Ludwig van Beethoven
Composer, Pianist
"What you are, you are by accident of birth; what I am, I am by myself. There are and will be a thousand princes; there is only one Beethoven."
Birth quotes
Birth
563 quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Jawaharlal Nehru
Politician, Prime Minister
"By education I am an Englishman, by views an internationalist, by culture a Muslim and a Hindu only by accident of birth."
Meister Eckhart
Theologian, Philosopher
"Become aware of what is in you. Announce it, pronounce it, produce it, and give birth to it."
Charlotte Bronte
Novelist, Poet
"Crying does not indicate that you are weak. Since birth, it has always been a sign that you are alive."
Sigmund Freud
Neurologist, Psychoanalyst
"The act of birth is the first experience of anxiety, and thus the source and prototype of the affect of anxiety."
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside birth — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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Birth quotes (page 1 of 29)
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"I wanna never have birth and fail as a father. I would never want the illness that killed in my Nana"
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"most men and women, by birth or nature, lack the means to advance in wealth or power, but all have the ability to advance in knowledge."
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"Birth is not a beginning; death is not an end. There is existence without limitation; there is continuity without a starting point."
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"Quackery gives birth to nothing; gives death to all things."
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"Creativity is a characteristic given to all human beings at birth."
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"The whole life of the individual is nothing but the process of giving birth to himself; indeed, we should be fully born when we die."
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"Men are marked from the moment of birth to rule or be ruled."
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"Birth was the death of him."
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"Inch by inch I conquered the inner terrain I was born with. Bit by bit I reclaimed the swamp in which I'd languished. I gave birth to my infinite being, but I had to wrench myself out of me with forceps."
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"I am part of the part that once was everything, Part of the darkness which gave birth to light… Mephistopheles, from Faust."
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"The two moments are much alike: birth and death are made of the same fabric."
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"As each breath goes out, let it be the end of that moment and the birth of something new. . ."
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"To hope means to be ready at every moment for that which is not yet born, and yet not become desperate if there is no birth in our lifetime."
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"Why am I as I am? To understand that of any person, his whole life, from Birth must be reviewed. All of our experiences fuse into our personality. Everything that ever happened to us is an ingredient."
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"Our jovial star reigned at his birth."
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"I had seen birth and death but had thought they were different."
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"He is born in vain, who having attained the human birth, so difficult to get, does not attempt to realize God in this very life."
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"Without birth and death, and without the perpetual transmutation of all the forms of life, the world would be static, rhythm-less, undancing, mummified."
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"I was born a premature birth. My first words were "bleep, bleep" and "Curse, Curse" My breath still stinks and I'm on my 3rd cert."
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"A well-behaved woman seldom makes history"
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