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Quotes about advice

119 quotes from 93 people

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My advice to myself and to everyone else, particularly young people, is to turn on, tune in and drop out.
Timothy Leary1920–1996The Politics of Ecstasy (1968)
- Youth
Don’t get set into one form, adapt it and build your own, and let it grow, be like water.
Bruce Lee1940–1973Bruce Lee: A Warrior’s Journey (2000); here, Lee was reciting lines he wrote for his short lived role on the TV series Longstreet.
- Change
You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view — until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.
Harper Lee1926–2016To Kill a Mockingbird (1960), Pt. 1, Ch. 3 (Atticus Finch)
- Wisdom
When a child asks you something, answer him, for goodness’ sake. But don’t make a production of it. Children are children, but they can spot an evasion quicker than adults, and evasion simply muddles ‘em.
Harper Lee1926–2016To Kill a Mockingbird (1960), Pt. 1, Ch. 9 (Atticus Finch)
- Children
Don’t avoid the cliches — they are cliches because they work!
George Lucasborn 1944Comment at the Imagineering offices of Disney, on Star Tours simulators (1985), quoted in “The Imagineering Way: Ideas to Ignite your Creativity” (2003) by Marty Sklar
- Writing
A prince who is not wise himself will never take good advice
Niccolò Machiavelli1469–1527The Prince (1532), Chapter XXIIIIn context
- Leadership
- Wisdom
Be peaceful, be courteous, obey the law, respect everyone; but if someone puts his hand on you, send him to the cemetery.
Malcolm X1925–1965Malcolm X Speaks (1965), p. 12
It’s a terrible thing to be alone — yes it is — it is — but don’t lower your mask until you have another mask prepared beneath — as terrible as you like — but a mask.
Katherine Mansfield1888–1923Letter to her future husband, John Middleton Murry (July 1917), from The Collected Letters of Katherine Mansfield, vol. I
Follow your inclinations with due regard to the policeman round the corner.
W. Somerset Maugham1874–1965Of Human Bondage (1915), Chapter LIIIIn context
- Morality
It’s no good crying over spilt milk, because all the forces of the universe were bent on spilling it.
W. Somerset Maugham1874–1965Of Human Bondage (1915), Chapter LXVIIIn context
- Philosophy
Oh, man! admire and model thyself after the whale! Do thou, too, remain warm among ice. Do thou, too, live in this world without being of it. Be cool at the equator; keep thy blood fluid at the Pole. Like the great dome of St. Peter’s, and like the great whale, retain, O man! in all seasons a temperature of thine own.
Herman Melville1819–1891Moby-Dick (1851), Chapter LXVIIIIn context
- Character
Never fight fair with a stranger, boy. You’ll never get out of the jungle that way.
Arthur Miller1915–2005Death of a Salesman (1949), Ben
At 70 years old, if I could give my younger self one piece of advice, it would be to use the words “fuck off” much more frequently.
Helen Mirrenborn 1945The Mail on Sunday (September 2015); reproduced in “Quote Unquote,” The Stage (17 September 2015)
- Age
Against backbiting there is no defence
So let us try to live in innocence,
To silly tattle pay no heed at all,
And leave the gossips free to vent their gall.
Molière1622–1673Tartuffe (1664–1669), Act I, Scene I, spoken by CleanteIn context
- Talking
If you want a golden rule that will fit everybody, this is it: Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.
William Morris1834–1896“The Beauty of Life”, a lecture before the Birmingham Society of Arts and School of Design (19 February 1880), later published in Hopes and Fears for Art: Five Lectures Delivered in Birmingham, London, and Nottingham, 1878–1881 (1882)
- Beauty