Top 500 Firsts Quotes (2024 Update)
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401. “Loss; is the returning of what never actually belonged to us in the first place.”

— Yasmin Mogahed

402. “Criticism, as it was first instituted by Aristotle, was meant as a standard of judging well.”

— Samuel Johnson

403. “Admission of ignorance is often the first step in our education.”

— Stephen R. Covey

404. “Habit is the second nature which destroys the first.”

— Blaise Pascal

405. “Accordingly, globalization is not only something that will concern and threaten us in the future, but something that is taking place in the present and to which we must first open our eyes.”

— Ulrich Beck

406. “If I was in a horrorfilm I’d die first, because I would have no idea what’s going on.”

— Niall Horan

407. “The first key to wisdom is assiduous and frequent questioning.”

— Peter Abelard

408. “Before we can make friends with anyone else, we must first make friends with ourselves.”

— Eleanor Roosevelt

409. “One of the first lessons a president has to learn is that every word he says weighs a ton.”

— Calvin Coolidge

410. “There are two kinds of writers. There are architects and gardeners. The architects do blueprints before they drive the first nail. The gardeners just dig a hole and plant the seed and see what comes up.”

— George R.R. Martin

411. “To become successful, first learn how to be happy. Too many think that the route to happiness is to get successful.”

— Robin S. Sharma

412. “I find as I grow older that I love those most whom I loved first.”

— Thomas Jefferson

413. “And what can life be worth if the first rehearsal for life is life itself?”

— Milan Kundera

414. “If marriage isn’t a first priority in your life, you’re not married.”

— Joseph Campbell

415. “First you win the argument, then you win the vote.”

— Margaret Thatcher

416. “She knew now that marriage did not make love. Janie’s first dream was dead, so she became a woman.”

— Zora Neale Hurston

417. “Take my love. One day share my life. Be my dearest, first on earth.”

— Charlotte Brontë

418. “A tactical retreat is not a bad response to a surprise assault, you know. First you survive. Then you choose your own ground. Then you counterattack.”

— Lois McMaster Bujold

419. “Every man must die, Jon Snow. But first he must live.”

— George R.R. Martin

420. “What about a compromise? I’ll kill them first, and if it turns out they were friendly, I’ll apologize.”

— Rick Riordan

421. “I got my first real six string, bought it at the five and dime, played it ’til my fingers bled.”

— Bryan Adams

422. “Not to hurt our humble brethren is our first duty to them, but to stop there is not enough. We have a higher mission – to be of service to them whenever they require it.”

— Francis of Assisi

423. “Knowing where the trap is – that’s the first step in evading it.”

— Frank Herbert

424. “Man first begins to philosophize when the necessities of life are supplied.”

— Aristotle

425. “Don’t bother people for help without first trying to solve the problem yourself.”

— Colin Powell

426. “Names and attributes must be accommodated to the essence of things, and not the essence to the names, since things come first and names afterwards.”

— Galileo Galilei

427. “If I’d never have picked up the first person, I’d never have picked up the 42,000 in Calcutta.”

— Mother Teresa

428. “First make yourself unpopular, then you will be taken seriously.”

— Konrad Adenauer

429. “No one can possibly know what is about to happen: it is happening, each time, for the first time, for the only time.”

— James Baldwin

430. “Effective leaders are, first and foremost, good teachers. We’re in the education business.”

— John Wooden

431. “First, do not betray yourself. Second, do not betray those you lead.”

— John Wooden

432. “Authority, when first detecting chaos at its heels, will entertain the vilest schemes to save its orderly facade.”

— Alan Moore

433. “When it comes to women, get your life together first. Put on your own oxygen mask first. Figure out who you are. Mature. And then go find somebody to share that life with.”

— Elizabeth Gilbert

434. “For me, you say the words ‘concept record,’ and the first thing I think of is theater or the opera or something.”

— Chester Bennington

435. “Witness and stand back from Nature, that is the first step to the soul’s freedom.”

— Sri Aurobindo

436. “Survival is the second law of life. The first is that we are all one.”

— Joseph Campbell

437. “Every honest researcher I know admits he’s just a professional amateur. He’s doing whatever he’s doing for the first time. That makes him an amateur. He has sense enough to know that he’s going to have a lot of trouble, so that makes him a professional.”

— Charles F. Kettering

438. “I remember once, actually the first race I ran, I fell.”

— Usain Bolt

439. “No man has come so near our definition of a constitutional statesman – the powers of a first-rate man and the creed of a second-rate man.”

— Walter Bagehot

440. “The first service that one owes to others consists in listening to them.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

441. “First wonder goes deepest; wonder after that fits in the impression made by the first.”

— Yann Martel

442. “All rational action is in the first place individual action. Only the individual thinks. Only the individual reasons. Only the individual acts.”

— Ludwig von Mises

443. “We require from buildings two kinds of goodness: first, the doing their practical duty well: then that they be graceful and pleasing in doing it.”

— John Ruskin

444. “People who advocate simplicity have money in the bank; the money came first, not the simplicity.”

— Douglas Coupland

445. “When you have lived the life I’ve lived, when you’ve loved and suffered, and been madly happy and desperately sad – well, that’s when you realize you’ll never be able to set it all down. Maybe you’d rather die first.”

— Judy Garland

446. “Observe your enemies, for they first find out your faults.”

— Antisthenes

447. “It is neglect of the Bible which makes so many a prey to the first false teacher whom they hear.”

— J. C. Ryle

448. “The fair breeze blew, The white foam flew, And the forrow followed free. We were the first to ever burst into the silent sea.”

— Samuel Taylor Coleridge

449. “People are felt rather than seen after the first few moments...”

— John Steinbeck

450. “If you have to keep a secret it’s because you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.”

— David Nicholls