167 Deep Quotes That Make You Think

I like deep quotes.

The ones that set my mind off in a new direction. Or make me think a little extra (or sometimes a lot).

So in this post I’d like to share of the most thought-provoking and best quotes I’ve found over the past 10+ years.

I’ve divided this big post into a few different sections on for example life, love (for yourself and others) and motivation to make it easier to navigate and use.

I hope you’ll find something here that helps you to find a new perspective and improve your own life.

And if you need more motivation and help then I recommend this post with quotes on never giving up and this one filled with deep thoughts and quotes on moving forward in life.

Powerful Deep Quotes About Life and Happiness

160 Deep Quotes That Make You Think

“Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.”
Buddha

“There are more things to alarm us than to harm us, and we suffer more often in apprehension than reality.”
Seneca

 

“Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.”
Marthe Troly-Curtin

“When one door of happiness closes, another opens, but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one that has been opened for us.”
Helen Keller

“Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.”
Maya Angelou

“The pleasure which we most rarely experience gives us greatest delight.”
Epictetus

“Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.”
Epicurus

“Men spend their lives in anticipations, in determining to be vastly happy at some period when they have time. But the present time has one advantage over every other – it is our own. Past opportunities are gone, future have not come. We may lay in a stock of pleasures, as we would lay in a stock of wine; but if we defer the tasting of them too long, we shall find that both are soured by age.”
Charles Caleb Colton

“Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not; and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Deep Quote by Henrik Ibsen

“A thousand words will not leave so deep an impression as one deed.”
Henrik Ibsen

“Perhaps they are not stars, but rather openings in heaven where the love of our lost ones pours through and shines down upon us to let us know they are happy.”
Eskimo Proverb

“Just because it didn’t last forever, doesn’t mean it wasn’t worth your while.”
Unknown

“Don’t underestimate the value of Doing Nothing, of just going along, listening to all the things you can’t hear, and not bothering.”
Winnie the Pooh

“When I look back on all these worries, I remember the story of the old man who said on his deathbed that he had had a lot of trouble in his life, most of which had never happened.”
Winston Churchill

“Don’t rely on someone else for your happiness and self-worth. Only you can be responsible for that. If you can’t love and respect yourself – no one else will be able to make that happen. Accept who you are – completely; the good and the bad – and make changes as YOU see fit – not because you think someone else wants you to be different.”
Stacey Charter

“It’s been my experience that you can nearly always enjoy things if you make up your mind firmly that you will.”
L.M. Montgomery

“The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched – they must be felt with the heart.”
Helen Keller

“You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else.”
Albert Einstein

“The more you know who you are, and what you want, the less you let things upset you.”
Stephanie Perkins

Deep Quote by James Oppenheim

“The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance, the wise grows it under his feet.”
James Oppenheim

“The reason people find it so hard to be happy is that they always see the past better than it was, the present worse than it is, and the future less resolved than it will be.”
Marcel Pagnol

“Happiness is within. It has nothing to do with how much applause you get or how many people praise you. Happiness comes when you believe that you have done something truly meaningful.”
Martin Yan

“If thou wilt make a man happy, add not unto his riches but take away from his desires.”
Epicurus

“If you want happiness for an hour — take a nap.
If you want happiness for a day — go fishing.
If you want happiness for a year — inherit a fortune.
If you want happiness for a lifetime — help someone else.”
Chinese Proverb

“Our envy always lasts longer than the happiness of those we envy.”
Heraclitus

“The greater part of our happiness or misery depends upon our dispositions, and not upon our circumstances.”
Martha Washington

On a deeper level you are already complete. When you realize that, there is a playful, joyous energy behind what you do.”
Eckhart Tolle

“We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.”
George Bernard Shaw

“Follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.”
Joseph Campbell

“The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain. Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven? And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?
When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see in truth that you are weeping for that which has been your delight.”
Kahlil Gibran

Deep Quote by M. Scott Peck

“Until you value yourself, you won’t value your time. Until you value your time, you will not do anything with it.”
M. Scott Peck

“The reason why we struggle with insecurity is because we compare our behind the scenes with everyone else’s highlight reel.”
Stephen Furtick

“Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.”
Soren Kierkegaard

“Sometimes the best thing to do is to take a step back and get a little bit of a different perspective and re-evaluate things.”
Austin Aries

“If you are not willing to risk the usual, you will have to settle for the ordinary.”
Jim Rohn

“It is only when we truly know and understand that we have a limited time on earth – and that we have no way of knowing when our time is up – that we will begin to live each day to the fullest, as if it was the only one we had.”
Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

Deep Love Quotes

“Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.”
James Baldwin

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

“Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings infinite distances continue, a wonderful living side by side can grow, if they succeed in loving the distance between them which makes it possible for each to see the other whole against the sky.”
Rainer Maria Rilke

“The way to love anything is to realize that it may be lost.”
Gilbert K. Chesterton

“Love is a friendship set to music.”
Joseph Campbell

Deep Quote by Lord Byron

“Love will find a way through paths where wolves fear to prey.”
Lord Byron

“The only thing we never get enough of is love; and the only thing we never give enough of is love.”
Henry Miller

“Love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is done well.”
Vincent Van Gogh

“I love you not because of who you are, but because of who I am when I am with you.”
Roy Croft

“If you would be loved, love, and be loveable.”
Benjamin Franklin

“You know it’s love when all you want is that person to be happy, even if you’re not part of their happiness.”*
Julia Roberts

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”
Rumi

“The art of love is largely the art of persistence.”
Albert Ellis

“Love is an untamed force. When we try to control it, it destroys us. When we try to imprison it, it enslaves us. When we try to understand it, it leaves us feeling lost and confused.”
Paulo Coelho

“It takes courage to love, but pain through love is the purifying fire which those who love generously know. We all know people who are so much afraid of pain that they shut themselves up like clams in a shell and, giving out nothing, receive nothing and therefore shrink until life is a mere living death.”
Eleanor Roosevelt

Deep Quote by Barbara De Angelis

“If you aren’t good at loving yourself, you will have a difficult time loving anyone, since you’ll resent the time and energy you give another person that you aren’t even giving to yourself.”
Barbara De Angelis

“Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don’t know how to replenish its source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of witherings, of tarnishings.”
Anaïs Nin

“Love does not dominate; it cultivates.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“When you adopt the viewpoint that there is nothing that exists that is not part of you, that there is no one who exists who is not part of you, that any judgment you make is self-judgment, that any criticism you level is self-criticism, you will wisely extend to yourself an unconditional love that will be the light of the world.”
Harry Palmer

“Love is what you’ve been through with somebody.”
James Thurber

“For many men, the acquisition of wealth does not end their troubles, it only changes them.”
Seneca

“Immature love says: ‘I love you because I need you.’ Mature love says ‘I need you because I love you.’”
Erich Fromm

“Loving people live in a loving world. Hostile people live in a hostile world. Same world.”
Wayne Dyer

Deep Motivational Quotes

“Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.”
Arthur Ashe

“Each morning when I open my eyes I say to myself: I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn’t arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and I’m going to be happy in it.“
Groucho Marx

“One of the best pieces of advice I ever got was from a horse master. He told me to go slow to go fast. I think that applies to everything in life. We live as though there aren’t enough hours in the day but if we do each thing calmly and carefully we will get it done quicker and with much less stress.”
Viggo Mortensen

Deep Quote by Confucius

“It does not matter how slowly you go, so long as you do not stop.”
Confucius

“Try not to become a person of success, but rather try to become a person of value.”
Albert Einstein

“Just one small positive thought in the morning can change your whole day.”
Dalai Lama

“If I had eight hours to chop down a tree, I’d spend six hours sharpening my ax.”
Abraham Lincoln

“If you don’t pay appropriate attention to what has your attention, it will take more of your attention than it deserves.”
David Allen

“Morning is an important time of day, because how you spend your morning can often tell you what kind of day you are going to have.”
Lemony Snicket

“Follow effective actions with quiet reflection. From the quiet reflection will come even more effective action.”
Peter Drucker

“Take a deep breath, pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again.”
Frank Sinatra

“The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.”
Albert Einstein

“If you think you can do a thing or think you can’t do a thing, you’re right.”
Henry Ford

“Do not be embarrassed by your failures, learn from them and start again.”
Richard Branson

Deep Quote by Wayne Dyer

“Be miserable. Or motivate yourself. Whatever has to be done, it’s always your choice.”
Wayne Dyer

“A ship is always safe at shore but that is not what it’s built for.”
Albert Einstein

“Show me a person who has never made a mistake and I’ll show you someone who has never achieved much.”
Joan Collins

“Either you run the day or the day runs you.”
Jim Rohn

“Like success, failure is many things to many people. With positive mental attitude, failure is a learning experience, a rung on the ladder, and a plateau at which to get your thoughts in order to prepare to try again.”
W. Clement Stone

“If you find a book you really want to read but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.”
Toni Morrison

“Dreams can come true, but there is a secret. They’re realized through the magic of persistence, determination, commitment, passion, practice, focus and hard work. They happen a step at a time, manifested over years, not weeks.”
Elbert Hubbard

“Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.”
Mark Twain

“I have had dreams, and I’ve had nightmares. I overcame the nightmares because of my dreams.”
Jonas Salk

“Much of the stress that people feel doesn’t come from having too much to do. It comes from not finishing what they started.”
David Allen

“The best way to succeed in this world is to act on the advice you give to others.”
Unknown

Deep Quote by Stephen King

“Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.”
Stephen King

“There are two types of people who will tell you that you cannot make a difference in this world: those who are afraid to try and those who are afraid you will succeed.”
Ray Goforth

“Nothing in the world can take the place of perseverance. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost legendary. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Perseverance and determination alone are omnipotent.”
Calvin Coolidge

“Never give up on a dream just because of the time it will take to accomplish it. The time will pass anyway.”
Earl Nightingale

“Aim for success, not perfection. Never give up your right to be wrong, because then you will lose the ability to learn new things and move forward with your life. Remember that fear always lurks behind perfectionism.”
David M. Burns

“All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible.”
T.E. Lawrence

“Motivation is a fire from within. If someone else tries to light that fire under you, chances are it will burn very briefly.”
Stephen R. Covey

“To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children… to leave the world a better place… to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”
Mark Twain

Deep Quotes That Make You Think

“Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.”
Thich Nhat Hanh

“If men would consider not so much wherein they differ, as wherein they agree, there would be far less of uncharitableness and angry feeling in the world.”
Joseph Addison

Deep Quote by Dr. Robert Anthony

“Most people would rather be certain they’re miserable, than risk being happy.”
Dr. Robert Anthony

“When we long for life without difficulties, remind us that oaks grow strong in contrary winds and diamonds are made under pressure.”
Peter Marshall

“You can teach a student a lesson for a day; but if you can teach him to learn by creating curiosity, he will continue the learning process as long as he lives.”
Clay P. Bedford

“The fullness of life is only accessible in the present moment.”
Eckhart Tolle

“If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.”
Abraham Maslow

“Life’s real failure is when you do not realize how close you were to success when you gave up.”
Unknown

“The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers.”
M. Scott Peck

“For most of life, nothing wonderful happens. If you don’t enjoy getting up and working and finishing your work and sitting down to a meal with family or friends, then the chances are you’re not going to be very happy. If someone bases his/her happiness on major events like a great job, huge amounts of money, a flawlessly happy marriage or a trip to Paris, that person isn’t going to be happy much of the time.
If, on the other hand, happiness depends on a good breakfast, flowers in the yard, a drink or a nap, then we are more likely to live with quite a bit of happiness.”
Andy Rooney

“You can complain because roses have thorns, or you can rejoice because thorns have roses.”
Tom Wilson

“I don’t want to get to the end of my life and find that I lived just the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as well.”
Diane Ackerman

Deep Quote by Brian Tracy

“After every difficulty, ask yourself two questions: “What did I do right?” and “What would I do differently?”
Brian Tracy

“Never idealize others. They will never live up to your expectations. Don’t over-analyze your relationships. Stop playing games. A growing relationship can only be nurtured by genuineness.“
Leo F. Buscaglia

“The best years of your life are the ones in which you decide your problems are your own. You do not blame them on your mother, the ecology, or the president. You realize that you control your own destiny.”
Albert Ellis

“We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.”
Winston Churchill

“Nothing is less productive than to make more efficient what should not be done at all.”
Peter Drucker

“The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.”
Bertrand Russell

“When a resolute young fellow steps up to the great bully, the world, and takes him boldly by the beard, he is often surprised to find it comes off in his hand, and that it was only tied on to scare away the timid adventurers.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow. It only saps today of its joy.”
Leo Buscaglia

“If people did not do silly things, nothing intelligent would ever get done.”
Ludwig Wittgenstein

“Everyone wants to live on top of the mountain, but all the happiness and growth occurs while you’re climbing it.”
Andy Rooney

Short Deep Quotes

Deep Quote by Aesop

“No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.”
Aesop

“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
Eleanor Roosevelt

“And remember, no matter where you go, there you are.”
Confucius

“Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.”
Dalai Lama

“There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will.”
Epictetus

“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.”
Anaïs Nin

“Success is largely a matter of holding on after others have let go.”
Unknown

“The best revenge is massive success.”
Frank Sinatra

“We become what we think about.”
Earl Nightingale

“New beginnings are often disguised as painful endings.”
Lao Tzu

“To be happy, we must not be too concerned with others.”
Albert Camus

“Love is a better teacher than duty.”
Albert Einstein

Deep Quote by Mahatma Gandhi

“There is more to life than increasing its speed.”
Mahatma Gandhi

“The unhappy derive comfort from the misfortunes of others.”
Aesop

“The two enemies of human happiness are pain and boredom.”
Arthur Schopenhauer

“Your work is discover your world and then with all your heart give yourself to it.”
Buddha

“If you are too busy to laugh, you are too busy.”
Proverb

“The best proof of love is trust.”
Joyce Brothers

“Your problem is you’re… too busy holding onto your unworthiness.”
Ram Dass

“It ain’t what they call you, it’s what you answer to.”
W.C. Fields

“The better you feel about yourself, the less you feel the need to show off.”
Robert Hand

“Good things happen to those who hustle.”
Chuck Noll

“Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.”
Abraham Lincoln

“Success comes in cans; failure in can’ts.”
Unknown

“For success, attitude is equally as important as ability.”
Harry F. Banks

Deep Quote by Mark Twain

“A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.”
Mark Twain

“Too many people overvalue what they are not and undervalue what they are.”
Malcolm S. Forbes

“Everything you want is on the other side of fear.”
Jack Canfield

“Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory.”
Albert Schweitzer

“Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.”
George Bernard Shaw

“It is more fitting for a man to laugh at life than to lament over it.”
Seneca

“I don’t think of all the misery but of the beauty that still remains.”
Anne Frank

“What seems to us as bitter trials are often blessings in disguise.”
Oscar Wilde

“There came a time when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”
Anaïs Nin

“A year from now you may wish you had started today.”
Karen Lamb

For more short quotes about life, be sure to check out this post.

Deep Meaningful Quotes on Friendship

Deep Quote by C. S. Lewis

“Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, ‘What! You too? I thought I was the only one.”
C.S. Lewis

“Sweet is the memory of distant friends! Like the mellow rays of the departing sun, it falls tenderly, yet sadly, on the heart.”
Washington Irving

“I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen.”
Ernest Hemingway

“There’s not a word yet for old friends who’ve just met.”
Jim Henson

“You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.”
Dale Carnegie

“A loyal friend laughs at your jokes when they’re not so good, and sympathizes with your problems when they’re not so bad.”
Arnold H. Glasgow

“One measure of friendship consists not in the number of things friends can discuss, but in the number of things they need no longer mention.”
Clifton Fadiman

“I don’t need a friend who changes when I change and who nods when I nod; my shadow does that much better.”
Plutarch

“Friends are those rare people who ask how we are and then wait to hear the answer.”
Ed Cunningham

“The real test of friendship is can you literally do nothing with the other person? Can you enjoy those moments of life that are utterly simple?”
Eugene Kennedy

Deep Quote by Alice Walker

“No person is your friend who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow.”
Alice Walker

“Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.”
Anais Nin

“Some of the biggest challenges in relationships come from the fact that most people enter a relationship in order to get something: they’re trying to find someone who’s going to make them feel good. In reality, the only way a relationship will last is if you see your relationship as a place that you go to give, and not a place that you go to take.”
Anthony Robbins

“If you go looking for a friend, you’re going to find they’re very scarce. If you go out to be a friend, you’ll find them everywhere.”
Zig Ziglar

“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.”
Carl Jung

“There’s one sad truth in life I’ve found
While journeying east and west –
The only folks we really wound
Are those we love the best.
We flatter those we scarcely know,
We please the fleeting guest,
And deal full many a thoughtless blow
To those who love us best.”
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

“How many slams in an old screen door? Depends how loud you shut it. How many slices in a bread? Depends how thin you cut it. How much good inside a day? Depends how good you live ’em. How much love inside a friend? Depends how much you give ’em.”
Shel Silverstein

Want even more helpful motivation? Check out this post with quotes on dealing with toxic people and this one about knowing your true worth and value in life.

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About the Author

Henrik Edberg is the creator of the Positivity Blog and has written weekly articles here since 2006. He has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Gothenburg and has been featured on Lifehacker, HuffPost and Paulo Coelho’s blog. Click here to learn more…

Comments on this entry are closed.

  • Andy

    Deep!!Keep up the good work,Henrik.

  • Another great collection of quotes to keep us intrigued and upbeat while we are all on home confinement Henrik.

    I for one have enjoyed them.
    Greg

  • I literally spent more than an hour here during the lockdown to read all the quotes here.

    Thanks for the Food for thoughts.

  • Love the amazing post, keep up the great work.

  • EJ

    Thanks for the quotes! I think your Chinese proverb may have been copied incorrectly, but inspiring nonetheless

  • Stuart

    Love the quotes and all aspects of “Positive” reinforcement. They help people grown no matter how old they are.
    Thanks for your “positivity”!

  • Beautiful collection hindi shayari and quotes, hindi english

  • Great collection of quotes. Thank you.