“While I take inspiration from the past, like most Americans, I live for the future.”
Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)
Quotes about living page 12
“The songs of the dead are the lamentations of the living.”
Christopher Paolini book Eldest
Opening line
Source: Eldest (2005)
Frédéric Bastiat (1801–1850) French classical liberal theorist, political economist, and member of the French assembly
The State in Journal des débats (1848) par. 5.20.
Variant: The State is the great fiction through which everyone endeavours to live at the expense of everyone else.
“When you were young, and your heart, was an open book. You used to say, live and let live.”
Paul McCartney (1942) English singer-songwriter and composer
Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) French-German physician, theologian, musician and philosopher
Variant translation: Until he extends his circle of compassion to include all living things, man will not himself find peace.
Variant translation: Until we extend the circle of compassion to all living things, we will not ourselves find peace.
Kulturphilosophie (1923)
“And, like the great damned souls, I shall always feel that thinking is worth more than living.”
Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet
Source: The Book of Disquiet
“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
“Most of us have the good or bad fortune of seeing our lives fall apart so slowly we barely notice.”
Carlos Ruiz Zafón book The Shadow of the Wind
Source: The Shadow of the Wind
“Time to live, time to lie, time to laugh, and time to die. Take it easy baby. Take it as it comes.”
Jim Morrison (1943–1971) lead singer of The Doors
Henry Miller (1891–1980) American novelist
Source: Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch (1957), p. 400
“The secret to so many artists living so long is that every painting is a new adventure.”
Norman Rockwell (1894–1978) Armatian
As quoted in A Rockwell Portrait : An Intimate Biography (1978) by Donald Walton, p. 251
Context: The secret to so many artists living so long is that every painting is a new adventure. So, you see, they're always looking ahead to something new and exciting. The secret is not to look back.
“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
Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States
The New York Times (1960), as cited in The Beacon Book of Quotations by Women (1992) by Rosalie Maggio, p. 156
“God cares about every area of our lives, and God wants us to ask for help.”
Ben Carson (1951) 17th and current United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; American neurosurgeon
Source: Think Big: Unleashing Your Potential for Excellence
“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
John Keats (1795–1821) English Romantic poet
then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.
"When I have fears that I may cease to be" (1817)
Source: The Complete Poems
“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
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist
Sec. 283; Variant translation: For believe me: the secret for harvesting from existence the greatest fruitfulness and greatest enjoyment is — to live dangerously.
The Gay Science (1882)
Context: For believe me! — the secret for harvesting from existence the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment is: to live dangerously! Build your cities on the slopes of Vesuvius! Send your ships into uncharted seas! Live at war with your peers and yourselves! Be robbers and conquerors as long as you cannot be rulers and possessors, you seekers of knowledge! Soon the age will be past when you could be content to live hidden in forests like shy deer! At long last the search for knowledge will reach out for its due: — it will want to rule and possess, and you with it!
“Force is all-conquering, but its victories are short-lived.”
Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States
As quoted in Excellent Quotations for Home and School (1888) by Julia B. Hoitt, p. 97; no attribution of this phrase to any existing Lincoln document could be located.
Posthumous attributions
Frédéric Bastiat (1801–1850) French classical liberal theorist, political economist, and member of the French assembly
“We live in a world where there is more and more information, and less and less meaning.”
Jean Baudrillard book Simulacra and Simulation
Source: Simulacra and Simulation
Paulo Coelho book By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept
Source: By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept
Dilgo Khyentse (1910–1991) Bhutanese Buddhist Lama
Source: The Hundred Verses of Advice: Tibetan Buddhist Teachings on What Matters Most
Eugene O'Neill (1888–1953) American playwright, and Nobel laureate in Literature
Source: The Great God Brown and Other Plays
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
“Live as big as you can, with what you've got.”
Jill Shalvis (1963) American writer
Source: Instant Attraction
Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird
Pt. 1, ch. 11
Jean Louise (Scout) Finch
Source: To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
“Death is a problem of the living. Dead people have no problems.”
Norbert Elias (1897–1990) German sociologist
“I am still in the land of the dying; I shall be in the land of the living soon. (his last words)”
John Newton (1725–1807) Anglican clergyman and hymn-writer
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist
“It is better to die for an idea that will live, than to live for an idea that will die.”
Steve Biko (1946–1977) anti-apartheid activist in South Africa
Quoted in Scott MacLeod, "South Africa: Extremes in Black and Whites" http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,975037,00.html, Time, March 9, 1992, p. 38 <br class="br">Quoted in "The Mind of Black Africa" (1996) by Dickson A. Mungazi, p. 159
Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914) American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist, and satirist
The Devil's Dictionary (1911)
Source: The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary
“… living is merely the chaos of existence…”
Yukio Mishima book The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea
Source: The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea
“The eternal life is given to those who live in the present.”
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) Austrian-British philosopher
“Death is not the opposite of life but an innate part of it. By living our lives, we nurture death.”
Haruki Murakami book Norwegian Wood
Variant: Death is not the opposite of life, but a part of it.
Source: Norwegian Wood
“Our lives are fashioned by our choices. First we make our choices. Then our choices make us.”
Anne Frank (1929–1945) victim of the Holocaust and author of a diary
“At the Day of Judgement we shall not be asked what we have read but what we have done; not how well we have spoken, but how holily we have lived.”
Certe adveniente die judicii, non quæretur a nobis quid legimus, sed quid fecimus; nec quam bene diximus, sed quam religiose viximus.
Thomas à Kempis book The Imitation of Christ
Book I, ch. 3; this is part of a longer passage:
A humble knowledge of oneself is a surer road to God than a deep searching of the sciences. Yet learning itself is not to be blamed, or is the simple knowledge of anything whatsoever to be despised, for true learning is good in itself and ordained by God; but a good conscience and a holy life are always to be preferred. But because many are more eager to acquire much learning than to live well, they often go astray, and bear little or no fruit. If only such people were as diligent in the uprooting of vices and the panting of virtues as they are in the debating of problems, there would not be so many evils and scandals among the people, nor such laxity in communities. At the Day of Judgement, we shall not be asked what we have read, but what we have done; not how eloquently we have spoken, but how holily we have lived. Tell me, where are now all those Masters and Doctors whom you knew so well in their lifetime in the full flower of their learning? Other men now sit in their seats, and they are hardly ever called to mind. In their lifetime they seemed of great account, but now no one speaks of them.
[Humili tui cognitio, certior viam est ad Deum, quam profunda scientiae inquisitio. Non est culpanda scientia, aut quelibet simplex rei notitia, quae bona est in se considerata, et a Deo ordinat: sed preferenda est semper bona conscientia, et virtuosa vita. Quia vero plures magis student scire, quam bene vivere: ideo saepe errant, et pene nullum, vel modicum fructum ferunt. O si tanta adhiberent diligentiam ad extirpanda vitia, et virtute inferendas, sicuti ad movenda questiones: non fierent tanta mala et scandala in populo nec tanta dissolutio in cenobiis ! Certe, adveniente die judicii, non quaeretur a nobis: quid legimus, sed quid fecimus: nec quam bene diximus, sed quam religiose viximus. Dic mihi: Ubi sunt modo omnes illi Domini et Magistri, quos bene novisti, dum adhuc viverent et studiis florerent? Iam eorum praebendas alii possident: et nescio, utrum de eis recogitent. In vita sua aliquid esse videbantur, et modo de illis tacetur.]
Book I, ch. 3.
Source: The Imitation of Christ (c. 1418)
“In living we die, in dying we live.”
Ted Dekker (1962) American writer
“Just when I thought I was learning how to live, 'twas then I realized I was learning how to die.”
Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist
Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States
Sadhguru book Inner Engineering: A Yogi's Guide to Joy
Source: Inner Engineering: A Yogi's Guide to Joy
Anne Frank (1929–1945) victim of the Holocaust and author of a diary
Source: The Diary of a Young Girl
“Truth sits upon the lips of dying men,
And falsehood, while I lived, was far from mine.”
Matthew Arnold Sohrab and Rustum
"Sohrab and Rustum" (1853), lines 656-657
“It’s a story of love, of hatred, and of the dreams that live in the shadow of the wind.”
Carlos Ruiz Zafón book The Shadow of the Wind
Source: The Shadow of the Wind
“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
“Why does a man live?
-In order to think about it…”
Erich Maria Remarque (1898–1970) German novelist
Source: Arch of Triumph: A Novel of a Man Without a Country