100 Profound Quotes by F. Scott Fitzgerald: Insights on Life and Love

100 Profound Quotes by F. Scott Fitzgerald: Insights on Life and Love

F. Scott Fitzgerald, a luminary of 20th-century literature, is celebrated for his enchanting prose and insightful reflections on themes of existence, romance, and ambition. His iconic novels, such as The Great Gatsby and This Side of Paradise, have firmly established his reputation as a literary legend. Beyond these masterful narratives, Fitzgerald’s notable quotes continue to resonate, inspiring readers globally with their lyrical essence and deep philosophical undertones. Whether you seek inspirational quotes, memorable lines, or thought-provoking insights, Fitzgerald’s words provide a unique perspective on the complexities of human experience.

• “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
• “I hope you live a life you’re proud of. If you find that you’re not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again.”
• “You don’t write because you want to say something, you write because you have something to say.”
• “The loneliest moment in someone’s life is when they are watching their whole world fall apart, and all they can do is stare blankly.”
• “Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat.”
• “There are all kinds of love in this world, but never the same love twice.”
• “Show me a hero, and I’ll write you a tragedy.”
• “The world only exists in your eyes. You can make it as big or as small as you want.”
• “Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall.”
• “Cut out all these exclamation points. An exclamation point is like laughing at your own joke.”
• “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.”
• “Personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures.”
• “Genius is the ability to put into effect what is on your mind.”
• “It’s never too late to become who you want to be.”
• “You are the finest, loveliest, tenderest, and most beautiful person I have ever known—and even that is an understatement.”
• “Action is character.”
• “Vitality shows not only in the ability to persist but in the ability to start over.”
• “The rich are different from you and me.”
• “I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life.”
• “That is part of the beauty of all literature. You discover that your longings are universal longings, that you’re not lonely and isolated from anyone. You belong.”
• “To be kind is more important than to be right.”
• “Let us learn to show our friendship for a man when he is alive and not after he is dead.”
• “The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places.”
• “A great social success is a pretty girl who plays her cards as carefully as if she were plain.”
• “Experience is the name so many people give to their mistakes.”
• “It takes two to make an accident.”
• “There is no confusion like the confusion of a simple mind.”
• “I don’t want just words. If that’s all you have for me, you’d better go.”
• “Reserving judgments is a matter of infinite hope.”
• “Life is much more successfully looked at from a single window.”
• “When people are taken out of their depths, they lose their heads, no matter how charming a bluff they may put up.”
• “First you take a drink, then the drink takes a drink, then the drink takes you.”
• “I love her, and that’s the beginning and end of everything.”
• “Her voice is full of money.”
• “All life is just a progression toward, and then a recession from, one phrase—‘I love you.’”
• “The victor belongs to the spoils.”
• “He wanted to recover something, some idea of himself perhaps, that had gone into loving Daisy.”
• “You can’t repeat the past. Can’t repeat the past? Why, of course, you can!”
• “Angry, and half in love with her, and tremendously sorry, I turned away.”
• “No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart.”

Fitzgerald’s prose remains as impactful today as when it first graced the page, offering profound insights into the themes of love, ambition, and the human condition.

• “The beauty of literature is you discover that your longings are universal longings, that you’re not lonely and isolated from anyone. You belong.”
• “He had one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it.”
• “It’s not a slam at you when people are rude, it’s a slam at the people they’ve met before.”
• “They slipped briskly into an intimacy from which they never recovered.”
• “What was the use of doing great things if I could have a better time telling her what I was going to do?”
• “In his blue gardens, men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars.”
• “I don’t ask you to love me always like this, but I ask you to remember. Somewhere inside me there will always be the person I am tonight.”
• “I’m not sentimental—I’m as romantic as you are. The idea, you know, is that the sentimental person thinks things will last—the romantic person has a desperate confidence that they won’t.”
• “All good writing is swimming underwater and holding your breath.”
• “Sometimes it’s harder to forgive yourself than to forgive someone else.”
• “Trouble has no necessary connection with discouragement—discouragement has a germ of its own.”
• “The best things in life are free. The second best are very expensive.”
• “Every one suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues, and this is mine: I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known.”
• “She was beautiful, but not like those girls in the magazines. She was beautiful for the way she thought.”
• “Men get to be a mixture of the charming mannerisms of the women they have known.”
• “He smiled understandingly—much more than understandingly. It was one of those rare smiles that you may come across four or five times in life.”
• “Family quarrels are bitter things. They don’t go according to any rules. They’re not like aches or wounds; they’re more like splits in the skin that won’t heal.”
• “Writers aren’t exactly people—they’re a whole lot of people trying to be one person.”
• “You can stroke people with words.”
• “There’s no such thing as a flawless love or a flawless life—just beautiful imperfections worth holding onto.”

Fitzgerald’s eloquent expressions not only resonate with poetic beauty but also offer profound insights into the intricacies of love, ambition, and human connections. His timeless quotes remind us of the enduring relevance of his works, which continue to inspire generations.

• “There is no substitute for talent. Industry and all its virtues are of no avail.”
• “No grand idea was ever born in a conference, but a lot of foolish ideas have died there.”
• “He had held out his hand and he had touched God.”
• “All I kept thinking about, over and over, was ‘You can’t live forever; you can’t live forever.’”
• “Youth is a dream, a form of chemical madness.”
• “Life is essentially a cheat and its conditions are those of defeat.”
• “For what it’s worth, it’s never too late to be whoever you want to be.”
• “A man can’t be comfortable without his own approval.”
• “The strongest guard is placed at the gateway to nothing.”
• “I felt married to her, that was all.”
• “Things are sweeter when they’re lost.”
• “Speech is an arrangement of notes that will never be played again.”
• “Riches have never fascinated me, unless combined with the greatest charm or distinction.”
• “You realize you can’t change the past, but you can make the future better.”
• “We were the careless people, throwing away things of value.”
• “You’ll understand the world better if you think of it as a series of conversations.”
• “He loved her, of course, but better than that, he chose her, day after day.”
• “There was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life.”
• “I am too much in love with my imagination to lose it for reality.”
• “The world, as he saw it, was in continual flux, a place where nothing was ever truly finished.”
• “Time is the longest distance between two places.”
• “I’m glad it’s a girl. And I hope she’ll be a fool—that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.”
• “I suppose the latest thing is to sit back and let Mr. Nobody from Nowhere make love to your wife.”
• “People over thirty can seldom be permanently convinced of anything.”
• “You never really know the true value of a moment until it becomes a memory.”
• “There’s a loneliness that only exists in one’s mind.”
• “It’s strange to be in love with someone who is the reason you’re sad.”
• “Every morning you rise with a renewed chance to chase your dreams.”
• “They were careless people. They smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money.”
• “Only the weak are cruel. Gentleness can only be expected from the strong.”
• “Sometimes people disappear because they’ve found something better to pursue.”
• “The dream was always running ahead of me.”
• “In a real dark night of the soul, it is always three o’clock in the morning.”
• “I don’t mind living in a man’s world, as long as I can be a woman in it.”
• “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”
• “What we call love is a physical sympathy.”
• “The value of a work of art can be measured by its simplicity.”
• “Wit is one of the few things that can make life bearable.”
• “Great art is the contempt of a great man for small art.”
• “We dream of perfection because we can’t have it, but it’s in the striving that life takes shape.”

These thought-provoking words by F. Scott Fitzgerald continue to inspire readers with their poetic grace and philosophical insights, solidifying his status as one of the greats in the landscape of literature.