“Breathe. It’s only a bad day, not a bad life.”
“There is only one happiness in life, to love and be loved.”
“Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.”
Attributed on the internet but not found in print prior to an attribution in Aero Digest, Vols. 58–59, 1949, p. 115 https://books.google.com/books?id=q2ofAQAAMAAJ&dq=%22Life+is+simple%22+but+we+insist+on+making+it+complicated&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=%22Life+is+simple%22+
Misattributed, Not Chinese
“You can achieve anything in life. It just depends on how desperate you are to achieve it.”
The Race of My Life: An Autobiography Milkha Singh (2013)
“Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.”
Variant: A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.
“Count your age by friends, not years. Count your life by smiles, not tears.”
“Art is to console those who are broken by life.”
“There is no death without life. Therefore, death depends entirely on life.”
“Keep smiling, because life is a beautiful thing and there's so much to smile about.”
“During your life, never stop dreaming. No one can take away your dreams”
“In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life — It goes on.”
As quoted in The Harper Book of Quotations (1993) edited by Robert I. Fitzhenry, p. 261
General sources
Variant: In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on.
“The wonderful things in life are the things you do, not the things you have.”
“Do not take life too seriously – you will never get out of it alive.”
Source: A Thousand & One Epigrams: Selected from the Writings of Elbert Hubbard (1911), p. 74
Variant: Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside while still alive. Never surrender.
“Open your eyes, look within. Are you satisfied with the life you're living?”
“Life would be tragic if it weren't funny.”
As quoted in "The Science of Second-Guessing", The New York Times (12 December 2004)
“Better to die fighting for freedom then be a prisoner all the days of your life.”
As quoted in Journal of France and Germany (1942–1944) by Gilbert Fowler White, in excerpt published in Living with Nature's Extremes: The Life of Gilbert Fowler White (2006) by Robert E. Hinshaw, p. 62. From the context http://books.google.com/books?id=_2qfZRp9SeEC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA62#v=onepage&q&f=false it seems that White did not specify whether he had heard Einstein himself say this or whether he was repeating a quote that had been passed along by someone else, so without a primary source the validity of this quote should be considered questionable.
Some have argued that elsewhere Einstein defined a "miracle" as a type of event he did not believe was possible—Einstein on Religion by Max Jammer (1999) quotes on p. 89 from a 1931 conversation Einstein had with David Reichinstein, where Reichinstein brought up philosopher Arthur Liebert's argument that the indeterminism of quantum mechanics might allow for the possibility of miracles, and Einstein replied that Liebert's argument dealt "with a domain in which lawful rationality [determinism] does not exist. A 'miracle,' however, is an exception from lawfulness; hence, there where lawfulness does not exist, also its exception, i.e., a miracle, cannot exist." ("Dort, wo eine Gesetzmässigkeit nicht vorhanden ist, kann auch ihre Ausnahme, d.h. ein Wunder, nicht existieren." D. Reichenstein, Die Religion der Gebildeten (1941), p. 21). However, it is clear from the context that Einstein was stating only that miracles cannot exist in a domain (quantum mechanics) where lawful rationality does not exist. He did not claim that miracles could never exist in any domain. Indeed, Einstein clearly believed, as seen in many quotations above, that the universe was comprehensible and rational, but he also described this characteristic of the universe as a "miracle". In another example, he is quoted as claiming belief in a God, "Who reveals Himself in the lawful harmony of the world."
As quoted in From Yale to Jail: The Life Story of a Moral Dissenter (1993) by David T. Dellinger, p. 418
Disputed
Variant: There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.
Variant: There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.
Variant: The deepest secret is that life is not a process of discovery, but a process of creation. You are not discovering yourself, but creating yourself anew. Seek therefore, not to find out Who You Are, but seek to determine Who You Want to Be.
“Life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it.”
“There are two great days in a person's life - the day we are born and the day we discover why.”
“Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith.”
2005-09, Address at Stanford University (2005)
Context: Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking. Don’t settle.
“It is not the length of life, but the depth.”
“You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.”
Often attributed to Churchill, this thought was originally expressed by the French author Victor Hugo in Villemain (1845), as follows: You have enemies? Why, it is the story of every man who has done a great deed or created a new idea. It is the cloud which thunders around everything that shines. Fame must have enemies, as light must have gnats. Do not bother yourself about it; disdain. Keep your mind serene as you keep your life clear.
Villemain is a brief segment taken from Hugo’s Choses Vues (Things Seen), a running journal Hugo kept of events he witnessed. The original French versions of these journals were published after Hugo's death.
Misattributed
“Life will bring you pain all by itself. Your responsibility is to create joy.”
“Maybe it's not too late to learn how to love and forget how to hate.”
Source: Ozzy Osbourne - Blizzard of Ozz
“There are two means of refuge from the misery of life — music and cats.”
Variant: There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats.
“Happiness is a good flow of life.”
As quoted by Stobaeus, ii. 77.
“Life ain't a rehearsal, the camera's always rolling”
"Miss Me", Thank Me Later, Lil Wayne (2010)
2010s
