Some Of The Worlds Greatest Proverbs (Ancient Wisdom)
A single YouTube upload strings together centuries of proverbs from Lao Tzu to Theodore Roosevelt, set against music built for reflection.
“Some Of The Worlds Greatest Proverbs (Ancient Wisdom)” is a compilation video from the YouTube channel Dare to do. Motivation, pairing narrated and on-screen maxims from multiple cultures with instrumental and acoustic arrangements credited to Sivan Talmor and Kevin Graham. Rather than telling a single story, the video moves through a sequence of standalone sayings — Chinese philosophy, Aesop’s fables, and quotes from figures like Theodore Roosevelt — asking viewers to sit with each one before it dissolves into the next.
- The video was produced and released by the channel Dare to do. Motivation, with a musical backdrop arranged from tracks by Sivan Talmor and Kevin Graham.
- The compilation features Lao Tzu’s “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step” alongside Alexander Graham Bell’s line on missed opportunities and closed doors versus open ones.
- The video closes by inviting viewers to comment with proverbs from their own part of the world, framing the compilation as a starting point for discussion rather than a finished list.
The Maxims at the Center of the Video
The video opens on familiar ground with Lao Tzu’s foundational line from ancient Chinese philosophy: “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” It’s paired with Confucius’s related teaching, “A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step,” and later “It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop” — three variations on the same idea of gradual, sustained effort rather than instant results.
Alexander Graham Bell’s contribution shifts the tone toward missed opportunity rather than momentum: “When one door closes, another opens, but we often look so long and regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one that has opened for us.” It’s a more modern voice slotted between the ancient Chinese material, and it reframes the compilation’s throughline — these aren’t just sayings about starting, they’re about noticing what’s already in front of you.
“The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” – Lao Tzu
Self-Reliance, Diplomacy, and Caution
Further into the video, the compilation turns toward proverbs about practical survival and restraint. The Chinese proverb “Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime” makes the case for skills over handouts, while Theodore Roosevelt’s “Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far” argues for persuasion over aggression. Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s “The pen is mightier than the sword” runs alongside that same idea — that influence built on words tends to outlast influence built on force.
Aesop’s “Don’t count your chickens before they hatch” closes the run of maxims on a note of caution, warning against assuming an outcome before it’s actually secured. Together, the eight sayings the video features move from action (Lao Tzu, Confucius) to perspective (Bell) to self-sufficiency and restraint (the Chinese proverb, Roosevelt, Bulwer-Lytton) to caution (Aesop) — a loose arc rather than a strict theme, but a deliberate one.
Music as the Connective Thread
What holds the compilation together isn’t narration alone — it’s the scoring. Sivan Talmor and Kevin Graham’s arrangements give each proverb room to land before the next one appears on screen, functioning closer to a meditation soundtrack than a typical motivational-video score. That pacing is deliberate: the channel’s format leans on stillness between ideas rather than rapid-fire quote dumps, which is part of why it reads as reflective rather than promotional.
Readers who gravitate toward this kind of cross-cultural framing of old sayings may find a similar thread in Sun Tzu’s Art of War, another ancient text built on compact, repeatable principles, or in the collection of Epictetus quotes that circulate in similar motivational compilations.
The video ends the way it opens the floor — asking viewers to drop their own regional proverb in the comments. That’s the actual hook of the format: eight maxims on screen, and then whatever a stranger from another country types back underneath it.

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