50 Wise Sayings About Life To Expand Your Understanding

Our latest collection of wise sayings that will guide you toward greater happiness and fulfillment.

Wisdom is defined as, “the quality of having experience, knowledge, and good judgement.” 

If we’re lucky enough to have parents, mentors and advisors, then we have heard plenty of wise sayings about life.

We also know that you can’t just hear it once.

Life’s wisdom can often miss us because life moves so fast, that we have to practice standing still.

In many cultures and religions across the world, gaining wisdom is the ultimate goal.

Wisdom is seen as the highest form of understanding, leading towards enlightenment.

Something I’ve learned in life is that my favorite quotes and saying can often become principles to live by.

I hope these wise sayings about life can serve as guidelines for greater happiness, fulfillment, connection, and meaning.

Inspiring and Wise sayings about life

Wise Sayings

1.) “You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.” ― Gautama Buddha

Before you pour your love into someone else, fill yourself up first.

2.) “Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.” ― Rumi

Start with you. Start where you are. Changing the world is an exciting idea. Changing yourself makes it possible.

3.) “Man is a mystery. It needs to be unravelled, and if you spend your whole life unravelling it, don’t say that you’ve wasted time. I am studying that mystery because I want to be a human being.” ― Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Everything you do and have done has gotten you closer to who you really are and who you aspire to be. So in essence, even if you disagree with what you have done, it was never time wasted.

4.) “A man is not called wise because he talks and talks again; but if he is peaceful, loving and fearless then he is in truth called wise.” 
― Gautama Buddha

Words only go so far, we must live our message. Our true wisdom is displayed through our actions.

5.) “Sometimes it’s not enough to know what things mean, sometimes you have to know what things don’t mean.” ― Bob Dylan

Being wrong is just as powerful as being right. Sometimes, it’s even more powerful.

6.) “We seldom realize, for example that our most private thoughts and emotions are not actually our own. For we think in terms of languages and images which we did not invent, but which were given to us by our society.” ― Alan Wilson Watts

Let’s be mindful of what we identify with and hold on to. Many times we think, “That’s just who I am, that just what I think…” But the truth is, many things we think and desire are not our own. Since our childhood, we’ve been looking for attention and acceptance and most of the time that came from ‘following directions’. Take some time to think about how you think.

7.) “You will not be punished for your anger; you will be punished by your anger.” ― Gautama Buddha

Once you’re angry, the harm is already done.

8.) “If others tell us something we make assumptions, and if they don’t tell us something we make assumptions to fulfill our need to know and to replace the need to communicate. Even if we hear something and we don’t understand we make assumptions about what it means and then believe the assumptions. We make all sorts of assumptions because we don’t have the courage to ask questions.” ― Miguel Ruiz

 The only thing worse than making assumptions is to believe them.

9.) “I’ve come to believe that all my past failure and frustration were actually laying the foundation for the understandings that have created the new level of living I now enjoy. ”  ― Anthony Robbins

Don’t let your pain stay as pain. Get something from it. Let your pain push you towards growth.

10.) “The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson

Wisdom doesn’t have to be bleak. Let your understanding help you recognize the unexplainable.

11.) “Just as a snake sheds its skin, we must shed our past over and over again.”  ― Gautama Buddha

Growing isn’t something that happens once. It happens again and again, and again!

12.) “This is my simple religion. No need for temples. No need for complicated philosophy. Your own mind, your own heart is the temple. Your philosophy is simple kindness.”  ― Dalai Lama XIV

Life = Love

13.) “In the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.” – Abraham Lincoln

14.) “Life is inherently risky. There is only one big risk you should avoid at all costs, and that is the risk of doing nothing.” – Denis Waitley

15.) “Mistakes are a part of being human. Appreciate your mistakes for what they are: precious life lessons that can only be learned the hard way.” – Al Franken

16.) “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.” – Steve Jobs

17.) “You get in life what you have the courage to ask for.” – Oprah Winfrey

18.) “God gave us the gift of life; it is up to us to give ourselves the gift of living well.” – Voltaire

19.) “Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.” – George Bernard Shaw

Wise sayings about life and living it to your best

20.)  “You can never plan the future by the past.” — Edmund Burke

21.) “In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.” — Robert Frost

22.) “Be happy for this moment. This moment is your life.” – Omar Khayyam

23.) “To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.” – Oscar Wilde

24.) “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” – Soren Kierkegaard

25.) “You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.” – Mae West

26.) “Life ought to be a struggle of desire toward adventures whose nobility will fertilize the soul.” – Rebecca West

27.) “The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one.” – Elbert Hubbard

28.) “The greatest day in your life and mine is when we take total responsibility for our attitudes. That’s the day we truly grow up.” – John C. Maxwell

29.) “Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.” – Soren Kierkegaard

30.)  “Life is ten percent what happens to you and ninety percent how you respond to it.” – Lou Holtz

Wise sayings about life lessons

31.) “We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.” – Winston Churchill

32.) “Close some doors today. Not because of pride, incapacity or arrogance, but simply because they lead you nowhere.”―Paulo Coelho

33.) “I am not someone who is ashamed of my past. I’m actually really proud. I know I made a lot of mistakes, but they, in turn, were my life lessons.” – Drew Barrymore

34.) “You can’t live your life for other people. You’ve got to do what’s right for you, even if it hurts some people you love.” – The Notebook

35.) “Be like a tree and let the dead leaves drop.” ―Rumi

36.) “Life is 10 percent what you make it, and 90 percent how you take it.” ―Irving Berlin

37.) “No matter how much suffering you went through, you never wanted to let go of those memories.” ― Haruki Murakami

38.) “Only the dead have seen the end of war.” ― Plato

39.) “People are just about as happy as they make up their minds to be.” – Abraham Lincoln

40.) “A wise man learns by the mistakes of others, a fool by his own.” – Latin Proverb

Other Wise sayings to help us learn

41.) “On every thorn, delightful wisdom grows. In every rill a sweet instruction flows.” – Edward Young

42.) “It’s not the load that weighs you down, it’s how you carry it.” – C.S. Lewis

43.) “The seat of knowledge is in the head, of wisdom, in the heart.” – William Hazlitt

44.) “People generally see what they look for, and hear what they listen for.” – Harper Lee

45.) “To be successful, you must act big, think big and talk big.” – 

46.) “There is more to life than increasing its speed.” – Mahatma Gandhi

47.) “Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.” – Albert Einstein

48.) “All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.”-  Ralph Waldo Emerson

49.) “Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.” – Thomas Jefferson

50.) “Wise men make more opportunities than they find.” – Francis Bacon

Did you learn from these wise sayings?

Words of wisdom from people from all different kinds of backgrounds can help us learn important life lessons. Through the years, great men and women have left wisdom, which has contributed to making the world a better place to live in.

Hopefully, these wise sayings will guide you toward greater happiness, fulfillment, connection, and meaning.

Did you enjoy these wise sayings? What other wise sayings about life would you like to share with us? Tell us in the comment section below. We would love to hear all about it.

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