“Are we all living like this? Two lives, the ideal outer life and the inner imaginative life where we keep our secrets?”

“The deeper we look into nature, the more we recognize that it is full of life, and the more profoundly we know that all life is a secret and that we are united with all life that is in nature. Man can no longer live for himself alone. We realize that all life is valuable, and that we are united to all this life. From this knowledge comes our spiritual relationship to the universe.”

Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) French-German physician, theologian, musician and philosopher

“Where is the Life we lost in living?”

T.S. Eliot (1888–1965) 20th century English author

“We have two lives, Roy, the life we learn with and the life we live with after that. Suffering is what brings us toward happiness.”

Bernard Malamud The Natural

“Most of us have two lives. The life we live, and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands Resistance.”

Steven Pressfield book The War of Art

“Our discreditable secret is that we don't know anything at all, and our horrid inner secret is that we don't care that we don't.”

Dylan Thomas (1914–1953) Welsh poet and writer

“What is the purpose of our lives?
Life's purpose is to be happy.
We have no guarantee what will happen in the future, but we live in hope.
This is what keeps us trying and going.
If we can't enjoy the simple things in life;
We are missing the meaning of life.
Don't give up.”

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

“I do not know how to distinguish between waking life and a dream. Are we not always living the life that we imagine we are?”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist

“When we keep choosing between right and wrong. We spend our energy sorting life rather than living it.”

Mark Nepo (1951) American writer

“Was that, then, the way we do things? "Not knowing"— was that the way the most profound things happened?… Was the secret of never escaping from the greater life the secret of living like a sleepwalker?”

Clarice Lispector (1920–1977) Brazilian writer