There is no shortage of meaningful and thought-provoking quotes, and it is a difficult task to try and whittle the vast selection down to a shortlist of the most powerful.

But that is precisely what we have attempted to do here. The following 26 quotes are those that we consider to be among the most pertinent and most life-changing to have ever been spoke or written.

There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle. – Albert Einstein

If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward. – Martin Luther King Jr.

The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience. – Eleanor Roosevelt

To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

It is difficult to find happiness within oneself, but it is impossible to find it anywhere else. – Arthur Schopenhauer

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

Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster… for when you gaze long into the abyss. The abyss gazes also into you. – Friedrich Nietzsche

Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love. – Mother Teresa

Be careful of your thoughts, for your thoughts become your words.
Be careful of your words, for your words become your actions.
Be careful of your actions, for your actions become your habits.
Be careful of your habits, for your habits become your character.
Be careful of your character, for your character becomes your destiny.
– Chinese proverb, author unknown

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 which has been opened for us. – Helen Keller

We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are. – Anaïs Nin

The rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened. – John F. Kennedy

Man often becomes what he believes himself to be. If I keep on saying to myself that I cannot do a certain thing, it is possible that I may end by really becoming incapable of doing it. On the contrary, if I have the belief that I can do it, I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it even if I may not have it at the beginning. – Mahatma Gandhi

Some other great collections of quotes (article continues below):

• 38 Truly Inspirational Anne Frank Quotes That’ll Make You Think
• 3 Quotes About Strength & Courage For When You Feel You Can’t Go On
• 7 Quotes About Inner Peace To Help You Find Yours
• 50 Essential Paulo Coelho Quotes That Will Change Your Life
• 15 Perfectly Poignant Quotes From To Kill A Mockingbird
• 16 Quotes To Help You Let Go Of The Past

For peace to reign on Earth, humans must evolve into new beings who have learned to see the whole first. – Immanuel Kant

Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art…. It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival. – C.S Lewis

No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man. – Heraclitus

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

What we know is a drop, what we don’t know is an ocean. – Isaac Newton

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

Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time. – Thomas A. Edison

Be content with what you have;
rejoice in the way things are.
When you realize there is nothing lacking,
the whole world belongs to you.
– Lao Tzu

One can choose to go back toward safety or forward toward growth. Growth must be chosen again and again; fear must be overcome again and again. – Abraham Maslow

Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts. – Winston Churchill

We must love them both, those whose opinions we share and those whose opinions we reject, for both have labored in the search for truth, and both have helped us in finding it. – Thomas Aquinas

No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite. – Nelson Mandela

I don’t feel that it is necessary to know exactly what I am. The main interest in life and work is to become someone else that you were not in the beginning. – Michel Foucault

Which of these quotes is your favorite and do you have others that you think should make this list? Leave a comment below and let us know.