (Ernst Ferstl)
  9. "Love has nothing to do with what you are expecting to get - only with what you are expecting to give, which is everything." (Katharine Hepburn)
  10. "World peace must develop from inner peace. Peace is not just mere absence of violence. Peace is, I think, the manifestation of human compassion." (Dalai Lama)

Tip: At Empathy Quotes you will find even more inspiring sayings.

Quotes to think about friendship

  1. "A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you." (Elbert Hubbard)
  2. "What you love, set free. If it comes back, it's yours - forever." (Confucius)
  3. "In the end it is always our connections with people that make our lives worth living." (Wilhelm von Humboldt)
  4. "Words only connect where our wavelengths have long since coincided." (Max Frisch)
  5. "A true friend is discerned during an uncertain matter." (Marcus Tullius Cicero)
  6. "Animals are my friends and I don't eat my friends." (George Bernard Shaw)
  7. "Two persons cannot long be friends if they cannot forgive each other's little failings." (Jean de La Bruyère)
  8. "Finding people who feel and empathize for us is probably the most beautiful happiness on earth." (Carl Spitteler)
  9. "For the world you are someone, but for someone you are the world." (Erich Fried)
  10. "The only way to have a friend is to be one." (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

Tip: For more Friendship Quotes you can simply click on the linked collection.

Quotes to think about character

  1. "The courage for self-awareness reveals the strength of character." (Ernst Ferstl)
  2. "All progress that is not human is not progress." (Antonio Gala)
  3. "Be the reason someone believes in the goodness of people." (Proverb)
  4. "A man often feels transformed as soon as he is treated humanely." (Eugen Roth)
  5. "You can tell character even from the smallest actions."(Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
  6. "The highest form of intelligence is the ability to observe without evaluating." (Jiddu Krishnamurti)
  7. "Good things can never arise from from lies and violence." (Mahatma Gandhi)
  8. "All men have a sore spot and that's what makes them human." (Oscar Wilde)
  9. "Compassion for animals is intimately associated with goodness of character, and it may be confidently asserted that he who is cruel to animals cannot be a good man." (Arthur Schopenhauer)
  10. "Good things that a man gives out into the world are never lost." (Albert Schweitzer)

Tip: I have put together an even more detailed collection of the best Personality quotes and Sayings about humanity compiled.

Quotes to think about truth

  1. "If you always tell the truth, you can afford to have a bad memory." (Theodor Heuss)
  2. "I am me. Everything else is too exhausting for me." (Ernst Ferstl)
  3. "Everything deep is also simple and can be reproduced simply as long as its reference to the whole truth is maintained. But what matters is not what is witty but what is true." (Albert Schweitzer)
  4. "Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said." (Voltaire)
  5. "We are more interested in making others believe we are happy than in trying to be happy ourselves." (François de La Rochefoucauld)
  6. "Make yourself an honest man, and then you may be sure there is one less rascal in the world." (Thomas Carlyle)
  7. "The greatest honour that you can bestow on someone is to have trust in them." (Matthias Claudius)
  8. "Two truths cannot contradict one another." (Galileo Galilei)
  9. "You can tell the original by its fractures, the fake by their lack." (Peter Rudl)
  10. "A painful truth is better than a lie." (Thomas Mann)

Tip: Be sure to check out my more detailed collection of the best Quotes about honesty and truth an.

Quotes to think about willpower

  1. "Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will." (Mahatma Gandhi)
  2. "Don't wish it were easier, wish you were better." (Jim Rohn)
  3. "Any difficult situation you overcome now will be saved for you in the future." (Dalai Lama)
  4. "Success consists of getting up just one more time than you fall." (Unknown)
  5. "You must do the thing you think you cannot do." (Eleanor Roosevelt)
  6. "He who fights, can lose. He who doesn’t fight, has already lost." (Bertolt Brecht)
  7. "Obstacles and difficulties are steps on which we climb up to the heights." (Friedrich Nietzsche)
  8. "All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them." (Walt Disney)
  9. "It's up to you whether you want to use the new year as a brake or as an engine." (Henry Ford)
  10. "If thou art a man, admire those who attempt great things, even though they fail." (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)

Tip: Also like to use the motivating sayings and Willpower quoteswhich I have prepared for you in separate collections.

Quotes to think about joie de vivre

  1. "The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts." (Marcus Aurelius)
  2. "When we have joy in life, the moments of happiness come by themselves." (Ernst Ferstl)
  3. "Comparison is the end of happiness and the beginning of discontent." (Søren Kierkegaard)
  4. "Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see a shadow." (Helen Keller)
  5. "The easy way to health - discovering the joy of life." (Volker Murawski)
  6. "They must often change, who would be constant in happiness or wisdom." (Confucius)
  7. "Joy is the simplest form of gratitude." (Karl Barth)
  8. "All animals, except man, know that the principal business of life is to enjoy it." (Samuel Butler)
  9. "Happiness is the only thing that multiplies when you share it." (Albert Schweitzer)
  10. "Courage, humor and joie de vivre remain the most beautiful contrasting colors against the gray of the world." (KarlHeinz Karius)

Tip: At Joy of Life Quotes you will find a whole potpourri of sayings for more life energy.

Quotes to think about change

  1. "Be the change you wish to see in the world." (Mahatma Gandhi)
  2. "A path is made by walking on it." (Franz Kafka)
  3. "No one knows what he can do until he tries." (Publilius Syrus)
  4. "What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?" (Vincent van Gogh)
  5. "Do what you feel in your heart to be right — for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be damned if you do, and damned if you don't." (Eleanor Roosevelt)
  6. "Your decision to walk creates the path ahead." (Paulo Coelho)
  7. "Our heads are round so our thoughts can change direction." (Francis Picabia)
  8. "Anything that is against nature will not last in the long run." (Charles Darwin)
  9. "What we do today will determine what the world looks like tomorrow." (Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach)
  10. "We can't change the wind, but we can set the sails differently." (Aristotle)

Tip: For more Quotes about change, feel free to take a look at the linked article.

Frequently asked questions that go with the sayings to think about

What is the difference between brooding and thinking?

Ruminating means worrying and letting your thoughts revolve around a problem without solving it. Ruminating, on the other hand, has a clear goal, namely to solve a problem. It is constructive and helps you to reflect.

Why do we need time to think?

Everyday private and professional life - with all its stimuli and influences - can be hectic and turn time into a truly scarce commodity. However, we need to consciously take this time to process the things that come at us. By allowing ourselves time to reflect, we do ourselves good. If we don't, there is a great risk of losing sight of our wishes, goals and dreams, i.e. ourselves.

How can I make more time for myself?

Time out - i.e. time just for yourself - helps you to relax and feel good, think more clearly and tackle new challenges with more vigor. You should be aware of this and consciously take this time for yourself. For example, to read a book, go for a walk, do sport or meditate.

Block fixed appointments in your calendar that have absolute priority. But also make sure that you minimize time wasters by distracting yourself less with trivial things and automating daily tasks as much as possible.

Use sayings to reflect on life and break new ground

Even if we Changes are difficult they are the ones who turn bad habits and situations into something better. I hope that these quotes have inspired you to think about life.

If you fancy a thought journey, I can warmly recommend the book Good thoughts: a journey to reflect* recommend. It will help you shape and invigorate your thoughts.

Finally, I would like to give you a few further articles that can potentially make you an even more valuable person:

Can you think of any other thought-provoking quotes and sayings that are missing from this collection? Then I look forward to your comment under this post!

Stay positive,

Christoph from CareElite - Plastic-free living

PS.: Look you with pleasure still further in the Quotes blog around! There you will also find for example the best sayings about tolerance. Have fun!

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* Links with asterisks are so-called Affiliate linksIf you click on it and buy something, you automatically and actively support my work with CareElite.de, as I receive a small share of the proceeds - and of course nothing changes in the product price. Many thanks for your support and best regards, Christoph!

Christoph Schulz

Christoph Schulz

I'm Christoph, an environmental scientist and author - and here at CareElite I'm campaigning against plastic waste in the environment, climate change and all the other major environmental problems of our time. Together with other environmentally conscious bloggers, I want to give you tips & tricks for a naturally healthy, sustainable life as well as your personal development.

1 thought on “Zitate zum Nachdenken – Die 100 besten Sprüche zum Grübeln über das Leben”

  1. Such collections of quotes are always a nice way to come down and "collect" (in the true sense of the word)
    Thanks for the post 🙂

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