“The ways we miss our lives are life.”
"A Girl in a Library," line 92
The Seven-League Crutches (1951)
“The ways we miss our lives are life.”
"A Girl in a Library," line 92
The Seven-League Crutches (1951)
Referencing Oscar Wilde from the preface of "The Picture of Dorian Gray"; "All art is quite useless".
1990s, Moab is My Washpot (autobiography, 1997)
Source: Moab Is My Washpot
Context: … but love, like all art, as Oscar said, it's quite useless. It is the useless things that make life worth living and that make life dangerous too: wine, love, art, beauty. Without them life is safe but not worth bothering with.
Preface to first edition.
The theory of environmental policy, 1988
“Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.”
In answer to a question asked by the editors of Youth, a journal of Young Israel of Williamsburg, NY. Quoted in the New York Times, June 20, 1932, pg. 17 http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F40617F83B5A13738DDDA90A94DE405B828FF1D3
Unsourced variant: Only a life in the service of others is worth living.
1930s
Variant: I believe in one thing—that only a life lived for others is a life worth living.