Quotes about living
page 14

Barack Obama photo

“Someone once said that every man is trying to live up to his father's expectations or make up for their father's mistakes….”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Source: The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream

Virginia Woolf photo
Albert Schweitzer photo
Theodore Roosevelt photo

“This country will not be a permanently good place for any of us to live in unless we make it a reasonably good place for all of us to live in.”

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

Chicago, IL http://www.trsite.org/content/pages/speaking-loudly (17 June 1912)
1910s

George Bernard Shaw photo
Ava Gardner photo
Albert Einstein photo

“Everyone 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.”

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/.)
Misattributed
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.

Richard Bach photo

“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

Friedrich Nietzsche photo

“Without forgetting it is quite impossible to live at all.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

Source: On the Advantage and Disadvantage of History for Life

C.G. Jung photo

“The shoe that fits one person pinches another; there is no recipe for living that suits all cases.”

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

Source: Modern Man in Search of a Soul, p. 69

Friedrich Nietzsche photo
Terry Pratchett photo

“When in doubt, choose to live.”

Source: Thief of Time

Ralph Ellison photo
Christopher Paolini photo
Sylvia Plath photo

“I must be lean & write & make worlds beside this to live in.”

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

“Real living is living for others.”

Bruce Lee (1940–1973) Hong Kong-American actor, martial artist, philosopher and filmmaker
William Shakespeare photo
Paulo Coelho photo
Erich Maria Remarque photo
George Carlin photo
Terry Pratchett photo
Andy Rooney photo
William Shakespeare photo

“So wise so young, they say, do never live long.”

Source: Richard III

Nora Roberts photo
William James photo

“Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact.”

"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)

Rainer Maria Rilke photo
Clive Barker photo
Emil M. Cioran photo
Susan B. Anthony photo
Tamora Pierce photo

“He's just rather more lively than most fossils.”

Tamora Pierce (1954) American writer of fantasy novels for children
John Archibald Wheeler photo
Joe Navarro photo

“The problem is that most people spend their lives looking but not truly seeing, or, as Sherlock Holmes, the meticulous English detective, declared to his partner, Dr. Watson, “You see, but you do not observe.”

Joe Navarro (1953) Author, professional speaker, ex-FBI agent and supervisor

Source: What Every Body is Saying: An Ex-FBI Agent's Guide to Speed-Reading People

H.P. Lovecraft photo
Oscar Wilde photo

“Better to live Until You die.”

Way of the Peaceful Warrior: A Book That Changes Lives

Leonardo Da Vinci photo

“I thought I was learning to live; I was only learning to die.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci (1938), I Philosophy
Variant: While I thought I have been learning how to live, I have been learning how to die.

Lewis Carroll photo
Rainer Maria Rilke photo
Augusten Burroughs photo
Eleanor Roosevelt photo

“I think that somehow, we learn who we really are and then live with that decision.”

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

As quoted in Peter's Quotations : Ideas for Our Time (1972) by Laurence J. Peter, p. 5

Peter F. Drucker photo
Dr. Seuss photo
Antonin Artaud photo
Groucho Marx photo
Friedrich Nietzsche photo

“Live dangerously.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist
Immanuel Kant photo
Dorothy Parker photo

“Razors pain you,
Rivers are damp,
Acids stain you,
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful,
Nooses give,
Gas smells awful.
You might as well live.”

Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist

Source: Enough Rope

Jean Paul Sartre photo

“Everything has been figured out, except how to live.”

Jean Paul Sartre (1905–1980) French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and …
Solón photo
Arthur Miller photo

“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!”

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!

Oscar Wilde photo
Clarice Lispector photo
Saul Bellow photo
Mark Twain photo

“Get a bicycle. You will not regret it, if you live.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

"Taming the Bicycle" (1917)

Kate Millett photo
Philippa Gregory photo
Martin Luther King, Jr. photo

“A man who does not have something for which he is willing to die is not fit to live.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement
Saul Bellow photo
Sadhguru photo
Abraham Lincoln photo

“I like to see a man proud of the place in which he lives. I like to see a man live so that his place will be proud of him. Be honest, but hate no one; overturn a man's wrongdoing, but do not overturn him unless it must be done in overturning the wrong. Stand with a man while he is right, and part with him when he goes wrong.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

The last sentence is from the 16 October 1854 Peoria speech, slightly paraphrased. No known contemporary source for the rest. It first appears, attributed to Lincoln, in US religious/inspirational journals in 1907-8, such as p123, Friends Intelligencer: a religious and family journal, Volume 65, Issue 8 (1908)
Misattributed

Andy Rooney photo
Albert Schweitzer photo
Steven Spielberg photo

“I dream for a living.”

Steven Spielberg (1946) American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur

Time (July 15, 1985)

Markus Zusak photo
Lemmy Kilmister photo
Samuel Johnson photo

“It is better to live rich, than to die rich.”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

April 17, 1778
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol III

Mark Twain photo
Jim Morrison photo
Stephen King photo
William Shakespeare photo
Fernando Pessoa photo
Henry Miller photo
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow photo

“Hades was the personification of dark and dangerous--a living, breathing Batman.”

P. C. Cast (1960) American writer

Source: Goddess of Spring

Pablo Neruda photo
Oscar Wilde photo
Jawaharlal Nehru photo
Leonardo Da Vinci photo
Thomas Paine photo
Marcel Duchamp photo

“The most interesting thing about artists is how they live”

Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968) French painter and sculptor

Source: The Writings of Marcel Duchamp

Jimmy Carter photo

“Ladies and gentlemen: War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always an evil, never a good. We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other's children.”

Jimmy Carter (1924) American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981)

Post-Presidency, Nobel lecture (2002)
Source: The Nobel Peace Prize Lecture

Oscar Wilde photo
Douglas Adams photo
Nora Ephron photo
H. Havelock Ellis photo
John Wooden photo

“You can’t live a perfect day without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you.”

John Wooden (1910–2010) American basketball coach

They Call Me Coach (1972)
Variant: You cannot live a perfect day without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you

John Lennon photo

“Why in the world are we here? Surely not to live in pain and fear. Why on earth are you there, when you're everywhere-come and get your share.”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

John Lennon, in "Instant Karma!" (written 27 January 1970)
Lyrics
Context: Instant Karma's gonna get you
Gonna knock you off your feet
Better recognize your brothers
Everyone you meet Why in the world are we here?
Surely not to live in pain and fear
Why on Earth are you there
When you're everywhere
Gonna get your share Well, we all shine on
Like the moon and the stars and the sun
Yeah, we all shine on
C'mon and on and on, on, on