The 114 Most Important Life Lesson Quotes from Sages

Are you looking for some of the most profound insights on life? Have a look at the following selection of the most important life lesson quotes from wise individuals and true sages. And if you want more life lessons, have a look at our summary of the essential wisdom for living a successful, happy, and fulfilled life. Enjoy reading.

Wisdom is one of the greatest virtues a person can acquire. Since the early beginnings of civilization, there have always been individuals who felt the need to develop themselves, grow as a person and to ultimately gain wisdom.

“The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.”
William Shakespeare

The great challenge about wisdom is that it is not something we are born with. Usually, it can only be gained through experience and by deeply reflecting on these experiences. The vast majority of people have to go through some considerable amount of struggles and issues before they usually grow wiser about a specific subject.

If you’re looking for some condensed wisdom about life, have a look at these life lesson quotes

However, it does not always have to involve pain and suffering to gain wisdom. Quite the contrary, all those who are curious about the wise lessons from more experienced and wiser individuals can shorten this process. All it takes is the willingness to listen but also to ponder intensely about each and every lesson.

When it comes to wisdom, the crucial aspect is to put all the gained knowledge to the test. The wisdom that is not applied serves no real purpose. For this reason, the process of gaining wisdom is not only about reflecting on one’s experiences but also about applying what was learned.

The 114 Most Important Life Lesson Quotes

There are a great number of life lessons written down in thousands of books. In fact, when it comes to this subject, quantity is not the issue. What is more difficult is to filter out lessons that are not of great importance and to condense the wisest lessons. To help you save a lot of time, we have selected some of the most powerful life lesson quotes of all time.

The following life lessons originate from truly remarkable individuals who gained important insights into many different areas of life. By reflecting on their words, you can avoid a great number of painful mistakes that many people make.

Enjoy reading!

Here are the most powerful life lesson quotes:

1.

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”
Aristotle

2.

“When you have exhausted all possibilities, remember this – you haven’t.”
Thomas Edison

3.

“The greatest blessings of mankind are within us and within our reach. A wise man is content with his lot, whatever it may be, without wishing for what he has not.”
Seneca

4.

“Life must be understood backward. But it must be lived forward.”
Søren Kierkegaard

5.

“All life lessons are not learned at college. Life teaches them everywhere.”
L.M. Montgomery

6.

“If you are depressed you are living in the past, if you are anxious you are living in the future. If you are at peace, you are living in the present.”
Lao Tzu

7.

“Once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.”
Haruki Murakami

8.

“That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons that history has to teach.”
Aldous Huxley

9.

“An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson

10.

“God allows us to experience the low points of life in order to teach us lessons that we could learn in no other way.”
C.S. Lewis

11.

“If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way.”
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

12.

“Education never ends. It is a series of lessons, with the greatest for the last.”
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

13.

“Happiness is not the absence of problems, it’s the ability to deal with them.”
Steve Maraboli

14.

“To know what people really think, pay regard to what they do rather than what they say.”
Rene Descartes

15.

“In the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.”
Abraham Lincoln

Do you want more life lesson quotes? Here you go…

16.

“Life is ten percent what happens to you and ninety percent how you respond to it.”
Lou Holtz

17.

“Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young.”
Henry Ford

18.

“Short cuts make long delays.”
J.R.R. Tolkien

19.

“The secret of success is learning how to use pain and pleasure instead of having pain and pleasure use you. If you do that, you’re in control of your life. If you don’t, life controls you.”
Tony Robbins

20.

“One of the most important of life´s lessons is to learn independence, to understand freedom. This means independence from attachments, from results, from opinions, and from expectations. Breaking attachments leads to freedom, but breaking attachments does not mean abandoning a loving and meaningful relationship, a relationship that nourishes your soul. It means ending dependency on any person or thing. Love is never a dependency.”
Brian Weiss

21.

“When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one that has opened for us.”
Alexander Graham Bell

22.

“Talent means nothing, while experience, acquired in humility and with hard work, means everything.”
Patrick Süskind

23.

“The best and most beautiful things in this world cannot be seen or even heard but must be felt with the heart.”
Helen Keller

24.

“If there’s a single lesson that life teaches us, it’s that wishing doesn’t make it so.”
Lev Grossman

25.

“The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes.”
Winston S. Churchill

26.

“At the end of their lives, people assess how they’ve done not in terms of their income but in terms of their spirit, and I beg you to do the same, even if those who came before sometimes failed to do so.”
Anna Quindlen

27.

“No one ever finds life worth living – one has to make it worth living.”
Winston Churchill

28.

“No man’s knowledge here can go beyond his experience.”
John Locke

29.

“Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson

30.

“The more man mediates upon good thoughts, the better will be his world and the world at large.”
Confucius

Life lesson quotes like this are spot on

31.

“Accept responsibility for your life. Know that it is you who will get you where you want to go, no one else.”
Les Brown

32.

“In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.”
Robert Frost

33.

“Once you begin to take note of the things you are grateful for, you begin to lose sight of the things that you lack.”
Germany Kent

34.

“Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”
Thomas A. Edison

35.

“The only thing I know is that I know nothing, and I am no quite sure that I know that.”
Socrates

36.

“There is only one way to avoid criticism: do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing.”
Aristotle

37.

“?Though nobody can go back and make a new beginning… Anyone can start over and make a new ending.”
Chico Xavier

38.

“Happiness is like a butterfly; the more you chase it, the more it will elude you, but if you turn your attention to other things, it will come and sit softly on your shoulder.”
Henry David Thoreau

39.

“Nothing is a waste of time if you use the experience wisely.”
Auguste Rodin

40.

“I have learned to seek my happiness by limiting my desires, rather than in attempting to satisfy them.”
John Stuart Mill

41.

“Life is inherently risky. There is only one big risk you should avoid at all costs, and that is the risk of doing nothing.”
Denis Waitley

42.

“Things alter for the worse spontaneously, if they be not altered for the better designedly”
Francis Bacon

43.

“Some lessons can’t be taught, they simply have to be learned.”
Jodi Picoult

44.

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

45.

“Happiness is the highest good”
Aristotle

46.

“Freedom is secured not by the fulfilling of one’s desires, but by the removal of desire”
Epictetus

47.

“A lesson taught with humor is a lesson retained.”
Ruth K. Westheimer

48.

“The secret of happiness, you see is not found in seeking more, but in developing the capacity to enjoy less.”
Socrates

49.

“Find a group of people who challenge and inspire you; spend a lot of time with them, and it will change your life.”
Amy Poehler

50.

“To suffer without complaint is the only lesson we have to learn in this life”
Vincent van Gogh

These life lessons quotes are brimming with wisdom

51.

“He who thinks great thoughts, often makes great errors”
Martin Heidegger

52.

“The quality of a person’s life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavor.”
Vince Lombardi

53.

“The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.”
Alan Watts

54.

“Everyone you meet is a part of your journey, but not all of them are meant to stay in your life. Some people are just passing through to bring you gifts; either they’re blessings or lessons.”
Roy T. Bennett

55.

“There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance”
Socrates

56.

“Embrace uncertainty. Some of the most beautiful chapters in our lives won’t have a title until much later.”
Bob Goff

57.

“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing”
Edmund Burke

58.

“There are many ways of going forward, but only one way of standing still.”
Franklin D. Roosevelt

59.

“Do not let the behavior of others destroy your inner peace.”
Dalai Lama

60.

“The unexamined life is not worth living”
Socrates

61.

“All teachings are mere references. The true experience is living your own life. Then, even the holiest of words are only words.”
Ming-Dao Deng

62.

“Life is a long lesson in humility.”
J.M. Barrie

63.

“All humans make mistakes. What determines a person’s character aren’t the mistakes we make. It’s how we take those mistakes and turn them into lessons rather than excuses.”
Colleen Hoover

64.

“What we think determines what happens to us, so if we want to change our lives, we need to stretch our minds.”
Wayne Dyer

65.

“We cannot change anything if we cannot change our thinking.”
Santosh Kalw

Here are some life lesson quotes about happiness

66.

“Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness.”
Bertrand Russell

67.

“Some people just come through our lives to bring us something: a gift, a blessing, a lesson we need to learn. And that’s why they’re here. You’ll have that gift forever.”
Danielle Steel

68.

“The ultimate value of life depends upon awareness and the power of contemplation rather than upon mere survival.”
Aristotle

69.

“Forgive but do not forget, or you will be hurt again. Forgiving changes the perspectives. Forgetting loses the lesson.”
Paulo Coelho

70.

“One of the big lessons I have learned from my journey is you can’t please everyone, so don’t try.”
Chris Colfer

71.

“Do you know the difference between education and experience? Education is when you read the fine print; experience is what you get when you don’t.”
Pete Seeger

72.

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

73.

“Anybody can sympathize with the sufferings of a friend, but it requires a very fine nature to sympathize with a friend’s success.”
Oscar Wilde

74.

“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new.”
Socrates

75.

“Life’s single lesson: that there is more accident to it than a man can ever admit to in a lifetime and stay sane.”
Thomas Pynchon

76.

“If you don’t design your own life plan, chances are you’ll fall into someone else’s plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much.”
Jim Rohn

77.

“I realized that the deepest spiritual lessons are not learned by His letting us have our way in the end, but by His making us wait, bearing with us in love and patience until we are able to honestly to pray what He taught His disciples to pray: Thy will be done.”
Elisabeth Elliot

78.

“A lesson without pain is meaningless. For you cannot gain anything without sacrificing something else in return, but once you have overcome it and made it your own… you will gain an irreplaceable Fullmetal heart.”
Hiromu Arakawa

79.

“It is one thing to show a man that he is in error, and another to put him in possession of truth”
John Locke

80.

“Learning how to think in the midst of fear is a lesson that everyone needs to learn.”
Veronica Roth

81.

“What the superior man seeks is in himself; what the small man seeks is in others.”
Confucius

82.

“The brave man is he who overcomes not only his enemies but his pleasures”
Democritus

83.

“Every event has a why and all adversity teaches us a lesson… Never regret your past. Accept it as the teacher that it is.”
Robin Sharma

84.

“A bruise is a lesson… and each lesson makes us better.”
George R.R. Martin

85.

“Life is like a piano. What you get out of it depends on how you play it.”
Albert Einstein

Even more powerful quotes about life lessons for you

86.

“When life is too easy for us, we must beware or we may not be ready to meet the blows which sooner or later come to everyone, rich or poor.”
Eleanor Roosevelt

87.

“If you hate a person, then you’re defeated by them.”
Confucius

88.

“No amount of anxiety makes any difference to anything that is going to happen.”
Alan Watts

89.

“That’s the thing about lessons, you always learn them when you don’t expect them or want them.”
Cecelia Ahern

90.

“A ‘no’ uttered from deepest conviction is better than a ‘yes’ merely uttered to please, or worse, to avoid trouble.”
Mahatma Gandhi

91.

“Never let hard lessons harden your heart; the hard lessons of life are meant to make you better, not bitter.”
Roy T. Bennett

92.

“I think of life as a good book. The further you get into it, the more it begins to make sense.”
Harold Kushner

93.

“Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can’t help them, at least don’t hurt them.”
Dalai Lama

94.

“Lesson learned? When people say, “You really, really must” do something, it means you don’t really have to. No one ever says, “You really, really must deliver the baby during labor. When it’s true, it doesn’t need to be said.”
Tina Fey

95.

“If I’ve learned one lesson from all that’s happened to me, it’s that there is no such thing as the biggest mistake of your existence. There’s no such thing as ruining your life. Life’s a pretty resilient thing, it turns out.”
Sophie Kinsella

96.

“Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them – that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.”
Lao Tzu

97.

“He who has a way to live can bear almost any how.”
Friedrich Nietzsche

98.

“The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays”
Søren Kierkegaard

99.

“There are times when wisdom cannot be found in the chambers of parliament or the halls of academia but at the unpretentious setting of the kitchen table.”
E.A. Bucchianeri

100.

“Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.”
Albert Einstein

101.

“The most desired gift of love is not diamonds or roses or chocolate. It is focused attention.”
Richard Warren

102.

“Waking up to who you are requires letting go of who you imagine yourself to be.”
Alan Watts

103.

“Friends show their love in times of trouble, not in happiness.”
Euripides

104.

“If they spit at you behind your back it means you’re ahead of them.”
Confucius

105.

“All you have to do is to pay attention; lessons always arrive when you are ready, and if you can read the signs, you will learn everything you need to know in order to take the next step”
Paulo Coelho

106.

“It is not enough to have a good mind; the main thing is to use it well.”
Rene Descartes

107.

“But just because you bury something, that doesn’t mean it stops existing.”
Jenny Han

108.

“Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.”
John F. Kennedy

109.

“The lesson I’ve learned the most often in life is that you’re always going to know more in the future than you know now.”
Taylor Swift

110.

“This is an important lesson to remember when you’re having a bad day, a bad month, or a bad year. Things will change: you won’t feel this way forever. And anyway, sometimes the hardest lessons to learn are the ones your soul needs most.”
Kelly Cutrone

111.

“When anger arises, think of the consequences.”
Confucius

112.

“I wanted to teach myself some life lessons at the age of 60 and one of them was that you don’t give up.”
Diana Nyad

113.

“One of the big lessons I have learned from my journey is you can’t please everyone, so don’t try.”
Chris Colfer

114.

“Life is not about how fast you run or how high you climb, but how well you bounce.”
Vivian Komori

I hope you enjoyed this collection of life lesson quotes. What has been the most important life lesson for you so far?

Stay victorious!