Top 500 Firsts Quotes (2025 Update)
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301. “You must first be willing to fail – and you must have the courage to go for it anyway.”

— Michael Bloomberg

302. “You must first of all think justly. Don’t sit in judgment over others when you don’t know the truth of the matter.”

— Pramoedya Ananta Toer

303. “The recognition of the sanctity of the life of every man is the first and only basis of all morality.”

— Leo Tolstoy

304. “Tribulation first makes one realize what one is.”

— Marie Antoinette

305. “Feel free to call me by my first name: Master.”

— Patrick Rothfuss

306. “All I know is this: nobody’s very big in the first place, and it looks to me like everybody spends their whole life tearing everybody else down.”

— Ken Kesey

307. “If you figure a way to live without serving a master, any master, then let the rest of us know, will you? For you’d be the first person in the history of the world.”

— Paul Thomas Anderson

308. “Happiness cannot come from without. It must come from within. It is not what we see and touch or that which others do for us which makes us happy; it is that which we think and feel and do, first for the other fellow and then for ourselves.”

— Helen Keller

309. “The second fiddle. I can get plenty of first violinists, but to find someone who can play the second fiddle with enthusiasm.”

— Leonard Bernstein

310. “The first duty of the educator, whether he is involved with the newborn infant or the older child, is to recognize the human personality of the young being and respect it.”

— Maria Montessori

311. “Voting is the first duty of democracy.”

— Lyndon B. Johnson

312. “We first observe facts, then generalise, and then draw conclusions or principles.”

— Swami Vivekananda

313. “Teach economy. That is one of the first and highest virtues. It begins with saving money.”

— Abraham Lincoln

314. “That nothing is static or fixed, that all is fleeting and impermanent, is the first mark of existence. Everything is in process.”

— Pema Chödrön

315. “If at first you don’t succeed, try management.”

— Stephen Hawking

316. “The average person would have quit at the first failure. That’s why there have been many average men and only one Edison.”

— Napoleon Hill

317. “The first thought of God was an angel. The first word of God was a man.”

— Khalil Gibran

318. “First, say to yourself what you would be; then do what you have to do. Life is a grindstone. Whether it wears you down or polishes you up depends on what YOU are made of.”

— Zig Ziglar

319. “To exercise no-thought and rest in nothing is the first step toward resting in Tao. To start from nowhere and follow no road is the first step toward attaining Tao.”

— Zhuangzi

320. “We dare not forget that we are the heirs of that first revolution.”

— John F. Kennedy

321. “First you must find your trajectory, and then comes the social coordination.”

— Joseph Campbell

322. “The first requisite for success is to develop the ability to focus...”

— Thomas A. Edison

323. “Unless you’re one of the first Americans, a Native American, you came from someplace else. Somebody brought you.”

— Barack Obama

324. “I wonder who first discovered the efficacy of poetry in driving away love!- Elizabeth Bennet.”

— Jane Austen

325. “First, I thought, almost despairing, This must crush my spirit now; Yet I bore it, and am bearing- Only do not ask me how.”

— Heinrich Heine

326. “The first time you quit, it’s hard. The second time, it gets easier. The third time, you don’t even have to think about it.”

— Bear Bryant

327. “I know death follows me, but I murder him first.”

— Tupac Shakur

328. “I don’t kick a man when he’s down, unless I’m the one who put him down in the first place. I don’t put him down unless he deserves it. And I don’t break my word if I give it. So I’ll give you my word.”

— Nora Roberts

329. “I was playing cricket first and my cricket coach was the one that introduced me to track and field.”

— Usain Bolt

330. “If at first you don’t succeed, avoid skydiving.”

— Socrates

331. “The most rigid structures, the most impervious to change, will collapse first.”

— Eckhart Tolle

332. “Whatever God does, the first outburst is always compassion.”

— Meister Eckhart

333. “I felt the same fear in my first fight as I did in my last fight. It never goes away.”

— Mike Tyson

334. “Say what you have to say and the first time you come to a sentence with a grammatical ending – sit down.”

— Winston Churchill

335. “The first cuckoo’s melancholy cry.”

— William Wordsworth

336. “Birth is life’s first lottery ticket.”

— Jeffrey Archer

337. “When love first tasted the lips of being human, it started singing.”

— Rumi

338. “Whom you would change, you must first love.”

— Martin Luther King Jr.

339. “To give a person an opinion one must first judge well whether that person is of the disposition to receive it or not.”

— Yamamoto Tsunetomo

340. “Do you believe in first love – or should I pass by again?”

— Stephen Hawking

341. “First the colours. Then the humans. That’s usually how I see things. Or at least, how I try.”

— Markus Zusak

342. “The first resistance to social change is to say it’s not necessary.”

— Gloria Steinem

343. “People who invariably put themselves first will find that others tend to put them last.”

— Nido R. Qubein

344. “Imitation is the first instinct of the awakening mind.”

— Maria Montessori

345. “A conservative believes nothing should be done for the first time.”

— Thomas Fuller

346. “Anything worth doing does not have to be done perfectly – at first.”

— Kenneth H. Blanchard

347. “Plan and execute your first failure so that you no longer have to fear it.”

— John C. Maxwell

348. “Don’t sacrifice your spirit for wealth. Grow your wealth by first growing your spirit.”

— Robert T. Kiyosaki

349. “No man is defeated without until he has first been defeated within.”

— Eleanor Roosevelt

350. “Before something can become a habit it must first be practiced as a discipline.”

— Kenneth H. Blanchard