Quotes about life page 15
“Running is the greatest metaphor for life, because you get out of it what you put into it.”
Oprah Winfrey (1954) American businesswoman, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist
“So long as you are ready to die for Humanity, the life of your country is immortal.”
Giuseppe Mazzini (1805–1872) Italian patriot, politician and philosopher
On the Duties of Man (1844-58)
“Man cannot stand a meaningless life.”
C.G. Jung (1875–1961) Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology
Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer
A New Earth (2005)
Source: A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose
“if we possess a why of life we can put up with almost any how.”
Friedrich Nietzsche book Twilight of the Idols
Maxims and Arrows, 12
Variant translations:
He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.
As translated in Man's Search For Meaning (1946) by Viktor Frankl
Variant: He who has a Why? in life can tolerate almost any How?
Source: Twilight of the Idols (1888)
“Art is the funnel, as it were, through which spirit is poured into life.”
Thomas Mann (1875–1955) German novelist, and 1929 Nobel Prize laureate
“My life has a superb cast, but I cannot figure out the plot.”
Ashleigh Brilliant (1933) American author and cartoonist
Carol Gilligan (1936) American feminist, ethicist, and psychologist
Source: In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women's Development
John Hale
Source: The Crucible (1953)
Context: It is mistaken law that leads you to sacrifice. Life, woman, life is God's most precious gift; no principle, however glorious, may justify the taking of it. I beg you, woman, prevail upon your husband to confess. Let him give his lie. Quail not before God's judgment in this, for it may well be God damns a liar less than he that throws his life away for pride.
“In life, as in football, the principle to follow is to hit the line hard.”
Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States
"The American Boy", published in St. Nicholas 27, no. 7 (May 1900), p. 574
1900s
Context: In short, in life, as in a football game, the principle to follow is: Hit the line hard; don't foul and don't shirk, but hit the line hard!
Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States
Letter to S. Stanwood Menken, chairman, committee on Congress of Constructive Patriotism (January 10, 1917). Roosevelt’s sister, Mrs. Douglas Robinson, read the letter to a national meeting, January 26, 1917. Reported in Proceedings of the Congress of Constructive Patriotism, Washington, D.C., January 25–27, 1917 (1917), p. 172
1910s
Context: Americanism means the virtues of courage, honor, justice, truth, sincerity, and hardihood—the virtues that made America. The things that will destroy America are prosperity-at-any-price, peace-at-any-price, safety-first instead of duty-first, the love of soft living and the get-rich-quick theory of life.
Max Ehrmann (1872–1945) American writer, poet, and attorney
Variant: Be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
“You spend your life getting walked on, you learn to recognize the tread.”
Nora Roberts (1950) American romance writer
“Is not life a hundred times too short for us— to bore ourselves?”
Friedrich Nietzsche book Beyond Good and Evil
Ist das Leben nicht hundert Mal zu kurz, sich in ihm— zu langweilen?
Beyond Good and Evil, Chapter VII, 227
Jean Paul Sartre (1905–1980) French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and …
“If a man loses his reverence for any part of life, he will lose his reverence for all of life.”
Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) French-German physician, theologian, musician and philosopher
“Life is to be lived, not controlled.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet
“For clearly it is impossible to touch eternity with one hand and life with the other.”
Yukio Mishima book The Temple of the Golden Pavilion
Source: The Temple of the Golden Pavilion
Marie Corelli (1855–1924) British writer
Source: The Sorrows of Satan or The Strange Experience of One Geoffrey Tempest, Millionaire
Lou Holtz (1937) American college football coach, professional football coach, television sports announcer
Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States
Source: You Learn by Living: Eleven Keys for a More Fulfilling Life
“What I really wanted was every kind of life, and the writer’s life seemed the most inclusive.”
Susan Sontag (1933–2004) American writer and filmmaker, professor, and activist
Paulo Coelho book By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept
By The River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept (1994)
Source: By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept
“Life is a great surprise. I do not see why death should not be an even greater one.”
Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977) Russian-American novelist, lepidopterist, professor
Barbara Taylor Bradford (1933) British author
Source: To Be the Best
“Mistakes are a fact of life: It is the response to the error that counts.”
Nikki Giovanni (1943) American writer and academic
Douglas Adams (1952–2001) English writer and humorist
Variant: You see, the quality of any advice anybody has to offer has to be judged against the quality of life they actually lead.
Source: The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide: Five Complete Novels and One Story
“Life is glorious, but it can be counted on to be cruel.”
Noah Gordon book The Last Jew
Source: The Last Jew
Sabrina Ward Harrison (1975) Canadian writer
Source: Spilling Open: The Art of Becoming Yourself
“It is not your aptitude but your ATTITUDE that decides your altitude in life.”
Zig Ziglar (1926–2012) American motivational speaker
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist
Sec. 232
Variant: We have no dreams at all or interesting ones. We should learn to be awake the same way — not at all or in an interesting manner.
Source: The Gay Science (1882)
“Life is a wheel, and it always comes back around to where it started.”
Stephen King book Revival
Variant: Life was a wheel, its only job was to turn, and it always came back to where it started.
Source: Revival
“The purpose of life is not to do what we want but what needs to be done.”
Christopher Paolini book Brisingr
Variant: The purpose of life is not to do what we want but what needs to be done. This is what fate demands of us.
Source: Brisingr
Banksy pseudonymous England-based graffiti artist, political activist, and painter
Source: Wall and Piece (2005)
“A civilization begins to decline the moment Life becomes its sole obsession.”
Emil M. Cioran (1911–1995) Romanian philosopher and essayist
“The goal of life is not to possess power but to radiate it.”
Henry Miller (1891–1980) American novelist
“I read the way a person might swim, to save his or her life. I wrote that way too.”
Mary Oliver (1935–2019) American writer
Source: Wild Geese
“A garden is always a series of losses set against a few triumphs, like life itself.”
May Sarton (1912–1995) American poet, novelist, and memoirist
Bruce Lee (1940–1973) Hong Kong-American actor, martial artist, philosopher and filmmaker
Source: Striking Thoughts (2000), p. 3
Source: Striking Thoughts: Bruce Lee's Wisdom for Daily Living
“The essence of life is statistical improbability on a colossal scale.”
Richard Dawkins (1941) English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author
Source: Forrest Gump
“The Ultimate Answer to Life, The Universe and Everything is…42!”
Douglas Adams The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy pentalogy
Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
“Any book which inspires us to lead a better life is a good book.”
Fulton J. Sheen (1895–1979) Catholic bishop and television presenter
Source: The Quotable Fulton Sheen: A Topical Compilation of the Wit, Wisdom, and Satire of Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen
“Five minutes are enough to dream a whole life, that is how relative time is.”
Mario Benedetti (1920–2009) Uruguayan journalist, novelist, and poet
M. Scott Peck (1936–2005) American psychiatrist
Source: The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values, and Spiritual Growth
“Everything in life in nonsense. It's just a question of persepctive”
Carlos Ruiz Zafón book The Angel's Game
Source: The Angel's Game
“Life is a great big canvas. Throw all the paint you can at it.”
James Patterson book Sam's Letters to Jennifer
Source: Sam's Letters to Jennifer
“Life is too short to be lived badly.”
Marjane Satrapi (1969) Artist
Source: Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return
“Nobody, as long as he moves among the chaotic currents of life, is without trouble.”
C.G. Jung (1875–1961) Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology
“Life sometimes separates people so that they can realize how much they mean to each other.”
Paulo Coelho book The Winner Stands Alone
Source: The Winner Stands Alone
Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) French-German physician, theologian, musician and philosopher
Source: Kulturphilosophie (1923), Vol. 2 : Civilization and Ethics, Chapter 26
Context: Just as the wave cannot exist for itself, but is ever a part of the heaving surface of the ocean, so must I never live my life for itself, but always in the experience which is going on around me. It is an uncomfortable doctrine which the true ethics whisper into my ear. You are happy, they say; therefore you are called upon to give much.