Famous Philosophy Quotes in English, Explained Simply

How to use this list

Famous quotes are easy to remember and hard to understand. Cut out of their books, they often seem to say something the thinker never meant. Below are well-known lines, each with a plain explanation and a link to the part of the book where it appears, retold in easy English with a Korean translation of every sentence.

Learning a quote with its context is also one of the best ways to remember English. You get a sentence worth saying, a story to hang it on, and a reason to use it.

Ancient Greece and Rome

• 'The unexamined life is not worth living.' Socrates, in Plato's Apology. He says this at his own trial: he would rather die than stop asking questions about how to live.
• 'One swallow does not make a spring.' Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics. Happiness belongs to a whole life, not to one good day.
• 'We become just by doing just acts.' Aristotle, We Become What We Do. Character is built by practice: we become brave by doing brave acts.
• 'Some things are within our power, and some things are not.' Epictetus, Enchiridion. The first line of Stoicism.
• 'We are not given a short life, but we make it short.' Seneca, On the Shortness of Life. Life is long enough; we waste it.
• 'What stands in the way of the action moves the action forward.' Marcus Aurelius, Meditations.

Ancient China

• 'Is it not a pleasure to learn, and to practise what you have learned again and again?' Confucius, the first line of the Analects (학이시습지 불역열호).
• 'A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.' Laozi, Tao Te Ching (천 리 길도 한 걸음부터).
• 'Nothing in the world is softer and weaker than water, yet nothing is better at wearing away what is hard and strong.' Laozi, Be Like Water.

The modern world

• 'I think, therefore I am.' Descartes, Discourse on the Method. After doubting everything, the one thing he cannot doubt is that he is doubting.
• 'It is much safer to be feared than loved, if you must give up one.' Machiavelli, The Prince.
• 'Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.' Rousseau, The Social Contract. A protest, not a description: what could make government fair?
• 'Act only on that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.' Kant, Groundwork. Before you act, ask: what if everyone did this?
• 'Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.' Mill, On Liberty.
• 'A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.' Emerson, Self-Reliance. Don't refuse to change your mind just because you said something else yesterday.
• 'The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.' Thoreau, Walden.
• 'I teach you the Superman. Man is something that must be overcome.' Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Human beings are a bridge to something greater, not the final goal.

Make the quotes your own

Pick three quotes from this page and read the part each one comes from. Listen to the narration, say the line aloud, and write one sentence about your own life that uses it. That is far more memorable than collecting quotes in a notebook. For the whole shelf in a sensible order, see Philosophy classics in easy English, and for the Romans, Stoicism in easy English.