“To withhold from living is to die … the more you give of yourself to life the more life nourishes you.”
March 6, 1936 Fire
Diary entries (1914 - 1974)
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Anaïs Nin 278
writer of novels, short stories, and erotica 1903–1977Related quotes
Give up the small life, the petty life, the mean life, the restricted life, the little personal life which shuts you in - give it up and follow the light of the Star within you.
The Masters and the Path of Occultism (1939)

Quoted in A Living Architecture : Frank Lloyd Wright and Taliesin Architects (2000) by John Rattenbury
Context: Human beings can be beautiful. If they are not beautiful it is entirely their own fault. It is what they do to themselves that makes them ugly. The longer I live the more beautiful life becomes. If you foolishly ignore beauty, you will soon find yourself without it. Your life will be impoverished. But if you invest in beauty, it will remain with you all the days of your life.
The New York Times dialogue with S. Greenblatt (2012)

“The more you succeed in making out of yourself, the more bitter a thing it is to have to die.”
Source: The Book of Skulls (1972), Chapter 15 (p. 62)

CXXIV, Epitaph on Elizabeth, Lady H—, lines 3-6
The Works of Ben Jonson, First Folio (1616), Epigrams