Isambard Kingdom Brunel

The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.

The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.

Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.

The unexamined life is not worth living.

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

The only way to escape the corruptible effect of praise is to go on working.

I have always been a great admirer of those who do things, rather than those who talk about them.

The greatest discovery of all time is that a person can change his future by merely changing his attitude.

It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that they are difficult.

The best way to predict the future is to create it.

I have learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.

The only true failure is the failure to try.

To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.

The soul's highest aspiration is to know truth.

Beauty is truth, truth beauty, that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

The only constant in life is change.

Our lives are not our own. We are bound to others, past and present, and by each crime and every kindness, we birth our future.

The public are not to be trusted with their own safety.