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30 People Share the Quotes That Permanently Changed the Way They Look at Things

Have you ever been kind of down on yourself for one reason or another and out of the blue you saw a quote that made you snap out of your funk? And, on top of that, it stuck with you?

I love those kinds of moments!

And we all have the quotes that remain implanted in our brains forever.

AskReddit users talked about the quotes that changed the way they look at things.

Let’s take a look.

1. Always stay young.

“”When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.”

C. S. Lewis”

2. No one’s really paying attention.

“You’ll worry less about what people think about you when you realize how seldom they do.”

David Foster Wallace”

3. Use it or lose it.

“”Use what talents you possess – the woods will be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best.”

Henry van Dyke”

4. She’s right.

“”Socializing is just like any skill.

You need to practice before you’re good at it.”

My Mom, comforting me when I was struggling to make friends.”

5. I like this one.

“”We’re all going to d**, all of us; what a circus!

That alone should make us love each other, but it doesn’t.

We are terrorized and flattened by trivialities. We are eaten up by nothing.”

– Charles Bukowski”

6. Waste of time.

“”Worrying is a waste of your imagination.”

I saw it spray painted on a sidewalk somewhere.”

7. He’s pretty smart.

“Arnold Schwarzenegger said something like “you can either be a negative or positive person in life, but only one will get you somewhere” in an AMA once.

I am a pretty pessimistic person. When I read that though, it made me think about a lot of things like how my life and outlook is. I would say that single quote of his helped me evolve a lot about my life.

He’s right.”

8. It’s up to you.

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms- to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

-Viktor Frankl”

9. That’s life.

“”It’s possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not weakness. That is life.”

—Captain Jean-Luc Picard”

10. Believe people.

““In order to empathize with someone’s experience you must be willing to believe them as they see it and not how you imagine their experience to be.”

-Brené Brown”

11. Very true.

“Be kind.

For everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about.”

12. Still remember it.

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

It’s problematic in that a**sive people may use words like this to “blame the victim,” but this quote opened the door for me to exit an abusive marriage, so I’ve always remembered it.”

13. Always changing.

“No man ever steps in the same river twice.

For it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.”

14. From a survivor.

““Sooner or later in life everyone discovers that perfect happiness is unrealizable, but there are few who pause to consider the antithesis: that perfect unhappiness is equally unattainable.

The obstacles preventing the realization of both these extreme states are of the same nature: they derive from our human condition which is opposed to everything infinite.”

Primo Levi, Survival in Auschwitz”

15. Don’t get too comfortable.

““Comfort is the enemy of progress”.

I don’t know who actually said the quote but my Senior drill instructor said it in the beginning of boot camp and it definitely stuck with me.”

16. Don’t carry it around.

“”If you don’t heal what hurt you, you’ll bleed on people who didn’t cut you.”

17. We are special.

“”We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star. But we can understand the universe. That makes us something very special.”

— Stephen Hawking”

18. The big question.

“When having a difficult time making a difficult decision:

“What would you do if you weren’t afraid?””

19. You can get over it.

“”It takes a really long time to realize how truly miserable you are… and even longer to realize it doesn’t have to be that way.”

From Bojack Horseman.

It was the tipping point for me beating my depression. Going on three years depression free, it IS possible, keep holding on.”

20. Enjoy it.

“I don’t recall the quote exactly, but it goes similar to this: “Children make so much noise you can’t think, but when they leave the house forever, the silence is maddening.”

I have young kids, and this made me think about how they won’t be this age forever.”

21. Absolutely.

“”Integrity is what you do when no one is watching.”

My old hockey coach.”

22. Can’t hold on to it.

“”Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned”

– Buddha”

23. Interesting.

““Danger is very real, but fear is a choice.”

As someone who has a lot of irrational fears and is often paranoid/anxious, this helps me separate the difference between actual danger and when I’m just allowing myself to feel fear when no real danger is present.”

24. Yes, she was.

“”Bored people are often boring.”

My grandma isn’t always a nice person, but she was right.”

25. Get busy!

“‘Nothing will work unless you do.’ Maya Angelou

It really helps to combat procrastination.”

26. Can’t please everyone.

“My uncle once said to me, “life is too short to do things you don’t want to do.”

That’s when I stopped feeling guilty about not visiting people I really don’t care about or doing things that are expected of me that I really don’t want to do.”

27. I like this one.

“One of my dad’s favorites: “you won’t be able to understand illogical behavior with a logical thought process.”

Over the years it’s stopped me getting quite so frustrated at the behavior of others.”

28. Travel is important.

““Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.

Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.”

Mark Twain

Truly one of my favorites.”

29. Keep moving forward!

“No matter how many times I may stumble I will rise each time a better man.

The most important step a man can take is the next one.

It’s always the next one.”

30. A genius.

“”Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives.

The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.”

Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot.”

Are there any quotes that made a big impact on your life?

If so, please share them with us in the comments.

Thanks a lot!