Quotes about living
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“We can draw lessons from the past, but we cannot live in it.”

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) American politician, 36th president of the United States (in office from 1963 to 1969)

“The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum - even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there's free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Source: Quotes 1990s, 1995-1999, The Common Good (1998)

People, Way, Thinking, Sense

“I'd like to live as a poor man with lots of money.”

Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer

Money, Funny

“I'm not going to change the way I look or the way I feel to conform to anything. I've always been a freak. So I've been a freak all my life and I have to live with that, you know. I'm one of those people.”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

Life, People, Way, Feeling

“I don't want to have lived in vain like most people. I want to be useful or bring enjoyment to all people, even those I've never met. I want to go on living even after my death!”

Anne Frank (1929–1945) victim of the Holocaust and author of a diary

5 April 1944
The Diary of a Young Girl (1942 - 1944)
Variant: I need to have something besides a husband and children to devote myself to! I don't want to have lived in vain like most people. I want to be useful or bring enjoyment to all people, even those I've never met.

Death, People

“Everyone seems to have a clear idea of how other people should lead their lives, but none about his or her own.”

Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist

Source: The Alchemist

People, Idea

“We all live with the objective of being happy; our lives are all different and yet the same.”

Anne Frank (1929–1945) victim of the Holocaust and author of a diary

Happiness, Happy

“I don't want to get to the end of my life and find that I just lived the length of it. I want to live the width of it as well.”

Diane Ackerman (1948) Author, poet, naturalist

As quoted in Meditations for Women Who Do Too (1991) by Anne Wilson Schaef

Life, Motivational, Deep, Happy

“Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies within us while we live.”

Norman Cousins (1915–1990) American journalist

Quoted in History of Sikh Struggles (1989) by Gurmit Singh, p. 189.

Life, Death, Loss

“Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.”

Rainer Maria Rilke book Letters to a Young Poet

Source: Letters to a Young Poet

Love, Beauty, Courage, Waiting

“In order to write about life first you must live it.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

Life, Motivational, Deep, Happy

“It's only when we truly know and understand that we have a limited time on earth -- and that we have no way of knowing when our time is up -- that we will begin to live each day to the fullest, as if it was the only one we had.”

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross (1926–2004) American psychiatrist

Way, Understanding, Time, Deep

“I don't care If I go to hell as long as the people I serve will live in paradise.”

Rodrigo Duterte (1945) Filipino politician and the 16th President of the Philippines

"Duterte: Look ma, cheap shoes no socks" http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/710288/duterte-simple-lifestyle-has-served-me-well-in-govt' (August 5 2015)

People, Hell

“The kabalists say that a man is not dead when his body is entombed. Death is never sudden; for, according to Hermes, nothing goes in nature by violent transitions. Everything is gradual, and as it required a long and gradual development to produce the living human being, so time is required to completely withdraw vitality from the carcass. "Death can no more be an absolute end, than birth a real beginning. Birth proves the preexistence of the being, as death proves immortality," says the same French kabalist”

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky book Isis Unveiled

Eliphas Levi
Source: Isis Unveiled (1877), Volume I, Chapter XIII

Death, Birth, Nature, Time

“When I am anxious it is because I am living in the future. When I am depressed it is because I am living in the past.”

Laozi (-604) semi-legendary Chinese figure, attributed to the 6th century, regarded as the author of the Tao Te Ching and fou…

Attributed to "Jimmy R." in Days of Healing, Days of Joy (1987) Misattributed Source: link https://books.google.com/books?id=7QNk4eNvS44C&pg=PA175&lpg=PA175&dq=%22days+of+healing+days+of+joy%22+%22jimmy+r%22&source=bl&ots=C-jAUVg8y8&sig=fB9m-eQ1IvtjJV6Ncz8mZ30RRHo&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CB4Q6AEwAGoVChMIrYnZyNDlyAIVV_5jCh07uQOs#v=onepage&q=%22days%20of%20healing%20days%20of%20joy%22%20%22jimmy%20r%22&f=false

Past, Future

“There are two Mustafa Kemals: One is me, the flesh-and-blood, mortal Mustafa Kemal … The second Mustafa Kemal,… I can not express it with the word “me”, it is not “me”, it is “we”. That is an intellectual and challenging society, struggling in every corner of the homeland for new ideas, new life and the great ideal. I represent their dream. My attempts are to satisfy the things they long. That Mustafa Kemal is you, all of you. That is the non provisional Mustafa Kemal that must live and succeed.”

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1881–1938) Turkish army officer, revolutionary, and the first President of Turkey

İki Mustafa Kemal vardır: Biri ben, et ve kemik, geçici Mustafa Kemal... İkinci Mustafa Kemal, onu "ben" kelimesiyle ifade edemem; o, ben değil, bizdir! O, memleketin her köşesinde yeni fikir, yeni hayat ve büyük ülkü için uğraşan aydın ve savaşçı bir topluluktur. Ben, onların rüyasını temsil ediyorum. Benim teşebbüslerim, onların özlemini çektikleri şeyleri tatmin içindir. O Mustafa Kemal sizsiniz, hepinizsiniz. Geçici olmayan, yaşaması ve başarılı olması gereken Mustafa Kemal odur.
As quoted in Ataturk: First President and Founder of the Turkish Republic (2002) by Yüksel Atillasoy, p. 19

Life, Dreams, Idea

“And people say to me, they say Jesus wasn't Jewish. I say of course he was Jewish. 30 years old, single, lives with his parents. Come on! Work in his father's business, his mom thought he was God's gift! He's Jewish! Give it up!”

Robin Williams (1951–2014) American actor and stand-up comedian

Robin Williams: Live on Broadway (2002)

God, People, Moms, Business

“Heal the world, make it a better place,
For you and for me and the entire human race,
There are people dying, but if you care enough for the living,
Make a better place for you and for me.”

Michael Jackson (1958–2009) American singer, songwriter and dancer

Heal the World
Dangerous (1991)

People, World

“They say there is a judgement day. I don't think judgement day comes when we are dead. The judgement day is today, the judgement day is now. And it is going to allow you to live a life of hell now; Or to choose your own kingdom, To live Heaven on earth now. Live dangerously until you die.”

Rich Piana (1970–2017) American bodybuilder and internet personality

Life, Hell, Thinking, Dead

“I was very young at that time, and always I used to tell myself that if ever I could do it, I would try to create a little world — Oh! quite a small one, but still — a small world where people would be able to live without having to be preoccupied by problems of food and lodging and clothing and the imperious necessities of life, to see if all the energies freed by this certainty of an assured material living would spontaneously be turned towards the divine life and inner realization.”

The Mother (1878–1973) spiritual collaborator of Sri Aurobindo

In "Auroville — The City Of Dawn in South India" (27 February 2009)
Sayings

Life, People, World, Food

“I've been trying to live my life so that in the hour of my death I would rather feel joy, than fear.”

Witold Pilecki (1901–1948) World War II concentration camp leader and resistor

After the announcement of the death sentence.
Source: Bartłomiej Kuraś, Witold Pilecki – w Auschwitzu z własnej woli, „Ale Historia”, w: „Gazeta Wyborcza”, 22 kwietnia 2013.

Life, Death, Fear, Feeling

“You don't get to choose how you're going to die. Or when. You can only decide how you're going to live. Now.”

Joan Baez (1941) American singer

Daybreak http://books.google.com/books?id=Imte1JcsQ64C&q=%22You+don't+get+to+choose+how+you're+going+to+die+Or+when+You+can+only+decide+how+you're+going+to+live+Now%22&pg=PA135#v=onepage (1968) Variant or paraphrase: You can't decide how you're going to die. Or when. What you can decide is how you're going to live now.

“Angels, living light most glorious!
Beneath the Godhead in burning desire
in the darkness and mystery of creation
you look on the eye of your God
never taking your fill:
What glorious pleasures take shape within you!”

Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179) Medieval saint, prophetise, mystic and Doctor of Church

"O gloriosissimi"

God, Pleasure, Angels, Light

“We cannot rest while Brazilians are going hungry, while families are living in the streets, while poor children are abandoned to their own fates and while crack and crack dens rule.”

Dilma Rousseff (1947) 36th President of Brazil

First speech http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/01/dilma-rousseff-wins-brazil-president after being elected President, October 31. 2010

Fate, Children, Family

“Bad men live that they may eat and drink, whereas good men eat and drink that they may live.”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

Plutarch Moralia, How the Young Man Should Study Poetry

Variant translation: Base men live to eat and drink, and good men eat and drink to live.
Plutarch

Men, Drink

“I lived in Hollywood and, ironically, I didn't know you could just go out and get an agent and go on auditions and try and become an actor, I thought it was like a Masonic thing, like a blood line you had to belong to - until I was 13. Then I realised what you had to do. It is the one thing I know I want to do for the rest of my life.”

Leonardo DiCaprio (1974) American actor and film producer

http://www.flixster.com/actor/leonardo-di-caprio/leonardo-dicaprio-quotes

Life

“[Fascism] was an explosion against intolerable conditions, against remediable wrongs which the old world failed to remedy. It was a movement to secure national renaissance by people who felt themselves threatened with decline into decadence and death and were determined to live, and live greatly.”

Oswald Mosley (1896–1980) British politician; founder of the British Union of Fascists

Excerpt from My Life by Oswald Mosley (1968), Ch.16.

Death, People, World

“In theory, it matters little to me whether I live as whether I die; in practice, I am lacerated by every anxiety which opens an abyss between life and death.”

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

The New Gods (1969)

Life, Death

“Be of one mind and one faith, that you may conquer your enemies and lead long and happy lives.”

Genghis Khan (1162–1227) founder and first emperor of the Mongol Empire

As quoted in The Mongol Empire : Its Rise and Legacy (1940) by Michael Prawdin, p. 224

Happiness, Faith

“Anybody white could take your whole self for anything that came to mind. Not just work, kill, or maim you, but dirty you. Dirty you so bad you couldn't like yourself anymore. And though she and others lived through and got over it, she could never let it happen to her own. The best things she was, was her children. Whites might dirty her all right, but not her best thing, her beautiful, magical best thing — the part of her that was clean.”

Toni Morrison book Beloved

Source: Beloved (1987), Ch. 26

Children, Beauty, Parting

“Any person who pursues human rights in Iran must live with fear from birth to death, but I have learned to overcome my fear.”

Shirin Ebadi (1947) Iranian lawyer, human rights activist, and Nobel Peace Prize recipient

From 1999 interview. Noted in the October 2003 BBC News profile of Ebadi. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3181992.stm (retrieved Oct. 15, 2008)

Death, Fear, Birth, Learning

“The more a believer wishes to live the absolute call of God, the more essential it is to do so in the heart of human distress.”

Brother Roger (1915–2005) Swiss monk

The Sources of Taizé (2000), p. 79

God, Heart

“Music is your own experience, your own thoughts, your wisdom. If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn. They teach you there's a boundary line to music. But, man, there's no boundary line to art.”

Charlie Parker (1920–1955) American jazz saxophonist and composer

As quoted in Bird : The Legend Of Charlie Parker (1977) by Robert George Reisner, p. 27

Wisdom, Art, Music

“I'm probably not going to get married unless I live with somebody for 10 or 20 years. But these people (Romeo and Juliet) took a chance and they did it. We don't have the balls that Romeo did.”

Leonardo DiCaprio (1974) American actor and film producer

http://www.flixster.com/actor/leonardo-di-caprio/leonardo-dicaprio-quotes

People, Chance

“God Vishnu has complete power over souls and matter and that Vishnu saves souls entirely by his grace which is granted to those who live pure and moral lives. Evil souls are predestined to eternal damnation and should of mediocre quality will transmigrate eternally.”

Madhvacharya (1199–1278) Hindu philosopher who founded Dvaita Vedanta school

Quoted from [Martha Bush Ashton, Martha Bush Ashton-Sikora, Bruce Christie, Yakṣagāna, a Dance Drama of India, 23, http://books.google.com/books?id=ug3DNI-1xwUC&pg=PA23, 1977, Abhinav Publications, 23–].

God, Soul, Evil

“Think of life as it really is, think of the details of life; and then think that there is no meaning in it, no purpose, no goal except the grave. Surely only fools or self-deceivers, or those whose lives are exceptionally fortunate, can face that thought without flinching?”

George Orwell book A Clergyman's Daughter

A Clergyman's Daughter, Ch. 2 (1935)

Life, Fools, Thinking

“I like playing music because it's a good living and I get satisfaction from it. But I can't feed my family with satisfaction.”

James Hetfield (1963) American musician, songwriter and record producer

Playboy, April 2001

Family, Music

“Being an atheist must be like living in a closed cell with no windows. I’d hate to live like that, wouldn’t you? We see them, mind you, on television today, many brilliant people who are professional atheists who say they know for a fact that it’s insanity to have a God or to believe in religion. Well, OK, God bless them for feeling that way and I hope they’re happy. But I couldn’t live with that certainty, and I wonder about some of them: why are they protesting so much? How are they so sure of what is out there? And who am I to refute the beliefs of so many great philosophers and martyrs all the way down the years?”

Anthony Hopkins (1937) Welsh stage and television actor

"Sir Anthony Hopkins: I couldn't be an atheist". https://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2011/02/11/sir-anthony-hopkins-i-couldnt-be-an-atheist/ (February 11, 2011)

God, Hate, Happiness, People

“The only way I've been practicing my whole life, to live my life is to be responsible for what I do. I don't know how to be responsible for what every black male did, I don't know. And yes, I am gonna say that I'm a thug, that's because I came from the gutter and I'm still here! I'm not saying I'm a thug because I wanna rob you or rape people and things. I'm a business man, I mean, you know I'm a business man because you find me at my places of business.”

Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor

1990s, Interview outside courthouse (1994)

Life, People, Way, Business

“I have eaten your bread and salt.
I have drunk your water and wine.
The deaths ye died I have watched beside
And the lives ye led were mine.”

Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) English short-story writer, poet, and novelist

Prelude, Stanza 1.
Departmental Ditties and other Verses (1886)

Death, Water, Wine

“Maybe we have to contribute ideologies to achieve the perfect utopian government. Remember, government-sponsored health care was a communist idea. Should only the rich be allowed to live long? Does that say that because a person is poor, he is a lesser human being; and doesn't deserve to live as long, because he doesn't wear a tie to work?”

Timothy McVeigh (1968–2001) American army soldier, security guard, terrorist

1990s, Letter to the Union-Sun & Journal (1992)

Health, Idea, Personality, Perfection

“I write and leave behind me this letter at St. Petersburg. I feel that I shall leave life before January 1st. I wish to make known to the Russian people, to Papa, to the Russian Mother and to the children, to the land of Russia, what they must understand. If I am killed by common assassins, and especially by my brothers the Russian peasants, you, Tsar of Russia, have nothing to fear, remain on your throne and govern, and you, Russian Tsar, will have nothing to fear for your children, they will reign for hundreds of years in Russia. But if I am murdered by boyars, nobles, and if they shed my blood, their hands will remain soiled with my blood, for twenty-five years they will not wash their hands from my blood. They will leave Russia. Brothers will kill brothers, and they will kill each other and hate each other, and for twenty-five years there will be no noblers in the country. Tsar of the land of Russia, if you hear the sound of the bell which will tell you that Grigory has been killed, you must know this: if it was your relations who have wrought my death then no one of your family, that is to say, none of your children or relations will remain alive for more than two years. They will be killed by the Russian people…I shall be killed. I am no longer among the living. Pray, pray, be strong, think of your blessed family.”

Grigori Rasputin (1869–1916) Russian mystic

Grigory Rasputin in a letter to the Tsarina Alexandra, 7 Dec 1916

Life, Death, Hate, Children

“I do nobody harm, I say none harm, I think none harm, but wish everybody good. And if this be not enough to keep a man alive, in good faith, I long not to live.”

Thomas More (1478–1535) English Renaissance humanist

Thomas More's Account, in a letter to his daughter Margaret Roper, of his Second Interrogation

Faith, Thinking

“The only thing that can kill me is death, that's the only thing that can ever stop me, is death, and even then my music will live forever.”

Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor

1990s, Prison interviews and interrogations (1995)

Death, Music

“I have lived such an unnatural life, devoid of love, sex, and pleasure.”

Elliot Rodger (1991–2014) American spree killer

My Twisted World (2014), 19-22, UC Santa Barbara, Perspective on incelness

Love, Life, Pleasure, Sex

“To be kind is to respond with sensitivity and human warmth to the hopes and needs of others. Even the briefest touch of kindness can lighten a heavy heart. Kindness can change the lives of people.”

Aung San Suu Kyi (1945) State Counsellor of Myanmar and Leader of the National League for Democracy

Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech (2012)
Context: Of the sweets of adversity, and let me say that these are not numerous, I have found the sweetest, the most precious of all, is the lesson I learnt on the value of kindness. Every kindness I received, small or big, convinced me that there could never be enough of it in our world. To be kind is to respond with sensitivity and human warmth to the hopes and needs of others. Even the briefest touch of kindness can lighten a heavy heart. Kindness can change the lives of people.

People, Hope, Change, Heart

“We all live under the same sky, but we don't all have the same horizon.”

Konrad Adenauer (1876–1967) German statesman, Federal Chancellor of Germany, politician (CDU)

Reader's Digest 1972, p. 194 books.google https://books.google.de/books?id=ctsnAQAAIAAJ&q=adenauer

“I mean some doctor told me I had six months to live and I went to their funeral.”

Keith Richards (1943) British rock musician, member of The Rolling Stones

“Money buys you the freedom to live your life the way you want.”

Keanu Reeves (1964) Canadian actor, director, producer and musician

Life, Money, Way, Freedom

“Remember, when someone says ‘you’ve changed,’ it usually just means you’ve stopped living your life their way.”

Ricky Gervais (1961) English comedian, actor, director, producer, musician, writer, and former radio presenter

Life, Way, Change

“A man who prays lives out the mystery of existence, and a man who does not pray scarcely exists.”

Charbel Makhlouf (1828–1898) Lebanese Maronite monk and saint

Love is a Radiant Light: The Life & Words of Saint Charbel (2019)

“In a vibrant and emergent culture, rather than having conflicts between nations, the challenges we will face will be overcoming scarcity, restructuring damaged environments, creating innovative technologies, increasing agricultural yield, improving communications, building communications between nations, sharing technologies, and living a meaningful life.”

Jacque Fresco (1916–2017) American futurist and self-described social engineer

Designing the Future (2007)

Life, Communication

“I need to have something besides a husband and children to devote myself to! I don't want to have lived in vain like most people. I want to be useful or bring enjoyment to all people, even those I've never met.”

Anne Frank (1929–1945) victim of the Holocaust and author of a diary

Ik moet iets hebben naast man en kinderen waar ik me aan wijden kan! O ja, ik wil niet zoals de meeste mensen voor niets geleefd hebben. Ik wil van nut of plezier zijn voor de mensen, die om mij heen leven en die mij toch niet kennen.
5 April 1944
The Diary of a Young Girl (1942 - 1944)

Children, People

“In today's world, where we live, there is no longer someone else’s war. None of you can feel safe when there is a war in Ukraine, when there is a war in Europe.”

Volodymyr Zelensky (1978) 6th President of Ukraine

Zelensky’s speech at the UN General Assembly https://www.president.gov.ua/en/news/vistup-prezidenta-ukrayini-volodimira-zelenskogo-na-zagalnih-57477 (25 September 2019)

War, World, Feeling

“I made a metamorphose, I'm a new person today, because I used to strongly and honestly, honestly! I feel like I can represent my generation so much because I honestly did not care whether I lived or died. But now I can not die, with people thinking I'm a rapist or a criminal, I can not leave until this shit is straight, you know I'm not suicidal. I can't go until ya'll really know what time it is. And then after that, BOOM!, It's all over and we can see how this shit fall, but that's how it is, and the reason being is because if I can't live free, if I can't live with the same respect as the next man, I don't wanna be here, because god has cursed me to see what life should be like, If God wanted me to be this person and be happy here, he wouldn't let me feel so oppressed, he wouldn't let me feel so trampled on, you know what I'm saying, he wouldn't let me think the things I think. So I feel I'm doing Gods work, you know what I'm saying just because I don't have nothing to pass around for people to put money in a bucket don't mean I ain't doing God's work.”

Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor

1990s, Ed Gordon interview (1994)

Life, Money, God, Happiness

“We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Life, Wise, Deep, Happy

“The person who lives life fully, glowing with life's energy, is the person who lives a successful life.”

Daisaku Ikeda (1928) Japanese writer

Life, Success, Personality

“Excess of grief for the dead is madness; for it is an injury to the living, and the dead know it not.”

Xenophon (-430–-354 BC) ancient Greek historian and philosopher

Madness, Dead

“There's no need to lower or raise yourself above the things that you are not. Live according to your ability. Be true to yourself and your own nature.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Nature

“Trees make me believe that we can also renew and reshape our lives, no matter what we face in life.”

Ahmed Omaar

Life, Tree

“Music is so important to us. We hear music from the moment we are born, often via lullabies, and through many of the most important occasions in our lives, from graduations to weddings to funerals. There is something about music that seems to bring us closer to each other and help us come together as a community.
Humans are wired for music. Researchers recently discovered that we have a dedicated part of our brain for processing music, supporting the theory that it has a special, important function in our lives.
Listening to music and singing together has been shown in several studies to directly impact neuro-chemicals in the brain, many of which play a role in closeness and connection. Now new research suggests that playing music or singing together may be particularly potent in bringing about social closeness through the release of endorphins.
Through singing, drumming, and dancing—all resulted in participants having higher pain thresholds (a proxy measure for increased endorphin release in the brain) in comparison to listening to music alone. In addition, the performance of music resulted in greater positive emotion, suggesting one pathway through which people feel closer to one another when playing music together is through endorphin release.”

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

Pain, People, Music, Feeling

“Keep in mind that many people have died for their beliefs; it's actually quite common. The real courage is in living and suffering for what you believe.”

Christopher Paolini book Eragon

Variant: Are you willing to die for what you believe in? The real courage is in living and suffering for what you believe.
Source: Eragon

People, Courage, Suffering, Courageous

“I believe one writes because one has to create a world in which one can live.”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

February 1954 The Diary of Anaïs Nin Vol. 5 (1947-1955), as quoted in Woman as Writer (1978) by Jeannette L. Webber and Joan Grumman, p. 38
Diary entries (1914 - 1974)
Context: Why one writes is a question I can answer easily, having so often asked it of myself. I believe one writes because one has to create a world in which one can live. I could not live in any of the worlds offered to me — the world of my parents, the world of war, the world of politics. I had to create a world of my own, like a climate, a country, an atmosphere in which I could breathe, reign, and recreate myself when destroyed by living. That, I believe, is the reason for every work of art.

World

“Be afraid of nothing. Hating none, giving love to all, feeling the love of God, seeing His presence in everyone, and having but one desire - for His constant presence in the temple of your consciousness - that is the way to live in this world.”

Paramahansa Yogananda (1893–1952) Yogi, a guru of Kriya Yoga and founder of Self-Realization Fellowship

Source: In the Sanctuary of the Soul: A Guide to Effective Prayer

Love, God, Hate, World

“Erik is not truly dead. He lives on within the souls of those who choose to listen to the music of the night.”

Gaston Leroux book The Phantom of the Opera

Source: The Phantom of the Opera

Music, Soul, Night, Dead

“Past is dead
Future is uncertain;
Present is all you have,
So eat, drink and live merry.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Drink, Past, Future, Dead

“Each person must live their life as a model for others.”

Rosa Parks (1913–2005) African-American civil rights activist

Life, Personality, Wise, Deep

“All real living is meeting.”

Martin Buber book I and Thou

Variant translationː All actual life is encounter.
Variant: All real life is meeting.
Source: I and Thou (1923)

“Sometimes I wonder if men and women really suit each other. Perhaps they should live next door and just visit now and then.”

Katharine Hepburn (1907–2003) film, stage, and television actress

Women, Men, Relationship, Wedding

“Home is in here [tapping temple]. Where you live is just a geographical preference.”

Lemmy Kilmister (1945–2015) British singer-songwriter

Home

“Live not by lies!”

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008) Russian writer

“He is terribly afraid of dying because he hasn’t yet lived.”

Franz Kafka (1883–1924) author

“…'I thought the rule was that all monks were shaved.'

'Oh, Soto says he is bald under the hair,'said Lu Tze. 'He says the hair is a separate creature that just happens to live on him.”

Terry Pratchett book Thief of Time

Source: Thief of Time

“I'd rather go on hearing your lies, than to go on living without you.”

Elvis Presley (1935–1977) American singer and actor

“People tend to complicate their own lives, as if living weren't already complicated enough.”

Carlos Ruiz Zafón book The Shadow of the Wind

Source: The Shadow of the Wind

People

“Someone else's vision will never be as good as your own vision of your self. Live and die with it 'cause in the end it’s all you have. Lose it and you lose yourself and everything else. I should have listened to myself.”

Georgia O'Keeffe (1887–1986) American artist

“I'm tired of living unable to love anyone. I don't have a single friend - not one. And, worst of all, I can't even love myself. Why is that? Why can't I love myself? It's because I can't love anyone else. A person learns how to love himself through the simple acts of loving and being loved by someone else. Do you understand what I am saying? A person who is incapable of loving another cannot properly love himself.”

Haruki Murakami book 1Q84

Source: 1Q84 (2009-2010)

Love, Understanding, Learning, Personality

“Between our two lives
there is also the life of
the cherry blossom.”

Bashō Matsuo (1644–1694) Japanese poet

Life

“You can resolve to live your life with integrity. Let your credo be this: Let the lie come into the world, let it even triumph. But not through me.”

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008) Russian writer

Life, Lie, World

“You are afraid to die, and you’re afraid to live. What a way to exist.”

Neale Donald Walsch (1943) American writer

Source: Home with God: In a Life That Never Ends

Way

“Peace on earth will come to stay, When we live Christmas every day.”

Helen Steiner Rice (1900–1981) American poet

Peace, Christmas, Christmas

“Who is the happier man, he who has braved the storm of life and lived, or he who has stayed securely on shore and merely existed?”

Hunter S. Thompson (1937–2005) American journalist and author

"Security" (1951); excerpted in Outlaw Journalist: The Life & Times of Hunter S. Thompson (2008), page 15
1950s

Life, Happy, Powerful

“My mother named me after a miracle of nature: Waris means desert flower. The desert flower blooms in a barren environment where few living things can survive.”

Waris Dirie book Desert Flower

Source: Desert Flower

Flowers, Nature

“If we live in a state of constant fear, can we remain human?”

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn book The First Circle

Source: The First Circle

Fear

“If you care about something you have to protect it – If you’re lucky enough to find a way of life you love, you have to find the courage to live it.”

John Irving book A Prayer for Owen Meany

Source: A Prayer for Owen Meany

Love, Life, Way, Courage

“Patriotism cannot be our final spiritual shelter; my refuge is humanity. I will not buy glass for the price of diamonds, and I will never allow patriotism to triumph over humanity as long as I live.”

Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali polymath

“It's amazing that a man who is dead can talk to people through these pages. As long as this books survives, his ideas live.”

Christopher Paolini book Eragon

Source: Eragon

People, Books, Idea, Dead

“Man lives only to learn. And if he learns it is because it is the nature of his lot, for good or bad.”

Carlos Castaneda (1925–1998) Peruvian-American author

Nature, Learning

“The pleasure of all reading is doubled when one lives with another who shares the same books.”

Katherine Mansfield (1888–1923) New Zealand author

Letter to Ottoline Morrell (January 1922)

Pleasure, Books, Reading

“The way to happiness: Keep your heart free from hate, your mind from worry. Live simply, expect little, give much. Scatter sunshine, forget self, think of others. Try this for a week and you will be surprised.”

Norman Vincent Peale book The Power of Positive Thinking

Source: The Power of Positive Thinking

Hate, Happiness, Way, Thinking

“There is another class of coloured people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs — partly because they want sympathy and partly because it pays. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs.”

Booker T. Washington (1856–1915) African-American educator, author, orator, and advisor

Source: 1910s, My Larger Education, Being Chapters from My Experience (1911), Ch. V: The Intellectuals and the Boston Mob (pg. 118)

People, Business, Learning

“For millions of years, mankind lived just like the animals. Then something happened which unleashed the power of our imagination. We learned to talk and we learned to listen.”

Stephen Hawking (1942–2018) British theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author

British Telecom advertisement (1993), part of which was used in Pink Floyd's Keep Talking (1994) and Talkin' Hawkin'<nowiki/> (2014)
Context: For millions of years, mankind lived just like the animals. Then something happened which unleashed the power of our imagination. We learned to talk and we learned to listen. Speech has allowed the communication of ideas, enabling human beings to work together to build the impossible. Mankind's greatest achievements have come about by talking, and its greatest failures by not talking. It doesn't have to be like this. Our greatest hopes could become reality in the future. With the technology at our disposal, the possibilities are unbounded. All we need to do is make sure we keep talking.

Imagination, Learning, Animals

“Your soul doesn't care what you do for a living - and when your life is over, neither will you. Your soul cares only about what you are being while you are doing whatever you are doing.”

Neale Donald Walsch (1943) American writer

Life, Soul