“Just when I discovered the meaning of life, they changed it.”
George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian
Quotes about life page 67
“She is intensely human, and lives to look upon life.”
Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) English short-story writer, poet, and novelist
“Life is not meant to be easy, my child but take courage: it can be delightful.”
George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright
Pt. V; see also the later phrasing of Malcolm Fraser, "life wasn't meant to be easy"
1920s, Back to Methuselah (1921)
Gillian Flynn book Gone Girl
Variant: You drink a little too much and try a little too hard. And you go home to a cold bed and think, That was fine. And your life is a long line of fine.
Source: Gone Girl
“In spite of everything life is not without hope.”
Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962) American actress, model, and singer
“Keeping busy and making optimism a way of life can restore your faith in yourself.”
Lucille Ball (1911–1989) American actress and businesswoman
Variant: It doesn't pay to get discouraged. Keeping busy and making optismism a way of life can restore your faith in yourself
“Life is hard enough as it is without choosing someone difficult to share it with”
Greg Behrendt (1963) American comedian
Source: He's Just Not That Into You: The No-Excuses Truth to Understanding Guys
“That I shall love always,
I argue thee
that love is life,
and life hath immortality”
Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) American poet
“When life gives you lemons… choke on them and die… you stupid lemon eater.”
Scott Adams (1957) cartoonist, writer
“Some things in life are worth waiting for.”
Danielle Steel (1947) American author of romance novels
“I just looked at the pattern of my life, decided I didn't like it, and changed.”
David Sedaris (1956) American author
Source: Barrel Fever: Stories and Essays
Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer
Source: Tempt Me at Twilight
Greg Behrendt (1963) American comedian
Source: He's Just Not That Into You: The No-Excuses Truth to Understanding Guys
Emily Giffin Something Borrowed
Variant: Someday being with Dex will be a distant memory. This fact makes me sad too. Its the initial stages of grief that seem to be worst but in some ways, Its sadder as time goes by and you consider how much they're missed in your life.
Source: Something Borrowed
“You make a living by what you get; you make a life by what you give.”
Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
Extensive research of writings by and about Churchill at the Churchill Centre http://www.winstonchurchill.org fails to indicate that Churchill ever spoke or wrote those words. <br class="br">Some sites list Norman MacEwen as the originator of the quote. <br class="br">Misattributed <br class="br">Variant: We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give. <br class="br">Variant: We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.
Jon Kabat-Zinn (1944) American academic
Source: Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life
“What we call the secret of happiness is no more a secret than our willingness to choose life.”
Leo Buscaglia (1924–1998) Motivational speaker, writer
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement
Atul Gawande book Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End
Source: Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End
“There are a thousand thousand reasons to live this life, everyone of them sufficient”
Marilynne Robinson (1943) American novelist and essayist
“Shells sink, dreams float. Life's good on our boat.”
Jimmy Buffett (1946) American singer–songwriter and businessman
“The girl in the mirror wasn't who I wanted to be and her life wasn't the one I wanted to have.”
Francesca Lia Block (1962) American children's writer
Source: Pink Smog
“…the book creates meaning, the meaning creates life.”
Roland Barthes book The Pleasure of the Text
Source: The Pleasure of the Text
Rick Warren (1954) Christian religious leader
Source: The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here for?
“All the history of human life has been a struggle between wisdom and stupidity.”
Philip Pullman book The Amber Spyglass
Source: The Amber Spyglass
“So long as you can sweeten another's pain, life is not in vain.”
Helen Keller (1880–1968) American author and political activist
Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) Dutch philosopher
Letter 56 (60), to Hugo Boxel (1674) http://oll.libertyfund.org/?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=1711&chapter=144218&layout=html&Itemid=27 <br class="br">Source: The Letters <br class="br">Context: When you say that if I deny, that the operations of seeing, hearing, attending, wishing, &c., can be ascribed to God, or that they exist in him in any eminent fashion, you do not know what sort of God mine is; I suspect that you believe there is no greater perfection than such as can be explained by the aforesaid attributes. I am not astonished; for I believe that, if a triangle could speak, it would say, in like manner, that God is eminently triangular, while a circle would say that the divine nature is eminently circular. Thus each would ascribe to God its own attributes, would assume itself to be like God, and look on everything else as ill-shaped.<br>The briefness of a letter and want of time do not allow me to enter into my opinion on the divine nature, or the questions you have propounded. Besides, suggesting difficulties is not the same as producing reasons. That we do many things in the world from conjecture is true, but that our redactions are based on conjecture is false. In practical life we are compelled to follow what is most probable; in speculative thought we are compelled to follow truth. A man would perish of hunger and thirst, if he refused to eat or drink, till he had obtained positive proof that food and drink would be good for him. But in philosophic reflection this is not so. On the contrary, we must take care not to admit as true anything, which is only probable. For when one falsity has been let in, infinite others follow.<br>Again, we cannot infer that because sciences of things divine and human are full of controversies and quarrels, therefore their whole subject-matter is uncertain; for there have been many persons so enamoured of contradiction, as to turn into ridicule geometrical axioms.
“Reading is a basic tool in the living of a good life.”
Mortimer J. Adler (1902–2001) American philosopher and educator
Misattributed
Greg Behrendt (1963) American comedian
Source: He's Just Not That Into You: The No-Excuses Truth to Understanding Guys
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement
Last paragraph of section III of Antidotes for fear, page 122 (see link at top of the section)
1960s, Strength to Love (1963)
Source: A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches
“The only way to solace anyone who loved you in life is to be a good memory”
Alice Walker (1944) American author and activist
Source: By The Light Of My Father's Smile
“That’s the American Dream: to make your life into something you can sell.”
Chuck Palahniuk book Haunted
Source: Haunted (2005)
Teresa Medeiros (1962) American writer
Source: Charming the Prince
“You have been the one encounter in my life that can never be repeated”
Ayn Rand book The Fountainhead
Source: The Fountainhead
“When you live a life without questions, you're unprepared for the questions when they come.”
Neal Shusterman (1962) American novelist
Source: UnWholly
Wendy Mass (1967) American children's writer
Source: Heaven Looks a Lot Like the Mall
“If your life is worth thinking about, it is worth writing about.”
Robin S. Sharma (1965) Canadian self help writer
“The fog is clearing; life is a matter of taste.”
Frank Wedekind (1864–1918) German playwright
Source: Spring's Awakening
“How do you explain to yourself the casual manner in which you threw your life away?”
James Lee Burke (1936) Novelist, short story writer
Source: Swan Peak
“It is good that a man's enemies want him dead, for it proves he has lived a life of worth.”
Forrest Carter (1925–1979) Political speechwriter, politician, novelist, memoirist
Source: The Outlaw Josey Wales
John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America
Variant: Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.
“What I have learned in this life is you can never be ashamed of where you come from.”
Tyler Perry (1966) American actor, director, screenwriter, playwright, producer, author, and songwriter
“This is your life, and it's ending one minute at a time.”
Variant: This is your life and its ending one moment at a time.
Source: Fight Club
“God never takes away something from your life without replacing it with something better.”
Billy Graham (1918–2018) American Christian evangelist
Oprah Winfrey (1954) American businesswoman, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist
Source: What I Know For Sure
“Life resembles a novel more often than novels resemble life.”
George Sand book Métella
La vie ressemble plus souvent à un roman qu'un roman ne ressemble à la vie.
Metella, ch. 1 (1833); Robert J. Ackerman Perfect Daughters (Deerfield Beach, Fla.: HCI, 2002) p. 31
Andrew Matthews (1948) British writer
Source: Happiness Now!
Zora Neale Hurston book Their Eyes Were Watching God
Source: Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937), Ch. 20, p. 193.
Context: Of course he wasn't dead. He could never be dead until she herself had finished feeling and thinking. The kiss of his memory made pictures of love and light against the wall. Here was peace. She pulled in her horizon like a great fish-net. Pulled it from around the waist of the world and draped it over her shoulder. So much of life in its meshes! She called in her soul to come and see.
“True life lies in laughter, love and work.”
Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher fue el escritor del jarron azul
Borís Pasternak book Doctor Zhivago
Variant: I don't like people who have never fallen or stumbled. Their virtue is lifeless and it isn't of much value. Life hasn't revealed its beauty to them.
Source: Doctor Zhivago
“It would be possible, in theory, for life and art to be reversed.”
Jonathan Safran Foer book Everything Is Illuminated
Source: Everything Is Illuminated
“Life was not longer something to endure, but to live.”
Hubert Selby Jr. Requiem for a Dream
Source: Requiem for a Dream
Saul Williams (1972) American singer, musician, poet, writer, and actor
Source: , said the shotgun to the head.
“My eyes were glued on life
and they were full of tears.”
Jack Kerouac book Atop an Underwood: Early Stories and Other Writings
Source: Atop an Underwood: Early Stories and Other Writings
