Quotes about life
page 19

Brian Andreas photo
Louis Sachar photo
Oscar Wilde photo
Chuck Palahniuk photo
Virginia Woolf photo

“Oh, I am in love with life!”

Source: The Waves

Ludwig Wittgenstein photo
Blaise Pascal photo
Haruki Murakami photo

“Death is not the opposite of life but an innate part of it. By living our lives, we nurture death.”

Variant: Death is not the opposite of life, but a part of it.
Source: Norwegian Wood

Edward Young photo
Fernando Pessoa photo

“Life is whatever we conceive it to be.”

Source: The Book of Disquiet

Ernest J. Gaines photo
Eckhart Tolle photo

“Life isn't as serious as my mind makes it out to be.”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

Variant: Life isn't as serious as the mind makes it out to be.
Source: A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose

Paulo Coelho photo
Douglas Adams photo
André Breton photo
Theodore Roosevelt photo

“Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

1900s, A Square Deal (1903)
Context: Among ourselves we differ in many qualities of body, head, and heart; we are unequally developed, mentally as well as physically. But each of us has the right to ask that he shall be protected from wrong-doing as he does his work and carries his burden through life. No man needs sympathy because he has to work, because he has a burden to carry. Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing; and this is a prize open to every man, for there can be no better worth doing than that done to keep in health and comfort and with reasonable advantages those immediately dependent upon the husband, the father, or the son. There is no room in our healthy American life for the mere idler, for the man or the woman whose object it is throughout life to shirk the duties which life ought to bring. Life can mean nothing worth meaning, unless its prime aim is the doing of duty, the achievement of results worth achieving.

Abraham Verghese photo
Rick Warren photo
Erica Jong photo
Maya Angelou photo
Emily Brontë photo

“In secret pleasure — secret tears
This changeful life has slipped away”

I Am the Only Being (1836)
Source: Wuthering Heights
Context: I am the only being whose doom
No tongue would ask no eye would mourn
I never caused a thought of gloom
A smile of joy since I was born
In secret pleasure — secret tears
This changeful life has slipped away
As friendless after eighteen years
As lone as on my natal day

Margaret Fuller photo

“Very early, I knew that the only object in life was to grow.”

Margaret Fuller (1810–1850) American feminist, poet, author, and activist

Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli (1852), Vol. I, p. 132.

Sadhguru photo
John Grisham photo
Temple Grandin photo
Rick Warren photo

“If you want God to bless you and use you greatly, you must be willing to walk with a limp the rest of your life, because God uses weak people.”

Rick Warren (1954) Christian religious leader

Source: The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here for?

Yann Martel photo
Richard Dawkins photo
Joseph Brodsky photo
Rabindranath Tagore photo

“Let your life lightly dance on the edges of Time like dew on the tip of a leaf.”

Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali polymath

45
The Gardener http://www.spiritualbee.com/love-poems-by-tagore/ (1915)

“The joys of love… last only a moment. The sorrows of love last all the life long.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

Source: The Joys of Love

Albert Einstein photo

“The tragedy of life is what dies inside a man while he lives.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity
George Carlin photo
Rainer Maria Rilke photo
Ludwig von Mises photo
Oscar Wilde photo
Aristotle photo
Mark Twain photo
William Shakespeare photo

“Out, out brief candle, life is but a walking shadow… a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

Variant: Life... is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
Source: Macbeth

Oscar Wilde photo
Paris Hilton photo

“The only rule is don't be boring and dress cute wherever you go. Life is too short to blend in.”

Source: Confessions of an Heiress (2004), p. 53 (included in the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1212303/Paris-Hilton-feature-Oxford-Dictionary-Quotes-alongside-Confucius-Oscar-Wilde-yes-really.html)

Michael Faraday photo
Oswald Chambers photo
René Descartes photo
Ayn Rand photo
Kenneth Oppel photo

“All my life, I have made it complicated, but it is so simple. I love when I love. And when I love, I am myself.”

Hugh Prather (1938–2010) American writer

Source: Notes to Myself: My Struggle to Become a Person

Francois Mauriac photo
Jimmy Carter photo

“A visiting pastor at our church in Plains once told a story about a priest from New Orleans. Father Flanagan’s parish lay in the central part of the city, close to many taverns. One night he was walking down the street and saw a drunk thrown out of a pub. The man landed in the gutter, and Father Flanagan quickly recognized him as one of his parishioners, a fellow named Mike. Father Flanagan shook the dazed man and said, “Mike!” Mike opened his eyes and Father Flanagan said, “You’re in trouble. If there is anything I can do for you, please tell me what it is.ℍ “Well, Father,” Mike replied, “I hope you’ll pray for me.” “Yes,” the priest answered, “I’ll pray for you right now.” He knelt down in the gutter and prayed, “Father, please have mercy on this drunken man.ℍ At this, a startled Mike woke up fully and said, “Father, please don’t tell God I’m drunk.ℍ Sometimes we don’t feel much of a personal relationship between God and ourselves, as though we have a secret life full of failures and sins that God knows nothing about. We want to involve God only when we plan to give thanks or when we’re in trouble and need help. But the rest of our lives, we’d rather keep to ourselves.”

Jimmy Carter (1924) American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981)

Source: Through the Year with Jimmy Carter: 366 Daily Meditations from the 39th President

Nora Ephron photo
Mark Twain photo
Charles Baudelaire photo
Oscar Wilde photo
William Saroyan photo

“In the time of your life, live—so that in that wondrous time you shall not add to the misery and sorrow of the world, but shall smile to the infinite delight and mystery of it.”

The Time of Your Life (1939)
Context: Remember that every man is a variation of yourself. No man's guilt is not yours, nor is any man's innocence a thing apart. Despise evil and ungodliness, but not men of ungodliness or evil. These, understand. Have no shame in being kindly and gentle, but if the time comes in the time of your life to kill, kill and have no regret. In the time of your life, live — so that in the wondrous time you shall not add to the misery and sorrow of the world, but shall smile to the infinite delight and mystery of it.
Context: In the time of your life, live — so that in that good time there shall be no ugliness or death for yourself or for any life your life touches. Seek goodness everywhere, and when it is found, bring it out of its hiding-place and let it be free and unashamed. Place in matter and in flesh the least of the values, for these are things that hold death and must pass away. Discover in all things that which shines and is beyond corruption. Encourage virtue in whatever heart it may have been driven into secrecy and sorrow by the shame and terror of the world. Ignore the obvious, for it is unworthy of the clear eye and the kindly heart. Be the inferior of no man, nor of any man be the superior. Remember that every man is a variation of yourself. No man's guilt is not yours, nor is any man's innocence a thing apart. Despise evil and ungodliness, but not men of ungodliness or evil. These, understand. Have no shame in being kindly and gentle, but if the time comes in the time of your life to kill, kill and have no regret. In the time of your life, live — so that in the wondrous time you shall not add to the misery and sorrow of the world, but shall smile to the infinite delight and mystery of it.

Richard Branson photo
Winston S. Churchill photo

“Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result.”

The Story of the Malakand Field Force: An Episode of Frontier War (1898), Chapter X.
Early career years (1898–1929)
Variant: There is nothing more exhilarating than to be shot at with no result.

Theodore Roosevelt photo
Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings photo
Ravi Zacharias photo

“Worship is a posture of life that takes as its primary purpose the understanding of what it really means to love and revere God.”

Ravi Zacharias (1946) Indian philosopher

Source: Jesus Among Other Gods: The Absolute Claims of the Christian Message

Joseph Campbell photo

“You become mature when you become the authority of your own life.”

Joseph Campbell (1904–1987) American mythologist, writer and lecturer

Source: A Joseph Campbell Companion: Reflections on the Art of Living

Benjamin Disraeli photo

“Life is too short to be little.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

Source: Coningsby, or, The New Generation

Stephen King photo
Rainer Maria Rilke photo
Joel Osteen photo

“Jesus was saying that you can't have a larger life with restricted attitudes.”

Joel Osteen (1963) American televangelist and author

Source: Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living at Your Full Potential

Mark Twain photo
Jenny Han photo
Andrzej Sapkowski photo
Emile Zola photo
Christina Rossetti photo
Pythagoras photo

“If there be light, then there is darkness; if cold, heat; if height, depth; if solid, fluid; if hard, soft; if rough, smooth; if calm, tempest; if prosperity, adversity; if life, death.”

Pythagoras (-585–-495 BC) ancient Greek mathematician and philosopher

As quoted in Bibliotheca Sacra and Theological Review by ? Vol. IV, No. 8 (1847) by Dallas Theological Seminary, p. 107

Brad Meltzer photo
Viktor E. Frankl photo

“If there is meaning in life at all, then there must be meaning in suffering.”

Viktor E. Frankl (1905–1997) Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist, and Holocaust survivor
Jimmy Carter photo

“In his early twenties, a man started collecting paintings, many of which later became famous: Picasso, Van Gogh, and others. Over the decades he amassed a wonderful collection. Eventually, the man’s beloved son was drafted into the military and sent to Vietnam, where he died while trying to save his friend. About a month after the war ended, a young man knocked on the devastated father’s door. “Sir,” he said, “I know that you like great art, and I have brought you something not very great.” Inside the package, the father found a portrait of his son. With tears running down his cheeks, the father said, “I want to pay you for this.ℍ “No,” the young man replied, “he saved my life. You don’t owe me anything.ℍ The father cherished the painting and put it in the center of his collection. Whenever people came to visit, he made them look at it. When the man died, his art collection went up for sale. A large crowd of enthusiastic collectors gathered. First up for sale was the amateur portrait. A wave of displeasure rippled through the crowd. “Let’s forget about that painting!” one said. “We want to bid on the valuable ones,” said another. Despite many loud complaints, the auctioneer insisted on starting with the portrait. Finally, the deceased man’s gardener said, “I’ll bid ten dollars.ℍ Hearing no further bids, the auctioneer called out, “Sold for ten dollars!” Everyone breathed a sigh of relief. But then the auctioneer said, “And that concludes the auction.” Furious gasps shook the room. The auctioneer explained, “Let me read the stipulation in the will: “Sell the portrait of my son first, and whoever buys it gets the entire art collection. Whoever takes my son gets everything.ℍ It’s the same way with God Almighty. Whoever takes his Son gets everything.”

Jimmy Carter (1924) American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981)

Source: Through the Year with Jimmy Carter: 366 Daily Meditations from the 39th President

Andy Rooney photo
Terry Pratchett photo
Henry Miller photo
Lionel Shriver photo
Khaled Hosseini photo
Abraham Lincoln photo

“The better part of one's life consists of his friendships.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

Letter to Joseph Gillespie http://quod.lib.umich.edu/l/lincoln/lincoln2/1:88.1?rgn=div2;view=fulltext (13 July 1849)
1840s

Oscar Wilde photo
Friedrich Nietzsche photo

“the lie is a condition of life.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist
Robert Anton Wilson photo
Neale Donald Walsch photo

“Life is all about mistakes. It is constant change and growth”

Neale Donald Walsch (1943) American writer

Source: Conversations with God: An Uncommon Dialogue, Book 1

Albert Schweitzer photo

“In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.”

Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) French-German physician, theologian, musician and philosopher

Variant: Sometimes our light goes out but is blown again into flame by an encounter with another human being. Each of us owes the deepest thanks to those who have rekindled this inner light.