Firsts quotes
8.8K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Explore further
Browse quotes that often appear alongside firsts — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
Quote collection
Follow a thought to its author, or read the full quote page.
"One thing I've always thought about Morgana is that she's sort of a modern mind in a period body. She's not your usual warm princess, which is what drew me to her in the first place."
"All evolution in thought and conduct must at first appear as heresy and misconduct."
"The history of a revolution is for us first of all a history of the forcible entrance of the masses into the realm of rulership over their own destiny."
"Don't belong to anything. Don't belong to anyone. Just Be. Feel your Being first and foremost, and don't compare or compete. Just Be your Being."
"The first floor could be a restaurant. A good restaurant can survive as long as it has easy accessibility."
"We must never expect discretion in first love: it is accompanied by such excessive joy that unless the joy is allowed to overflow, it will choke you."
"I thought yesterday was the first day of the rest of my life but it turns out today is."
"Only the defeat of the proletariat in Germany in 1923 gave the decisive push to the creation of Stalin's theory of national socialism: the downward curve of the revolution gave rise to Stalinism, not to the theory of the permanent revolution, which was first formulated by me in 1905. This theory is not bound to a definite calendar of revolutionary events; it only reveals the world-wide interdependence of the revolutionary process."
"In my day, I, being the first supermodel, I hawked everything."
"You have to start giving first and expect absolutely nothing."
"So in the sense that we were all dealing with that freer approach, yes, it was certainly one of the first contacts, perhaps the first contact, when Peter came that summer. So it's a very pivotal moment that is documented there."
"Ed Sullivan brought me to TV first in 1952, then Garry Moore's program gave me a lot of confidence and freedom."
"Four: Be brave Tris. The first time is always the hardest."
"When I was 11, I won my first nationals at Savannah, defeating Kelly Henry in the finals."
"My first show at MoMA in New York was pictures of new developments along the eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains. They were housing developments that were brutal in many ways, that cared almost not a thing for the human beings inside. They were just designed to make money."
"In every first novel the hero is the author as Christ or Faust."
"It should be remembered that the foundation of the social contract is property; and its first condition, that every one should be maintained in the peaceful possession of what belongs to him."
"Once you have missed the first buttonhole, you'll never manage to button up."
"The world is as good as you are. You've got to learn to like yourself first."
"For the first time I was learning how much easier it was to leave than to stay behind and love."
