Top 40 Thought Provoking Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “A wise man will be master of his mind, a fool will be its slave.”

— Publilius Syrus

2. “Information is not knowledge.”

— Albert Einstein

Also featured in: Knowledge Quotes, Intelligence Quotes

3. “Nobody can teach me who I am. You can describe parts of me, but who I am – and what I need – is something I have to find out myself.”

— Chinua Achebe

4. “Courage is never to let your actions be influenced by your fears.”

— Arthur Koestler

Also featured in: Courage Quotes, Business Quotes

5. “The oldest, shortest words – ‘yes’ and ‘no’ – are those which require the most thought.”

— Pythagoras

6. “You have power over your mind, not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”

— Marcus Aurelius

Also featured in: Quotes About Strength

7. “The only thing we have learnt from experience is that we learn nothing from experience.”

— Chinua Achebe

8. “If you don’t like someone’s story, write your own.”

— Chinua Achebe

Also featured in: Quotes About Stories

9. “Words are loaded pistols.”

— Jean-Paul Sartre

10. “The time for change is now.”

— Jacqueline Novogratz

11. “Our wretched species is so made that those who walk on the well-trodden path always throw stones at those who are showing a new road.”

— Voltaire

Also featured in: Hiking Quotes

12. “If you’re losing your soul and you know it, then you’ve still got a soul left to lose.”

— Charles Bukowski

13. “Libraries are our friends.”

— Neil Gaiman

Also featured in: Book Quotes, Reading Quotes

14. “Electric communication will never be a substitute for the face of someone who with their soul encourages another person to be brave and true.”

— Charles Dickens

15. “Anyone who says failure is not an option has also ruled out innovation.”

— Seth Godin

16. “The stillness in stillness is not the real stillness; only when there is stillness in movement does the universal rhythm manifest.”

— Bruce Lee

Also featured in: Real Quotes

17. “You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough.”

— William Blake

Also featured in: Knowledge Quotes, Understanding Quotes

18. “The irony is that while God doesn’t need us but still wants us, we desperately need God but don’t really want Him most of the time.”

— Francis Chan

19. “It must be wonderful to be seventeen, and to know everything.”

— Arthur C. Clarke

20. “It took me a long time to understand that God is not the enemy of my enemies. God is not even the enemy of God’s enemies.”

— Martin Niemöller

21. “As a man is, so he sees.”

— William Blake

22. “Perhaps no place in any community is so totally democratic as the town library. The only entrance requirement is interest.”

— Lady Bird Johnson

23. “True faith means holding nothing back; it bets everything on the hope of eternity.”

— Francis Chan

24. “Lukewarm people don’t really want to be saved from their sin; they want only to be saved from the penalty of their sin.”

— Francis Chan

25. “To do a dull thing with style-now that’s what I call art.”

— Charles Bukowski

26. “If you ask managers what they do, they will most likely tell you that they plan, organise, co-ordinate and control. Then watch what they do. Don’t be surprised if you can’t relate what you see to those four words.”

— Henry Mintzberg

27. “Librarians are tour-guides for all of knowledge.”

— Patrick Ness

Also featured in: Book Quotes, Reading Quotes

28. “Lukewarm people will serve God and others, but there are limits to how far they will go or how much time, money, and energy they are willing to give.”

— Francis Chan

29. “Any word you have to hunt for in a thesaurus is the wrong word. There are no exceptions to this rule.”

— Stephen King

30. “I ransack public libraries, and find them full of sunk treasure.”

— Virginia Woolf

Also featured in: Book Quotes, Reading Quotes

31. “When suffering knocks at your door and you say there is no seat for him, he tells you not to worry because he has brought his own stool.”

— Chinua Achebe

32. “We chose it because we deal with huge amounts of data. Besides, it sounds really cool.”

— Larry Page

33. “And yet, now that years have passed, I recall it and wonder that it could distress me so much. It will be the same thing, too, with this trouble. Time will go by and I shall not mind about this either.”

— Leo Tolstoy

34. “Where all think alike there is little danger of innovation.”

— Edward Abbey

35. “In a closed society where everybody’s guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

36. “People can lose their lives in libraries. They ought to be warned.”

— Saul Bellow

Also featured in: Reading Quotes

37. “A house that has a library in it has a soul.”

— Plato

Also featured in: Soul Quotes

38. “The person who praises God is on the tracks of justice.”

— Soren Kierkegaard

39. “A disciple is a disciple maker.”

— Francis Chan

40. “We don’t see profit as a blind instrument.”

— Jacqueline Novogratz