Wise Words from Wise People (May 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:

“You will rarely outperform your self-image.” -James Clear

“Don’t cry because it’s over; smile because it was beautiful.” -Attributed to Dr. Seuss

“I have learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our dispositions, and not upon our circumstances.” -Martha Washington

“Good leaders give their teams a reason why they might want to do things that they want done. Make sure your vision and your goals are not just yours, but theirs too.” -Prakash Iyer

“Often we fail to improve our lives simply because things don’t get bad enough. If your new job is hell, you’ll leave it, but if it’s just unsatisfying, you’ll likely grind it out. Thus, small problems often threaten our quality of life more than big ones.” -Gurwinder Bhogal

“Happiness depends more upon the internal frame of a person’s own mind—than on the externals in the world.” -George Washington

“Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work.” -Gustave Flaubert

“The solutions you seek lie in the population you serve.” -Samantha Gadd

“Before opening up, most of us wait for the other person to make connection feel safe. But the research suggests it works the other way around—you opening up is what makes it feel safe for them.” -Francesca Tighinean

“Inspiration unused is merely entertainment. To get new results, you need to take new actions.” -David Bach

“The quieter you become, the more you can hear.” -Ram Dass

“Connection starts the moment someone decides to stop protecting themselves and make it safe for others to do the same.” -Francesca Tighinean

“Your entire life will change when you stop gathering information and start acting on the information you already have.” -Sahil Bloom

“Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other one thing.” -Abraham Lincoln

“The man who can drive himself further once the effort gets painful is the man who will win.” -Roger Bannister

“Logic makes people think and emotion makes them act. Uncover what motivates, why it’s in their best interest, and how they will be happier.” -Dan Weedin

“I am a great believer in luck. The harder I work, the more of it I seem to have.” -Coleman Cox

“Why would I (use AI to write)? It’d be like hiring someone to have sex for you. For anything creative, why would I want to use it when it’s the very creative language that I like? I suspect we’ll tire of that quickly. I’d rather read a bad short story by a human than a good one by a computer. What you want in art is connection. It’s connection with another human being.” -Yann Martel

“The single most important distinction in life…is to distinguish between an opportunity to be seized and a temptation to be resisted.” -Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

“Many a false step was made by standing still.” -Fortune cookie

“Every next level of your life will require a different you.” -Leonardo DiCaprio

“Rather than argue with reality, learn the rules so you can shape it to your wishes.” -Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy

“It is not shortage of time that should worry us, but the tendency for the majority of time to be spent in low-quality ways...The 80/20 principle says that if we doubled our time on the top 20 percent of activities, we could work a two-day week and achieve 60 percent more than now.” -Richard Koch

“Most people don’t aim too high and miss. They aim too low and hit.” -Bob Moawad

“A fool is known by his speech, and a wise man by silence.” -Pythagoras

“Getting into action generates inspiration. Don’t cop out waiting for inspiration to get you back into action. It won’t!” -Robert Evans

“I consider the need to know the news every day a form of mental disorder.” -Michael Oakeshott

“A good rule of thumb when you’re making a decision is to ask yourself: What makes the better story?” -George Mack

“When (AI) tells you your unconventional idea is bad, it’s not evaluating your idea. It’s telling you that your idea doesn’t resemble the data it was trained on. That’s not intelligence. That’s pattern-matching with a confidence problem.” -David William Silva

“It’s not the will to win that matters. It’s the will to prepare.” -Bear Bryant

“Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.” -Simone Weil

“If you want different luck, start walking into different rooms.” -James Clear

“No matter how busy you are, you must take time to make the other person feel important. Everyone has an invisible sign hanging from their neck saying, ‘Make me feel important.’ Never forget this message when working with people.” -Mary Kay Ash (paraphrase)

“Success is attaining your dream while helping others to benefit from that dream materializing.” -Sugar Ray Leonard

“Until you’re ready to look foolish, you’ll never have the possibility of being great.” -Cherilyn ‘Cher’ Sarkisian

“The answers you are looking for are in the silence you’re avoiding.” -Unknown

“Urgency is the best predictor of personal success.” -Shane Parrish

“Anything that truly improves your life is going to be difficult—difficulty is the price of admission. If you avoid it, nothing changes.” -Michael Easter

“You risk so much hesitating to fling yourself into the abyss.” -18th Century French monk (Unknown)

“If there is poetry in my book about the sea, it is not because I deliberately put it there, but because no one could write truthfully about the sea and leave out the poetry.” -Rachel Carson

“Entrepreneurship isn’t hard because the work is necessarily hard. It’s hard because you’re never quite sure what the work even is. You feel confused more often than you feel certain.” -Justin Welsh

“The best revenge is not to be like that.” -Marcus Aurelius

“Until one is committed there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favour all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way.” -W. H. Murray