Quotes about living
page 13

“I live my life in growing orbits which move out over this wondrous world, I am circling around God, around ancient towers and i have been circling for a thousand years. And I still dont know if I am an eagle or a storm or a great song.”

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) Austrian poet and writer

Source: Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God

Life, God, World

“All human beings have three lives: public, private, and secret.”

Gabriel García Márquez (1927–2014) Colombian writer

Source: Gabriel García Márquez: a Life

Secret

“One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Lie, Cats

“I didn't expect to recover from my second operation but since I did, I consider that I'm living on borrowed time. Every day that dawns is a gift to me and I take it in that way. I accept it gratefully without looking beyond it. I completely forget my physical suffering and all the unpleasantness of my present condition and I think only of the joy of seeing the sun rise once more and of being able to work a little bit, even under difficult conditions.”

Henri Matisse (1869–1954) French artist

Way, Thinking, Suffering, Time

“We thought the hard part was over—but we were wrong. Living is the hardest part. Figuring out how to live your life when you’re all busted up inside and out—there is nothing harder.”

Paullina Simons book The Summer Garden

Source: The Summer Garden

Life, Parting

“Love can really screw you up before you figure out how to live with it. And once you do? You wonder how the hell you ever lived without it”

Nora Roberts book Bed of Roses

Source: Bed of Roses

Love, Hell

“If for a while the harder you try, the harder it gets, take heart. So it has been with the best people who ever lived. (The Inconvenient Messiah, BYU Speeches, Feb 15, 1982)”

Jeffrey R. Holland (1940) Mormon leader

People, Heart

“We must live together as brothers or perish together as fools.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, A Christmas Sermon (1967)
Variant: We must either learn to live together as brothers or we are all going to perish together as fools.

Fools, Cute, For Team

“I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.”

Ayn Rand book Atlas Shrugged

Source: Atlas Shrugged

Love, Life, Motivational, Success

“I remained standing in the middle of the room, swaying on my feet as though I had received a blow. I thought of my life and saw what it had been. No one could swim against such a current of mud. I had been a man so horrible that he could have no friend. But wasn't that, I asked myself, because I had always been incapable of wearing a disguise? If all men went through life with unmasked faces, as I had done for half a century, one might be surprised to find how little difference there was between them. But, in fact, no one lives with his face uncovered, no one. Most men ape greatness or nobility. Though they do not know it, they conform to certain fixed types, literary or other. This the saints know, and they hate and despise themselves because they see themselves with unclouded eyes. I should not have been so universally condemned had I not been so defenseless, so open, and so naked.”

Francois Mauriac (1885–1970) French author

Source: Viper's Tangle

Life, Men, Hate, Universe

“Happiness is something that comes into our lives through doors we don't even remember leaving open.”

Rose Wilder Lane (1886–1968) American journalist

Happiness, Happy

“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

Life, God, Secret, Hope

“Humanity lives in its fiction.”

Blaise Cendrars (1887–1961) French writer of Swiss origin

“Compassion for animals is intimately connected with goodness of character, and it may be confidently asserted that he, who is cruel to living creatures, cannot be a good man. Moreover, this compassion manifestly flows from the same source whence arise the virtues of justice and loving-kindness towards men.”

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German philosopher

Part III, Ch. VIII, 7, p. 223 https://archive.org/stream/basisofmorality00schoiala#page/223/mode/2up <br class="br">On the Basis of Morality (1840) <br class="br">Source: The Basis of Morality

Love, Men, Justice, Confidence

“Sunday neurosis, that kind of depression which afflicts people who become aware of the lack of content in their lives when the rush of the busy week is over and the void within themselves becomes manifest.”

Viktor E. Frankl book Man's Search for Meaning

Source: Man's Search for Meaning

People, Business, Affliction

“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.”

William Saroyan The Time of Your Life

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.

Life, World, Smile, Time

“Although not a very old man, I have yet lived a great deal in my life, and I have known sorrow too bitter and joy too keen to allow me to become either cast down or elated for more than a very brief period over any success or defeat.”

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

Life, Success, Joy

“Man lives in greatest pain”

Gustav Mahler (1860–1911) late-Romantic Austrian composer

Pain

“I saw all races, all colors, blue eyed blonds to black skinned Africans in true brotherhood! In unity! Living as one! Worshiping as one! No segregationists, no liberals; they would not have known how to interpret the meaning of those words”

Malcolm X book The Autobiography of Malcolm X

Source: The Autobiography of Malcolm X

Color

“War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.”

Smedley D. Butler book War Is a Racket

War is a racket (1935)
War is a racket (1935)
Source: War Is a Racket

War, Loss

“Once, during Prohibition, I was forced to live for days on nothing but food and water.”

W.C. Fields (1880–1946) actor

Food, Water

“And, while it was regarded as pretty good evidence of criminality to be
living in a slum, for some reason owning a whole street of them merely got
you invited to the very best social occasions.”

Terry Pratchett book Feet of Clay

Source: Feet of Clay

“You only live twice:
Once when you are born
And once when you look death in the face.”

Ian Fleming book You Only Live Twice

Source: You Only Live Twice (1964), Ch. 11 : Anatomy Class

Death, Wise

“There is a curse.
They say:
May you live in interesting times.”

Terry Pratchett book Interesting Times

Source: Interesting Times

Time

“I understand pain. I've lived with pain my entire life. But pain is nothing compared to betrayal. And betrayal is nothing compared to knowing that the javelin in your back was rammed there by the one person in your life you actually trusted.”

Brad Meltzer book The Book of Lies

Source: The Book of Lies

Life, Pain, Understanding, Betrayal

“Mendacity is a system that we live in," declares Brick. "Liquor is one way out an'death's the other.”

Tennessee Williams Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Source: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Way

“What's the point of living if you're going to hate the world? Guard your heart if you have to, but don't shut it away.”

Neal Shusterman (1962) American novelist

Source: Bruiser

Hate, World, Heart

“Across planes of consciousness, we have to live with the paradox that opposite things can be simultaneously true.”

Ram Dass (1931–2019) American contemporary spiritual teacher and the author of the 1971 book Be Here Now

“You call yourself some kind of goddess and you know nothing, madam, nothing. What don't die can't live. What don't live can't change. What don't change can't learn. The smallest creature that dies in the grass knows more than you.”

Terry Pratchett book Lords and Ladies

Source: Lords and Ladies

Grass, Learning, Change

“Boredom and stupidity and patriotism, especially when combined, are three of the greatest evils of the world we live in.”

Robertson Davies book World of Wonders

Source: World of Wonders

Stupidity, World, Evil

“If you believe that life is worth living then your belief will create the fact.”

Arthur Miller (1915–2005) playwright from the United States

Life, Wise, Positive

“The turning points of lives are not the great moments. The real crises are often concealed in occurrences so trivial in appearance that they pass unobserved.”

George Washington (1732–1799) first President of the United States

Appearance

“Man, the living creature, the creating individual, is always more important than any established style or system.”

Bruce Lee (1940–1973) Hong Kong-American actor, martial artist, philosopher and filmmaker

As quoted in "From Wing Chun to Jeet Kune Do" by Jesse R. Glover in Black Belt Vol. 31, No. 9 (September 1993), p. 35

“We must find time to stop and thank the people who make a difference in our lives.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

People, Time, Sad

“So live as if you were living already for the second time and as if you had acted the first time as wrongly as you are about to act now!”

Viktor E. Frankl book Man's Search for Meaning

Source: Man's Search for Meaning

Time

“How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist

August 19, 1851
Journals (1838-1859)
Variant: How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.

“Everyone must work to live, but the purpose of life is to serve and to show compassion and the will to help others. Only then have we ourselves become true human beings.”

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

Life, Help

“There is an old American saying 'He who lives in a glass house should not try to kill two birds with one stone.”

Vladimir Nabokov book Pnin

Source: Pnin

Bird, Housing

“If the bee disappeared off the face of the earth, man would only have four years left to live.”

Maurice Maeterlinck book The Life of the Bee

Source: The Life of the Bee

Bee

“We can know what love is. It´s adults who have forgotten, so they cling to their poor substitute and yell at kids who dare to live with real love. Pure Love. Love without compromise or distraction.”

Barry Lyga (1971) American writer

Source: Boy Toy

Love

“Always live your life with your biography in mind.”

Marisha Pessl Special Topics in Calamity Physics

Source: Special Topics in Calamity Physics

Life

“The enduring attraction of war is this: Even with its destruction and carnage it can give us what we long for in life. It can give us purpose, meaning, a reason for living.”

Chris Hedges book War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning

Source: War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning

Life, War

“I lived in countries that had no democracy… so I don't find myself in the same luxury as you do. You grew up in freedom, and you can spit on freedom because you don't know what it is not to have freedom.”

Ayaan Hirsi Ali (1969) Dutch feminist, author

Democracy, Freedom, Country

“Trust your heart if the seas catch fire, live by love though the stars walk backward.”

E.E. Cummings (1894–1962) American poet

Variant: Trust your heart if the seas catch fire, live by love though the stars walk backwards.

Love, Star, Heart, Sea

“In the world it is called Tolerance, but in hell it is called Despair… the sin that believes in nothing, cares for nothing, seeks to know nothing, interferes with nothing, enjoys nothing, hates nothing, finds purpose in nothing, lives for nothing, and remains alive because there is nothing for which it will die.”

Dorothy L. Sayers (1893–1957) English crime writer, playwright, essayist and Christian writer

Hate, World, Hell, Despair

“You have to live with the people to know their needs, and you have to live with God to know how to solve them.”

John C. Maxwell (1947) American author, speaker and pastor

God, People

“Whatever your income, always live below your means.”

Thomas J. Stanley (1944–2015) American businessman

Source: The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of Americas Wealthy

“Love is something far more than desire for sexual intercourse; it is the principal means of escape from the loneliness which afflicts most men and women throughout the greater part of their lives.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

1920s, Marriage and Morals (1929)

Love, Women, Men, Affliction

“Don't sign your name
between worlds,

surmount
the manifold of meanings,

trust the tearstain,
learn to live.”

Paul Celan (1920–1970) Romanian poet and translator

Source: Glottal Stop

World, Learning

“I realize full well how hard it must be to go on living alone in a place from which someone has left you, but there is nothing so cruel in this world as the desolation of having nothing to hope for.”

Haruki Murakami book The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Source: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

World, Hope

“Live or die, but don't poison everything.”

Saul Bellow book Herzog

Source: Herzog

“Dreaming permits each and every one of us to be quietly and safely insane every night of our lives.”

William C. Dement (1928) American sleep researcher

Dreams, Night

“Between living and dreaming there is a third thing. Guess it.”

Antonio Machado (1875–1939) Spanish poet

Dreams

“Remember, young man, experience is not the best teacher. Other people's experience is the best teacher. By reading about the lives of great people, you can unlock the secrets to what made them great.”

Andy Andrews (1959) author and corporate speaker

Source: The Noticer: Sometimes, All a Person Needs Is a Little Perspective

People, Secret, Teachers, Reading

“Choosing to be positive and having a grateful attitude is going to determine how you're going to live your life.”

Joel Osteen (1963) American televangelist and author

Life, Motivational, Attitude

“We live and learn, or, perhaps more importantly we learn and live.”

Terry Pratchett book Snuff

Source: Snuff

Learning

“I could never be content to take my place by the fireside and simply look on. Life was meant to be lived, and curiosity must be kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.”

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States

Life

“Live long and prosper!”

Leonard Nimoy (1931–2015) American actor, film director, poet, musician and photographer

A reoccurring saying by the alien race Vulcans in the science fiction television show Star Trek. It first appeared in the season two premiere Amok Time (1967). Leonard Nimoy coined it according to his autobiography I am not Spock (1975).
Variant: Live long and prosper!

“Why can’t I try on different lives, like dresses, to see which fits best and is more becoming?”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

“Death and disaster are at our shoulders every second of our lives, trying to get at us. Missing, a lot of the time. A lot of miles on the motorway without a front wheel blow-out. A lot of viruses that slither through our bodies without snagging. A lot of pianos that fall a minute after we've passed. Or a month, it makes no difference.
So unless were going to get down on our knees and give thanks every time disaster misses, it makes no sense to moan when it strikes.”

Hugh Laurie book The Gun Seller

Source: The Gun Seller (1996)

Death, Sense, Time

“Let us live so that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.”

Mark Twain book Pudd'nhead Wilson

Variant: Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.
Source: Pudd'nhead Wilson

Cute

“I wishcould manage to be glad!" the Queen said. "Only I never can remember the rule. You must be very happy, living in this wood, and being glad whenever you like!”

Lewis Carroll book Through the Looking-Glass

Source: Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There

Happiness

“Live your life as an Exclamation rather than an Explanation”

Isaac Newton (1643–1727) British physicist and mathematician and founder of modern classical physics

Life

“Live, and be happy, and make others so.”

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus

Justine Moritz in Ch. 8
Frankenstein (1818)

Happiness

“The greatest mistake we make is living in constant fear that we will make one.”

John C. Maxwell (1947) American author, speaker and pastor

Fear

“We live in an age when unnecessary things are our only necessities.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

Age

“I want to infect you with the tremendous excitement of living, because I believe that you have the strength to bear it.”

Tennessee Williams (1911–1983) American playwright

Source: The Selected Letters, Vol. 1: 1920-1945

“I do not understand how anyone can live without some small place of enchantment to turn to.”

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (1896–1953) American novelist

Understanding

“I live not in dreams but in contemplation of a reality that is perhaps the future.”

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) Austrian poet and writer

Dreams, Reality, Future

“when we migrate, we murder from our lives those we leave behind.”

Mohsin Hamid book Exit West

Source: Exit West

“If you’re twenty-two, physically fit, hungry to learn and be better, I urge you to travel – as far and as widely as possible. Sleep on floors if you have to. Find out how other people live and eat and cook. Learn from them – wherever you go.”

Anthony Bourdain book Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook

Medium Raw (2010)
Source: Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook

People, Travel, Sleep, Learning

“You can come share a tasty meal of bread, raisins, and fresh cheese. With that, andanyone can live to a hundred.”

Carlos Ruiz Zafón book The Shadow of the Wind

Source: The Shadow of the Wind

“Sometimes I can feel my bones straining under the weight of all the lives I'm not living.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2005), p. 113

Feeling

“Sometimes you have to do something unforgivable just to be able to go on living.”

C.G. Jung (1875–1961) Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology

“I lived in a world that at any moment could erupt into fire. It was the sort of knowledge that kept you on your toes.”

Jeannette Walls book The Glass Castle

Source: The Glass Castle

World, Knowledge

“The fear is simply because you are not living with life, You are living in your mind.”

Sadhguru (1957) Yogi, mystic, visionary and humanitarian

Life, Fear

“For he who lives more lives than one
More deaths than one must die.”

Oscar Wilde book The Ballad of Reading Gaol

Pt. III, st. 22
The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898)
Source: The Ballad of Reading Gaol and Other Poems

Death

“Humanity's a nice place to visit, but you wouldn't want to live there.”

Terry Pratchett book Witches Abroad

Source: Witches Abroad

“It is impossible to live in the past, difficult to live in the present and a waste to live in the future.”

Frank Herbert book Dune

Variant: It is difficult to live in the present, pointless to live in the future and impossible to live in the past.
Source: Dune

Past, Future

“The fact that life has no meaning is a reason to live — moreover, the only one.”

Emil M. Cioran (1911–1995) Romanian philosopher and essayist

Anathemas and Admirations (1987)

Life

“Some people's blameless lives are to blame for a good deal.”

Dorothy L. Sayers book Gaudy Night

Source: Gaudy Night

People

“I repeat with the most vehement conviction: truth is on the march, and nothing will stop it. Today is only the beginning, for it is only today that the positions have become clear: on one side, those who are guilty, who do not want the light to shine forth, on the other, those who seek justice and who will give their lives to attain it. I said it before and I repeat it now: when truth is buried underground, it grows and it builds up so much force that the day it explodes it blasts everything with it. We shall see whether we have been setting ourselves up for the most resounding of disasters, yet to come.”

Emile Zola J’accuse…!

J'accuse! (1898)
Context: These military tribunals have, decidedly, a most singular idea of justice.
This is the plain truth, Mr. President, and it is terrifying. It will leave an indelible stain on your presidency. I realise that you have no power over this case, that you are limited by the Constitution and your entourage. You have, nonetheless, your duty as a man, which you will recognise and fulfill. As for myself, I have not despaired in the least, of the triumph of right. I repeat with the most vehement conviction: truth is on the march, and nothing will stop it. Today is only the beginning, for it is only today that the positions have become clear: on one side, those who are guilty, who do not want the light to shine forth, on the other, those who seek justice and who will give their lives to attain it. I said it before and I repeat it now: when truth is buried underground, it grows and it builds up so much force that the day it explodes it blasts everything with it. We shall see whether we have been setting ourselves up for the most resounding of disasters, yet to come.

Truth, Justice, Light

“Obscurity and a competence—that is the life that is best worth living.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Source: Notebook

Life

“My desire to live is as intense as ever, and though my heart is broken, hearts are made to be broken: that is why God sends sorrow into the world.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

Source: The Complete Letters of Oscar Wilde

God, World, Heart

“The swan who goes on living in its parents' tree will die; this is why those who are beautiful and talented bear the burden of finding their own way in the world.”

Arthur Golden (1956) American novelist

World, Beauty, Way, Parent