Quotes about living
page 39

Anatole France photo

“It is by acts, and not by ideas that people live.”

Anatole France (1844–1924) French writer

C'est d'actes et non d'idées que vivent les peuples.
Series I: Sérénus http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/S%C3%A9r%C3%A9nus
As quoted in The Ironic Temper : Anatole France and His Time (1932)
The Literary Life (1888-1892)
Variant: It is by acts and not by ideas that people live.

Florence Nightingale photo

“Live life when you have it. Life is a splendid gift-there is nothing small about it.”

Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) English social reformer and statistician, and the founder of modern nursing
Ruskin Bond photo

“It is always the same with mountains. Once you have lived with them for any length of time, you belong to them. There is no escape.”

Ruskin Bond (1934) British Indian writer

Source: Rain in the Mountains: Notes from the Himalayas

Stephen King photo
Carl Sagan photo
Andrew Solomon photo
E.M. Forster photo

“I suppose I shall have to live now”

Source: A Room with a View

Karen Marie Moning photo

“You are what you are. Find a way to live with it.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Burned

Brené Brown photo
Nicholas Sparks photo
Maya Angelou photo
Swami Vivekananda photo

“They alone live, who live for others.”

Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher
Alain de Botton photo

“Marriage has no guarantees. If that's what you're looking for, go live with a car battery.”

Erma Bombeck (1927–1996) When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent le…
Albert Einstein photo
Dean Ornish photo
Brian Andreas photo
Anne Lamott photo
Mitch Albom photo
Tom Robbins photo
Anthony Doerr photo
Terry Goodkind photo
Jack Kerouac photo

“Prison is where you promise yourself the right to live.”

Source: On the Road

Anthony Doerr photo
Emily Dickinson photo
Thomas Bernhard photo
John Irving photo
James Joyce photo

“His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.”

Dubliners (1914)
Variant: His soul swooned softly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.
Source: "The Dead"
Context: Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.

Albert Einstein photo
David Nicholls photo

“You can live your whole life not realizing that what you're looking for is right in front of you.”

Variant: You can live your whole life not realising that what you're looking for is right in front of you.
Source: One Day

Brandon Sanderson photo

“A story doesn't live until it is imagined in someone's mind.”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

Source: The Way of Kings, Part 1

Nicole Krauss photo
Anaïs Nin photo

“She lacks confidence, she craves admiration insatiably. She lives on the reflections of herself in the eyes of others. She does not dare to be herself.”

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

Variant: She lacks the core of sureness, she craves admiration insatiably. She lives on reflections of herself in others' eyes. She does not dare to be herself.
Source: Henry and June: From "A Journal of Love"--The Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin

Jean Cocteau photo

“Living is a horizontal fall.”

Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, boxing manager and filmmaker

Opium (1929)
Variant: Life is a horizontal fall.
Source: Opium: The Diary of His Cure

Marshall McLuhan photo

“Our technology forces us to live mythically”

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …
Rick Riordan photo
Harlan Coben photo
Richelle Mead photo
James Frey photo
Paulo Coelho photo
Brother Yun photo

“I feel so sorry that many Christians live in bondage even though Jesus has signed their release form with His own blood.”

Brother Yun (1958) Chinese christian house church leader

Source: The Heavenly Man: The Remarkable True Story of Chinese Christian Brother Yun

Anne Rice photo
Libba Bray photo
Neil deGrasse Tyson photo
John Steinbeck photo

“We could live offa the fatta the lan’.”

Lennie, in Ch. 3, p. 57
Source: Of Mice and Men (1937)

James Patterson photo
Edwin Markham photo

“There is a destiny which makes us brothers; none goes his way alone. All that we send into the lives of others comes back into our own.”

Edwin Markham (1852–1940) American poet

"A Creed To Mr. David Lubin", stanza 1, LINCOLN & Other Poems (1901), page 25.
Context: There is a destiny that makes us brothers:
None goes his way alone:
All that we send into the lives of others
Comes back onto our own.

I care not what his temples or his creeds,
One thing holds firm and fast
That into his fateful heap of days and deeds
The soul of man is cast.

Langston Hughes photo

“I stay cool, and dig all jive,
That's the way I stay alive.
My motto,
as I live and learn,
is
Dig and be dug
In return.”

Langston Hughes (1902–1967) American writer and social activist

"Motto"
Montage of a Dream Deferred (1951)
Variant: My motto,
As I live and learn,
is:
Dig And Be Dug
In Return.

Alistair MacLeod photo

“No one has ever said that life is to be easy. Only that it is to be lived.”

Alistair MacLeod (1936–2014) Canadian author and professor of English

Source: Island: Collected Stories

Michel Houellebecq photo
Charles Darwin photo

“One general law, leading to the advancement of all organic beings, namely, multiply, vary, let the strongest live and the weakest die.”

Charles Darwin (1809–1882) British naturalist, author of "On the origin of species, by means of natural selection"

Source: On the Origin of Species (1859), chapter VII: "Instinct", page 244 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=262&itemID=F373&viewtype=image
Source: The Origin of Species

Clayton M. Christensen photo
Elizabeth Wurtzel photo
Greg Behrendt photo

“Because here’s what guys don’t do if they can’t live without you: They don’t break up with you.”

Greg Behrendt (1963) American comedian

Source: He's Just Not That Into You: The No-Excuses Truth to Understanding Guys

Assata Shakur photo
Oprah Winfrey photo
Chuck Palahniuk photo
Heinrich Heine photo
Kazuo Ishiguro photo
Cornelia Funke photo
Immanuel Kant photo

“Have patience awhile; slanders are not long-lived. Truth is the child of time; erelong she shall appear to vindicate thee.”

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) German philosopher

As quoted in Gems of Thought (1888) edited by Charles Northend

Karen Armstrong photo

“[T]he family is a school of compassion because it is here that we learn to live with other people. (68)”

Karen Armstrong (1944) author and comparative religion scholar from Great Britain

Source: Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley photo
Haruki Murakami photo
Anaïs Nin photo

“People living deeply have no fear of death.”

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

The Diary Of Anais Nin, Volume Two (1934-1939)
Diary entries (1914 - 1974)

Charles Bukowski photo
James Patterson photo
Abigail Adams photo

“Its never to late to get back on your feet though we wont live forever make sure you accomplish what you were put here for”

Abigail Adams (1744–1818) 2nd First Lady of the United States (1797–1801)

Source: My Dearest Friend: Letters of Abigail and John Adams

Walker Percy photo
Haruki Murakami photo
Louie Giglio photo
Haruki Murakami photo
Jasper Fforde photo
Stephen King photo
Steven Erikson photo

“Every decision you make can change the world. The best life is the one the gods don't notice. You want to live free, boy, live quietly."
"I want to be a soldier. A hero."
"You'll grow out of it.”

Prologue (p. 5)
Source: Gardens of the Moon (1999)
Context: “Heed the lesson there, son.”
“What lesson?”
“Every decision you make can change the world. The best life is the one the gods don’t notice. You want to live free, boy, live quietly.”
“I want to be a soldier. A hero.”
“You’ll grow out of it.”

Marjorie M. Liu photo

“I've got a black-belt in crazy, and I know where you live.”

Marjorie M. Liu (1979) American writer

Source: Tiger Eye

Gillian Flynn photo

“See, there I am. I told you I lived. I told you I was.”

Source: Sharp Objects

Joseph Delaney photo
Kate DiCamillo photo
Greg Behrendt photo

“… you are defined by how you live your life, not whom you live it with, and certainly not by what you gave up to be with that person.”

Greg Behrendt (1963) American comedian

Source: It's Called a Breakup Because It's Broken: The Smart Girl's Break-Up Buddy

Cassandra Clare photo
Henry David Thoreau photo