Quotes about life page 18
“Peace and joy are not things you attain at the end of life. They are the basis of your life.”
Sadhguru book Inner Engineering: A Yogi's Guide to Joy
Source: Inner Engineering: A Yogi's Guide to Joy
“It is your work in life that is the ultimate seduction.”
Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer
“The supreme irony of life is that hardly anyone gets out of it alive.”
Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) American science fiction author
Walker Percy book The Moviegoer
Variant: What is the nature of the search? you ask. The search is what anyone would undertake if he were not sunk in the everydayness of his own life. To become aware of the search is to be onto something. Not to be onto something is to be in despair.
Source: The Moviegoer (1961)
Context: To become aware of the possibility of the search is to be onto something. Not to be onto something is to be in despair. The movies are onto the search, but they screw it up. The search always ends in despair. They like to show a fellow coming to himself in a strange place-but what does he do? He takes up with the local librarian, sets about proving to the local children what a nice fellow he is, and settles down with a vengeance. In two weeks time he is so sunk in everydayness that he might just as well be dead.
“The point of modernity is to live a life without illusions while not becoming disillusioned”
Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937) Italian writer, politician, theorist, sociologist and linguist
“Life is a foreign language; all men mispronounce it”
Christopher Morley (1890–1957) American journalist, novelist, essayist and poet
“Life, for people, begins to crumble on the edges; they don't realize it.”
Dorothea Lange (1895–1965) American photojournalist
“Human life is inexplicable, and still without meaning: a fool may decide its fate.”
Friedrich Nietzsche book Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Source: Thus Spoke Zarathustra
“Life is a constant struggle between being an individual and being a member of the community.”
Sherman Alexie book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
Source: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist
Attributed to Karl Marx, a composer with the same name.
Misattributed
“The mystical life is at the centre of all that I do and all that I think and all that I write.”
W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright
“An artist should create beautiful things, but should put nothing of his own life into them.”
Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray
Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray
“And as for the rest, let life happen to you. Believe me: life is in the right, always.”
Rainer Maria Rilke book Letters to a Young Poet
Variant: Let life happen to you. Believe me: life is in the right, always.
Source: Letters to a Young Poet
“You can not live your life just based on what everyone else thinks.”
Joyce Meyer (1943) American author and speaker
Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States
“Life in itself is sufficient, self-explanatory and complete.”
Carlos Castaneda book Journey to Ixtlan
Source: Journey to Ixtlan
“Life is dear to every living thing; the worm that crawls upon the ground will struggle for it.”
Solomon Northup book Twelve Years a Slave
Source: Twelve Years a Slave
Kevyn Aucoin (1962–2002) American make-up artist and photographer
Lynn Margulis (1938–2011) American evolutionary biologist
Source: Mind, Life, and Universe: Conversations with Great Scientists of Our Time
Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist
“A woman has to live her life, or live to repent not having lived it.”
D.H. Lawrence book Lady Chatterley's Lover
Source: Lady Chatterley's Lover
“He had about the same life expectancy as a three legged hedgehog on a six lane motorway.”
Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author
“I realized what a ridiculous lie my whole life has been.”
Arthur Miller book Death of a Salesman
Source: Death of a Salesman
Eugene O'Neill (1888–1953) American playwright, and Nobel laureate in Literature
Source: The Great God Brown and Other Plays
“We cannot solve life's problems except by solving them.”
M. Scott Peck (1936–2005) American psychiatrist
Source: The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values, and Spiritual Growth
“Do not yearn, O my soul, for immortal life!
Use to the utmost
the skill that is yours.”
Pindar (-517–-437 BC) Ancient Greek poet
Pythian 3, line 61-62.
Variant translation: Seek not, my soul, immortal life, but make the most of the resources that are within your reach.
“Life, what is it but a dream?”
Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer
Tite Kubo (1977) Japanese manga artist
Source: Bleach, Volume 01
“I saw that my life was a vast glowing empty page and I could do anything I wanted.”
Jack Kerouac book The Dharma Bums
The Dharma Bums (1958)
Henry Miller book Tropic of Capricorn
A fragment of Miller's unfinished book on D. H. Lawrence, originally published in the London literary journal Purpose.
Source: Tropic of Capricorn (1939) "Creative Death", p. 2
“Writing is not life, but I think that sometimes it can be a way back to life.”
Stephen King (1947) American author
Source: On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
“It's hard to enjoy practical jokes when your whole life feels like one.”
Rick Riordan book The Last Olympian
Source: The Last Olympian
“I will heighten my life by helping others heighten theirs”
Les Brown (1945) American politician
Source: Live Your Dreams
“He made me see what Life is, and what Death signifies, and why Love is stronger than both.”
Oscar Wilde book The Canterville Ghost
Source: The Canterville Ghost
Derek Walcott (1930–2017) Saint Lucian–Trinidadian poet and playwright
"Love after Love"
Source: "A Far Cry from Africa" (1962), Collected Poems, 1948-1984 (1986)
Jean Paul Sartre (1905–1980) French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and …
Source: Existentialism Is a Humanism (1946), p. 58
“Life is made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles predominating.”
O. Henry book The Gift of the Magi
The Four Million (1906)
Source: "The Gift of the Magi"
Context: There was clearly nothing to do but flop down on the shabby little couch and howl. So Della did it. Which instigates the moral reflection that life is made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles predominating.
“Always walk through life as if you have something new to learn, and you will.”
Vernon Howard (1918–1992) American writer
“All interest in disease and death is only another expression of interest in life.”
Thomas Mann book The Magic Mountain
Source: The Magic Mountain (1924), Ch. 6
“Modernity: we created youth without heroism, age without wisdom, and life without grandeur.”
Nassim Nicholas Taleb book The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms
Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms (2010), p. 27
“A poet can survive everything but a misprint.”
Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet
"The Children of the Poets," The Pall Mall Gazette http://www.online-literature.com/wilde/1307/ (October 14, 1886) <br class="br">Variant: One can survive everything nowadays except death.
“Life,” said Marvin dolefully, “loathe it or ignore it, you can’t like it.”
Douglas Adams The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy pentalogy
Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Frédéric Bastiat Sophismes économiques
Lorsque la Spoliation est devenue le moyen d’existence d’une agglomération d’hommes unis entre eux par le lien social, ils se font bientôt une loi qui la sanctionne, une morale qui la glorifie.
Economic sophisms, 2nd series (1848), ch. 1 Physiology of plunder ("Sophismes économiques", 2ème série (1848), chap. 1 "Physiologie de la spoliation").
Economic Sophisms (1845–1848)