Top 60 Morrie Schwartz Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Learn to forgive yourself and to forgive others.”

— Morrie Schwartz

Featured in: Forgiving Quotes

2. “You don’t understand. You’re not a wave. You’re part of the ocean.”

— Morrie Schwartz

Featured in: Quotes About Ocean

3. “Once you learn how to die you learn how to live.”

— Morrie Schwartz

4. “Death ends a life, not a relationship. All the love you created is still there. All the memories are still there. You live on- in the hearts of everyone you have touched and nurtured while you were here.”

— Morrie Schwartz

5. “The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and to let it come in.”

— Morrie Schwartz

6. “What’s wrong with being number two?”

— Morrie Schwartz

7. “Do the kind of things that come from the heart, When you do, you won’t be dissatisfied, you won’t be envious, you won’t be longing for somebody else’s things. On the contrary, you’ll be overhelmed with what comes back.”

— Morrie Schwartz

8. “Is today the day? Am I ready? Am I doing all I need to do? Am I being the person I want to be?”

— Morrie Schwartz

9. “So many people walk around with a meaningless life. They seem half-asleep, even when they’re busy doing things they think are important. This is because they’re chasing the wrong things.”

— Morrie Schwartz

10. “The culture we have does not make people feel good about themselves. And you have to be strong enough to say if the culture doesn’t work, don’t buy it.”

— Morrie Schwartz

11. “Everyone knows they’re going to die, but nobody believes it.”

— Morrie Schwartz

12. “Maybe death is the great equalizer, the one big thing that can finally make strangers shed a tear for one another.”

— Morrie Schwartz

13. “As long as we can love each other, and remember the feeling of love we had, we can die without ever really going away. All the love you created is still there. All the memories are still there. You live on – in the hearts of everyone you have touched and nurtured while you were here.”

— Morrie Schwartz

14. “Be compassionate, and take responsibility for each other. If we only learned those lessons, this world would be so much a better place.”

— Morrie Schwartz

15. “Are you trying to be as human as you can be?”

— Morrie Schwartz

16. “The fact is, there is no foundation, no secure ground, upon which people may stand today if it isn’t the family.”

— Morrie Schwartz

17. “I believe in being fully present. That means you should be with the person you’re with.”

— Morrie Schwartz

18. “Do I wither up and disappear, or do I make the best of my time left?”

— Morrie Schwartz

19. “Keep your heart open for as long as you can, as wide as you can, for others and especially for yourself.”

— Morrie Schwartz

20. “Accept the past as past, without denying it or discarding it. Reminisce about it, but don’t live in it. Learn from it, but don’t punish yourself about it or continually regret it. Don’t get stuck in it.”

— Morrie Schwartz

21. “Sometimes you cannot believe what you see, you have to believe what you feel. And if you are going to have other people trust you, you must feel that you can trust them, too – even when you’re in the dark. Even when you’re falling.”

— Morrie Schwartz

22. “All right, that was my moment with loneliness. I’m not afraid of feeling lonely, but now I’m going to put that loneliness aside and know that there are other emotions in the world, and I’m going to experience them as well.”

— Morrie Schwartz

23. “The little things, I can obey. But the big things – how we think, what we value – those you must choose yourself. You can’t let anyone – or any society – determine those for you.”

— Morrie Schwartz

24. “Build a little community of those you love and who love you.”

— Morrie Schwartz

25. “Everything that gets born dies.”

— Morrie Schwartz

26. “Well, the truth is, if you really listen to that bird on your shoulder, if you accept that you can die at any time–then you might not be as ambitious as you are.”

— Morrie Schwartz

27. “It’s not too late to develop new friendships or reconnect with people.”

— Morrie Schwartz

28. “If you don’t have the support and love and caring and concern that you get from a family, you don’t have much at all.”

— Morrie Schwartz

Featured in: Caring Quotes

29. “Life is like a wrestling match- we struggle to fight but we never know that the only side that wins is the one with great love in it.”

— Morrie Schwartz

30. “In the beginning of life, when we are infants, we need others to survive. And at the end of life, we need others to survive. But here’s the secret, in between, we need others as well.”

— Morrie Schwartz

31. “The truth is, part of me is every age. I delight in being a child when it’s appropriate to be a child. I delight in being a wise old man when it’s appropriate to be a wise old man. Think of all I can be! I am every age, up to my own.”

— Morrie Schwartz

32. “If we can remember the feeling of love we once had, we can die without ever going away.”

— Morrie Schwartz

33. “I’d always been interested in psychology.”

— Morrie Schwartz

34. “Don’t let go too soon, but don’t hang on too long.”

— Morrie Schwartz

35. “Sometimes you cannot believe what you see. You have to believe what you feel.”

— Morrie Schwartz

36. “Because if you’ve found meaning in your life, you don’t want to go back. You want to go forward.”

— Morrie Schwartz

37. “If the culture doesn’t work, don’t buy it.”

— Morrie Schwartz

38. “It’s natural to die. The fact that we make such a big hullabaloo over it is all because we don’t see ourselves as part of nature. We think because we’re human we’re something above nature.”

— Morrie Schwartz

39. “The best way to deal with that is to live in a fully conscious, compassionate, loving way. Don’t wait until you’re on your deathbed to recognize that this is the only way to live.”

— Morrie Schwartz

40. “After you have wept and grieved for your physical losses, cherish the functions and the life you have left.”

— Morrie Schwartz

41. “All younger people should know something. If you’re always battling against getting older, you’re always going to be unhappy, because it will happen anyhow.”

— Morrie Schwartz

42. “What tipped the scales was that psychology involved working with rats.”

— Morrie Schwartz

43. “We put our values in the wrong things. And it leads to very disillusioned lives.”

— Morrie Schwartz

44. “When people die, you always hear the expression, “You can’t take it with you.”

— Morrie Schwartz

45. “Devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.”

— Morrie Schwartz

46. “What is it about silence that makes people uneasy?”

— Morrie Schwartz

47. “One hundred and ten years from now no one who is here now will be alive.”

— Morrie Schwartz

48. “Grieve and mourn for yourself not once or twice, but again and again.”

— Morrie Schwartz

49. “We’re involved in trillions of little acts just to keep going.”

— Morrie Schwartz

50. “When you look at it that way, you can see how absurd it is that we individualize ourselves with our fences and hoarded possessions.”

— Morrie Schwartz