In his famous song, perhaps one of his most famous, Paul McCartney admits that "when I find myself in times of trouble, mother Mary comes to me, speaking words of wisdom - let it be!" Well, the words of wisdom can be completely different, and can be heard from any person, and they do not have to be damn smart themselves - the main thing is how these words resonate in our soul.
A few days ago there was a thread on the AskReddit community where the user u/Some_Being_Online asked people "What is the deepest thing someone has said to you?" The result was almost 600 various comments. Some of them are just jokes or puns, some are universal quotes or wishes, but there are also genuine diamonds of wisdom, so here are the best of them, according to Bored Panda.
More info: Reddit
This post may include affiliate links.
When my baby died and was a mess someone told me, “ I can’t imagine the pain you’re going through. I know your heart, expectations, assumed roles and future memories have been broken. But to your child they had the perfect life. All they ever knew was your love." I still cry thinking about it but it really did help. I know some may take this differently, but it was what I needed at the time.
Didn't know how much I needed to read this. Thank you to the OP.
When you're about to become a parent the amount of s**t you get told is unreal. Parents can't wait to tell you "you'll get no sleep, you'll have no life, it's all changing nappies etc"
However, I was in a meeting with a guy at work, we were making small talk before the meeting and I told him I was about to become a dad expecting the usual. Instead he just went really deep but really chilled and just went "you're about to have the most amazing thing happen to you ever but never forget, they're not yours. You're just borrowing them while they need you but you need to get them ready to not need you anymore." The older my kids get the more I appreciate it
"It's because of what we went through that we are where we are." (in a good way)
My Wife. (speaking of my alcoholism)
6 years sober
In fact, it is impossible to find completely universal words of wisdom even for two different people, because each of us perceives advice in completely different ways. Yes, even if we take such a universal thing as the Ten Commandments of Christianity, which actually contain a direct recommendation, for example: "Thou shalt not bear false witness against your neighbor!" Hey, but after all, each of us probably has an overly entitled neighbor and, perhaps, many of us have violated this commandment... Therefore, you should not take any advice read here as a direct guide to action.
"Better a terrible end than a horror without end."
This was said by a friend of mine who had been fighting cancer for a long time . He died the next day , after years of struggle and 4 remissions .
"Yes, of course, heaven and hell are great and terrifying and all. But what if you did good just for the sake of it? No eternal reward or punishment afterward. Would you still do good if you knew at the end, there ***is no*** reward?"
Started me down the path of deconstructing my faith and leaving religion behind. Thank you random lady I talked to in line at comic book day back in 2014 in Moncton.
When I often hear random folks in convos with others say “I’m a Christian”…I think, uh oh there’s got to be a ‘but’ in there somewhere. If you are a follower of Christ, live it don’t broadcast it!
Prepare your child for the road, not the road for your child.
For some reason, some people believe that only a person with exceptional life experience like that which comes with old age can give wise advice. "This opinion comes from prehistoric times, when literally the survival of the human race was sometimes at stake," says Vladimir Nemertsalov, a teacher and school principal from Odessa, Ukraine, whom Bored Panda asked for a comment on this post. "When any person who lived to a certain, for example, old age, by default had tremendous experience of survival, and whose opinion from this angle was worth listening to. But now the situation is fundamentally changing."
"Firstly, humanity has not faced issues of survival for a long time, and secondly, the life experience that was relevant a couple of decades ago, today, may turn out to be not only useless - even sometimes harmful. Yes, in the modern world, many young people can have truly priceless skills and experiences that some older people never even dreamed of. No offense, but sometimes it happens just like that," Vladimir supposes.
Ive always liked the quote "Sometimes a hypocrite is just a man in the process of changing" and I think it's more important than ever in our 'cancel culture' society.
A persons actions are a reflection of their character, not yours
It's not that deep, but I heard it as a sophomore in college (remember that hormonal swamp that is your late teens?) and it just floored me.
"The opposite of love isn't hate; it's complete and utter indifference."
"Love me or hate me, both are in my favor. For if you love me I will always be in your heart; if you hate me I will always be in your mind." Shakespeare.
What can I say, sometimes inspiration comes not only from words, but simply from actions - and often not even from people. For example, according to a medieval legend, after some kind of heavy defeat in his youth, the Asian commander Tamerlane saw how an ant stubbornly tried to crawl onto a flower stem, falling, getting up - and crawling again. Over and over... Well, the great conqueror of the Middle Ages is probably not the best role model, but the legend itself, you see, is incredibly instructive and beautiful.
"Don't focus on always being happy, focus on always being content."
Always being happy is an unrealistic goal, but you can always be content with the way things are.
This did a lot for me while in therapy. With depression it's impossible to gain happiness, but even at your worst days tiny moments of contentment are indeed possible. If you look back on your bad day and see all you have still managed to do, you can be quite content. Sometimes it's enough to know it could have been worse to reach a nice equilibrium of emotions that doesn't feel too bad and fills the gaping maw of depression just enough to find the strength to go on. It's much better to settle with that nice calm of content than dealing with the desperation of being unable to feel happiness no matter how hard you try
I stopped giving a s**t about my birthday since I was 27. I used to request off or at least the day after off to recover from the previous night but I just stopped caring. Last year, an old lady at my job found out it was my birthday and surprised me with a card with money in it, the kind of way a grandma would. I tried to tell her it wasn't a big deal and give the money back but she insisted saying "You should always celebrate your birthday. You don't know how many you have left."
Sometimes, the best way to help someone is to let them help you. You may not need their help, but it will make them feel useful.
I learned this when my husband died and then 6 mos later I got cancer. None of my friends could fix the situation but they all wanted to do something, anything to make it better. I learned that Grace is saying yes to someone's offer to help. Saying yes to help isn't easy for me, truthfully, but I had to.
Interestingly, from a linguistic point of view, wise words often become simple examples of opposition and inversion. For example, "prepare your child for the road, not the road for your child" or maybe "enjoy art in yourself, not yourself in art." It works flawlessly, by the way, so here's another wise piece of advice, this time directly from me: comment the selection, don't select the comments! But seriously, any words that you have heard from others that have changed your life for the better should actually be considered wise. So please let us know these words too, and maybe they will come in handy to someone, who knows?
The grass is greener where you water it
The snow is yellower where You pisss on it. I still get what the quote means.
“You can’t keep in giving someone the benefit of the doubt when they get all the benefits and you get all the doubts.”
A teacher in high-school was teaching literature but his whole curriculum had anti-capitlism and especially anti commercial vibes, and being a teenage s**t head I pushed back against him at every chance. One day after class I basically just said "you teach like everything is terrible but I'm alive and know things aren't that bad"
To which he replied "imagine an outhouse. You know how when you walk into the outhouse the smell is almost overwhelmingly terrible? But once you've been in there for a bit, your nose acclimates and you start to notice it less right? Now imagine you're born in, and live your whole life inside an outhouse, never once leaving. How do you respond when someone comes in and tells you your house stinks?"
Probably the number one most important lesson I learned in my entire education career.
"It's better to appear rude and live than to be nice and get killed." This was from a self defense instructor, and it just blew my mind. They were talking about listening to your instincts, and not worrying about appearing rude when your gut is telling you something is off.
This is my issue with "when they go low, we go high!" Self-righteousness doesn't stop bullets. History is written by the victors, and the graveyards of the world are full of dead martyrs of lost causes. Decent people need to be willing to do whatever is necessary to make the world better for their children, because otherwise the world will continue to get steadily worse. You can weep for your moral high ground later.
A 5 year old told me "Loneliness is when you have lost yourself."
Children can be the most interesting people to talk to. They have so much to say but the majority of people don’t listen
If someone you like doesn't like you back, as hard as it is you have to let them go. If you truly care about them, as you claim you do, respect them when they say their happiness is without you. Otherwise trying to force it is now only about you, and that's not love or friendship
Reminds me of the so, so sad song “I can’t make you love me if you don’t”, right about the time husband left me for another. Sad then, now, happy solo.
“Worry is not preparation.”
And worry lessens if you prepare well. If you feel worried, sit back, take a deep breath and go through everything you could do for real preparation. Make a list of everything you can do and put a checkmark behind everything that's already done. It does help. At first one has to force oneself to do it methodically, worry wants you running around like a headless chicken, it's hard to fight worry and go back to that list. But if you manage to force yourself to prepare calmly, the worry will lessen considerably
Maybe not the deepest thing I've ever heard but definitely something that changed my life the most over time: "You become an adult when you realize your parents are just people."
It might seem obvious but when you're in an unhealthy, borderline Stockholm-esque home life when you're young, that realization can slap.
OMG this realization brought me sooooooo much peace and allowed me to put to rest so many hurts.....
My dad told me he's been thinking of me every single day of my life since I was born. He kept a note of my birthday and name on his fridge the day he learnt it.
We met for the first time when I was 25. He died that month.
My horrible mum convinced me he hated me, and wanted nothing to do with me, my whole life.
What a waste.
That is a waste, but I think I would rather know for sure than not know and anyway you did get the best outcome of that. You found out your dad loved you dearly and that your mom was a terrible person
Only floss the teeth you want to keep.
Reminds me of the large, carved wooden sign at my childhood dentist's office, which read in big, swoopy rainbow letters, "Ignore your teeth, and they'll go away"🌈🦷
Even when you are right you don't always win.
I finally learned, as I matured, that I don't have to win every debate or correct everyone's facts. It's kinder and more peaceable to concede the point and in most cases it makes absolutely no difference in the end.
When I found that the uncle who raised me after my parents died was actually my biological father, the mix of extreme emotions was hard to process. I couldn't understand why he wouldn't have told me the truth after they died. I confronted him about it, demanding answers. He said "I'd rather be your father, even if you couldn't know it, than to break my word to your mother." I gained so much perspective on who he was as a person in that moment. The sacrifice he made for the sake of my mother's memory blew me away. He loved her so much, even after she died, that he held that truth inside for nearly 30 years. I still wish I'd known sooner, but the respect I gained for him, that level of selflessness....I can only dream of finding a love like that some day.
I needed a bit backstory so I looked up the original. Seems that her mom and bio dad were a couple. They broke up bc he had to move for a job and she didn't want to go with him. After some time she married bio dads brother and had children with him. When later bio dad returned to his home town they had an affair with a child as a result. Mom then died in childbirth before the planned divorce had happened. Her stepfather mistreated her out of resentment before dying himself when she was 7/8. She then went to live with her "uncle" and found out later on that her uncle was actually her bio dad. Seems that the whole family decided not to tell her the truth about the whole thing and bio dad respected the wish of the mother. Bio dad died unexpectedly not long after she discovered all this 😢
“Why tiptoe through life to arrive safely at death?”
Although you also have the opposite, "I would rather be late in this life, than early in the next".
Dont be afraid of fear. Fear is natural and encourages thought and action.
Do not, however, give in to panic. It is irrational and can lead you to harm.
I'm a rep at a cellphone store and an old Austrian woman, a reg customer of mine said randomly "Chelsea, all we have in this very second is each other. Right now all we have is eachother. There is nothing but this one second right now. You see, people drag the past with them and that's why there is so little forgiveness in the world."
Afterwards we both cried together a little and that has positively effected every day of my life since.
It’s more like good advice rather than being very deep but my dad always told me to “look at people, not through them”. I never thought much about it, but I noticed when I remembered it in the back of my mind while having a conversation with someone, you could tell a noticeable difference in their comfortability. I always make a point to do it now.
All that you’ve gone through: the good, the bad, the in between has led you to exactly where you are now. You had to go through it all in order to be here, with me now.
"When they made you, they didn't break the mould. You are still in it, and you have to make yourself" - My Mom
Note: this post originally had 42 images. It’s been shortened to the top 30 images based on user votes.
"If you're the smartest person in the room, it's time to find a new room" has always stuck with me over the years.
There is this one German proverb every German child has prob heard a thousand times which I always resented : Der Klügere gibt immer nach (the smart one always gives in). Years ago I overheard an argument where one threw in this cràppy piece of wisdom which was immediately countered by "Wenn der Klügere immer nachgibt, regieren die Dummen die Welt" (If the smart one always gives in, then the stupid will rule the world.) This struck me like lightning and stayed with me ever since. Sometimes you just have to make a stand and not give in!
I prefer "never argue with an idiot, people won't know the difference". That said, arguing with an idiot in private can be great fun.
Load More Replies...
The phrase I espouse the most is "you can't fill someone else's cup when your own is empty". That is, if you do not help yourself, how can you help anyone else? It's just a slightly more abstract version of 'place your own mask before assisting others'.
Right one I constantly share with other people is the same adage just worded differently "You cannot pour from an empty cup."
Load More Replies... "If you're the smartest person in the room, it's time to find a new room" has always stuck with me over the years.
There is this one German proverb every German child has prob heard a thousand times which I always resented : Der Klügere gibt immer nach (the smart one always gives in). Years ago I overheard an argument where one threw in this cràppy piece of wisdom which was immediately countered by "Wenn der Klügere immer nachgibt, regieren die Dummen die Welt" (If the smart one always gives in, then the stupid will rule the world.) This struck me like lightning and stayed with me ever since. Sometimes you just have to make a stand and not give in!
I prefer "never argue with an idiot, people won't know the difference". That said, arguing with an idiot in private can be great fun.
Load More Replies... The phrase I espouse the most is "you can't fill someone else's cup when your own is empty". That is, if you do not help yourself, how can you help anyone else? It's just a slightly more abstract version of 'place your own mask before assisting others'.
Right one I constantly share with other people is the same adage just worded differently "You cannot pour from an empty cup."
Load More Replies...