1900s, Address at the Prize Day Exercises at Groton School (1904)
Context: Of course, the worst of all lives is the vicious life; the life of a man who becomes a positive addition to the forces of evil in a community. Next to that and when I am speaking to people who, by birth and training and standing, ought to amount to a great deal, I have a right to say only second to it in criminality comes the life of mere vapid ease, the ignoble life of a man who desires nothing from his years but that they shall be led with the least effort, the least trouble, the greatest amount of physical enjoyment or intellectual enjoyment of a mere dilettante type. The life that is worth living, and the only life that is worth living, is the life of effort, the life of effort to attain what is worth striving for.
“He would agree that life is a little worth living — or worth living a little; but would remark that, unfortunately, to live little enough, we have to live a great deal.”
Hawthorne, ch. V: The Three American Novels.
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Henry James 154
American novelist, short story author, and literary critic 1843–1916Related quotes
“It is not pleasure that makes life worth living. It is life that makes pleasure worth having.”
“Some Haitian artist have so little going on in their lives, they would rather discuss yours.”
This quotation is commonly attributed to Kadda Sheekoff, but actually appeared on social networking websites, with no clear author.
Misattributed
“If tomorrow were never to come, it would not be worth living today.”
Source: On Humanism
Speech to the Bar Association of Boston, in Speeches (1913), p. 86.
1910s
“He who was living is now dead
We who were living are now dying
With a little patience.”
Source: The Waste Land