Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …
Isaac Asimov's Book of Science and Nature Quotations (1988), edited with Jason A. Shulman, p. 281
General sources
Quotes about life page 21
Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister
Ernest Hemingway book The Sun Also Rises
Robert Cohn to Jake Barnes, in Book 1, Ch. 2
The Sun Also Rises (1926)
George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright
Preface
1910s, The Doctor's Dilemma (1911)
Variant: A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.
Context: Attention and activity lead to mistakes as well as to successes; but a life spent in making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.
“Some risks are worth taking, even if it means losing a life.”
Rick Riordan book The Throne of Fire
Source: The Throne of Fire
“A life lived in fear… is a life half-lived.”
Baz Luhrmann (1962) Australian film director, screenwriter and producer
Source: Strictly Ballroom
“You are nearing the land that is life; you will recognize it by its seriousness.”
Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) Austrian poet and writer
Dean Koontz (1945) American author
Source: A Big Little Life: A Memoir of a Joyful Dog
Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)
“Life is terrible. It rules us, we do not rule it.”
Oscar Wilde Lady Windermere's Fan
Source: Lady Windermere's Fan
Erich Maria Remarque (1898–1970) German novelist
Source: Arch of Triumph: A Novel of a Man Without a Country
“It is hard work and great art to make life not so serious.”
John Irving book The Hotel New Hampshire
Source: The Hotel New Hampshire
“The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge.”
Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist
1920s, What I Believe (1925)
Source: Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Value
“On what slender threads do life and fortune hang.”
Alexandre Dumas book The Count of Monte Cristo
Source: The Count of Monte Cristo
Sharon Salzberg (1952) American writer
Source: The Force of Kindness: Change Your Life with Love & Compassion
Lewis Carroll book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Variant: Alice had got so much into the way of expecting nothing but out-of-the-way things to happen, that it seemed quite dull and stupid for life to go on in the common way.
Source: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity
As Quote Investigator explains, allegories about animals doing impossible things have been incredibly popular in the past century. But no, this one isn't from Einstein. (Source: http://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/04/06/fish-climb/.) <br class="br">Misattributed <br class="br">Variant: Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.
“Life is what we make of it. Travel is the traveler. What we see isn't what we see but what we are.”
Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet
Original: (pt) Viajar? Para viajar basta existir. [...] Para quê viajar? Em Madrid, em Berlim, na Pérsia, na China, nos Pólos ambos, onde estaria eu senão em mim mesmo, e no tipo e género das minhas sensações?
A vida é o que fazemos dela. As viagens são os viajantes. O que vemos não é o que vemos, senão o que somos.
Source: The Book of Disquiet, p. 360
Context: To travel? In order to travel it's enough to be. […] Why travel? In Madrid, in Berlin, in Persia, in China, at the Poles both, where would I be but in myself, and in the sort and kind of my sensations?
Life is what we make of it. Travels are travellers. What we see is not what we see but what we are.
T.S. Eliot (1888–1965) 20th century English author
Source: The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism
“I do not exist to impress the world. I exist to live my life in a way that will make me happy.”
Richard Bach (1936) American spiritual writer
Source: Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah
“Life is a helluva lot more fun if you say yes rather than no”
Richard Branson (1950) English business magnate, investor and philanthropist
Ravi Zacharias (1946) Indian philosopher
1990s
Source: [Can Man Live Without God, 1994, 9780849939433, 6]
Joe Hill (1879–1915) Swedish-American labor activist, songwriter, and member of the Industrial Workers of the World
Source: Locke & Key, Vol. 3: Crown of Shadows
“Find a job you enjoy doing, and you will never have to work a day in your life.”
Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist
Lewis Carroll Three Sunsets and Other Poems
Solitude (1853), conclusion
Three Sunsets and Other Poems (1898)
Context: p>Ye golden hours of Life's young spring,
Of innocence, of love and truth!
Bright, beyond all imagining,
Thou fairy-dream of youth!I'd give all wealth that years have piled,
The slow result of Life's decay,
To be once more a little child
For one bright summer-day.</p
William James The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy
"Is Life Worth Living?"
Variant: Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact.
Source: 1890s, The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy (1897)
Emil M. Cioran (1911–1995) Romanian philosopher and essayist
Source: On the Heights of Despair (1934)
Jimmy Carter (1924) American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981)
“If one good deed in all my life I did,
I do repent it from my very soul.”
William Shakespeare (1564–1616) English playwright and poet
“Between every two pine trees there is a door leading to a new way of life.”
John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American naturalist and author
Muir's marginal note in volume I of Prose Works by Ralph Waldo Emerson (This volume is located at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library of Yale University. See Albert Saijo, "Me, Muir, and Sierra Nevada", in Reinhabiting a Separate Country: A Bioregional Anthology of Northern California, edited by Peter Berg, San Francisco, California: Planet Drum Foundation, 1978, pages 52-59, at page 55, and Frederick W. Turner, Rediscovering America: John Muir in His Time and Ours (1985), page 193.)
1870s
“Literature always anticipates life. It doesn't copy it but moulds it to it's purpose.”
Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet
Daniel Goleman (1946) American psychologist & journalist
Source: Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ (1995), p. 8
“i wondered if i would spend the rest of my life inventing complicated ways to depress myself..”
Miranda July (1974) American performance artist, musician and writer
Source: No One Belongs Here More Than You
“Life is easy to chronicle, but bewildering to practice.”
E.M. Forster book A Room with a View
Source: A Room with a View (1908), Ch. 14
Source: A Room With A View
“Pain means you're alive. Pain is good. Pain is life.”
Barry Lyga (1971) American writer
Source: Blood of My Blood
“I know of no better life purpose than to perish in attempting the great and the impossible.”
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist
“There's not a drug on earth can make life meaningful”
Sarah Kane book 4.48 Psychosis
Source: 4.48 Psychosis
“Life is that which must overcome itself again and again”
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist
Andrei Tarkovsky (1932–1986) Soviet and Russian film-maker, writer, film editor, film theorist, theatre and opera director
“I asked for very little from life, and even this little was denied me.”
Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935) Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic, translator, publisher and philosopher
“Your life is just about craving, and making something else tremendously more important than you.”
Sadhguru (1957) Yogi, mystic, visionary and humanitarian
Source: Mystic's Musings
Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States
1900s, A Square Deal (1903)
“I think perhaps we want a more conscious life.”
Sinclair Lewis (1885–1951) American novelist, short-story writer, and playwright
“When you are tough on yourself, life is going to be infinitely easier on you”
Zig Ziglar (1926–2012) American motivational speaker
“Life is full of paradoxes, as roses are of thorns.”
Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet
Source: The Book of Disquiet
“The busier we are, the more acutely we feel that we live, the more conscious we are of life.”
Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) German philosopher
Bill Hybels (1951) American writer
Source: Just Walk Across the Room: Simple Steps Pointing People to Faith
Henry Beston (1888–1968) American writer
Source: The Outermost House: A Year of Life on the Great Beach of Cape Cod
“Moments like this are buds on the tree of life. Flowers of darkness they are.”
Virginia Woolf book Mrs Dalloway
Source: Mrs. Dalloway
“There's only one very good life and that's the life you know you want and you make it yourself.”
Diana Vreeland (1903–1989) American magazine editor
Source: The Crucible (1953)
Context: Danforth: Do you mean to deny this confession when you are free?
Proctor: I mean to deny nothing!
Danforth: Then explain to me, Mr. Proctor, why you will not let —
Proctor: [With the cry of his whole soul] Because it is my name! Because I cannot have another in my life! Because I lie and sign myself to lies! Because I am not worth the dust on the feet of them that hang! How may I live without my name? I have given you my soul; leave me my name!