Wise Words from Wise People (July 2026 Edition)

I’ve collected quotes for many years. My database now contains thousands of them, and every month I add the best ones I find in books, articles, newsletters, TED talks, YouTube videos, podcasts, etc.

Here are the best quotes I found this month:

“All the water in the world cannot sink a ship unless it gets inside the ship. All the negativity in the world cannot sink a person unless it gets inside the mind.” -Mary Pickford

“An economist is an expert who will know tomorrow why the things he predicted yesterday didn’t happen today.” -Evan Esar

“The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone.” -Harriet Beecher Stowe

“Self-pity feels like medicine and works like poison.” -Shane Parrish

“There are two types of people: Those who want to know more and those who want to defend what they already know.” -Morgan Housel

“Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.” -Voltaire

“In crisis, it’s often only after you take the first step that the path emerges.” -Simone Stolzoff

“Blind faith will blind you.” -Rabbi Sydney Mintz

“We hurt in proportion with how much we care...Grief helps us recognize how much we love.” -Sarah Hill

“Most people live in a very restricted circle of their potential being. They make use of a very small portion of their possible consciousness, and of their soul’s resources in general, much like a man who, out of his whole organism, should get into a habit of using and moving only his little finger.” -William James

“Perseverance is a great substitute for talent.” -Steve Martin

“A good manager makes sure everyone knows what they have to do, then makes sure they’ve done it—that’s the black-and-white part of being a leader.” -Will Guidara

“A leader’s role isn’t only to motivate and uplift; sometimes it’s to earn the trust of your team by being human with them.” -Will Guidara

“Reading books is a workout for the attention span. The more you read, the easier it is to read, and the more you’re rewarded with new understanding. Eventually the process is more pleasurable than it is challenging. But as with physical exercise, the converse is true as well: The less you read, the more difficult it is to read, and the rockier the path to acquiring knowledge.” -Rose Horowitch

“Writing is hard because the writer is learning. If AI eliminates the challenge, it also eliminates the learning.” -Rose Horowitch

“If you can describe people’s problems better than they can, they’ll subconsciously believe that you have the solution. The pain is the pitch.” -Jay Yang

“When you ignore a problem that is small enough to handle, it often grows into a problem too big to manage.” -James Clear

“Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.” -Neale Donald Walsch

“If you can’t say what makes you different, your customer can’t either.” -Kieran Drew

“It’s better to be different and judged than normal and forgotten.” -Kieran Drew

“You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.” -Maya Angelou

“The future belongs to those who can spread ideas.” -Guy Kawasaki

“If you think someone is normal, you don’t know them very well. Normalcy is a fiction. Your job is to discover their weird genius.” -Kevin Kelly

“There’s so many people working so hard but achieving so little.” -Andy Grove

“You waste years by not being able to waste hours.” -Amos Tversky

“When we hear something critical about ourselves, we typically have one of two instinctive responses: Reject it completely or accept it immediately as stated. In my experience, neither is optimal. To be good at receiving feedback, you need to look past binary responses.” -Cate Hall

“If you’re not failing all the time, you’re not creating a situation where you can get super lucky.” -Ira Glass

“Judge talent at its best but character at its worst.” -Lord Acton