“A finished life — a life which has made the best of all the materials granted to it, and through which, be its web dark or bright, its pattern clear or clouded, can now be traced plainly the hand of the Great Designer; surely this is worth living for?”

“The judgment that human life is worth living, or rather can and ought to be made worth living, … underlies all intellectual effort; it is the a priori of social theory, and its rejection (which is perfectly logical) rejects theory itself.”

“Genius hath electric power
Which earth can never tame,
Bright suns may scorch and dark clouds lower,
Its flash is still the same.”

“The focus of all life is its economy, the mode through which every living creature produces its material existence. I know no other criterion for the evaluation of social life except that of social economy. In society, just like anywhere else, the mode of production is the focus around which revolve all the modes of life: in the historical life of conscious beings, it is also the focus of all modes of consciousness.”

“At its best, schooling can be about how to make a life, which is quite different from how to make a living.”

“Life has its own hidden forces which you can only discover by living.”

“… she moved about in a mental cloud of many-coloured idealities, which eclipsed all sinister contingencies by its brightness.”

“Love has, at its best, made the inherent sadness of life bearable, and its beauty manifest.”

“Laughter is wine for the soul – laughter soft, or loud and deep, tinged through with seriousness. Comedy and tragedy step through life together, arm in arm, all along, out along, down along lea. A laugh is a great natural stimulator, a pushful entry into life; and once we can laugh, we can live. It is the hilarious declaration made by man that life is worth living.”

“Anxiety is the rust of life, destroying its brightness and weakening its power. – A childlike and abiding trust in Providence is its best preventive and remedy.”