“God grant that I may never live to be useless!”
John Wesley (1703–1791) Christian theologian
Source: How To Pray: The Best of John Wesley on Prayer
Quotes about living page 41
“This is America, you live in it, you let it happen. Let it unfurl.”
Thomas Pynchon book The Crying of Lot 49
Source: The Crying of Lot 49 (1966)
“It is comfortable to live in the belief that you are great, though your greatness is latent.”
Italo Svevo book Zeno's Conscience
È un modo comodo di vivere quello di credersi grande di una grandezza latente.
Source: La coscienza di Zeno (1923), P. 10; p. 12.
Source: Zeno's Conscience
Maud Hart Lovelace book Heaven to Betsy
Source: Heaven to Betsy
“If we do not live where we work and when we work we are wasting our lives and our work too.”
Wendell Berry (1934) author
Source: The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture
“Life is lived forward but is judged in reverse.”
Salman Rushdie book Joseph Anton: A Memoir
Source: Joseph Anton: A Memoir
“I do not need my freedom when I’m dead.
I cannot live on tomorrow’s bread.”
Langston Hughes (1902–1967) American writer and social activist
Montage of a Dream Deferred (1951)
Context: I tire so of hearing people say,
Let things take their course.
Tomorrow is another day.
I do not need my freedom when I’m dead.
I cannot live on tomorrow’s bread.
Ted Dekker (1962) American writer
Source: Blessed Child
“Why live life from dream to dream? And dread the day when dreaming ends.”
Baz Luhrmann (1962) Australian film director, screenwriter and producer
Source: Moulin Rouge!: The Splendid Book That Charts the Journey of Baz Luhrmann's Motion Picture
Obert Skye book Leven Thumps and the Gateway to Foo
Source: Leven Thumps and the Gateway to Foo
“That which has quelled me, lives with me, Accomplice in catastrophe.”
Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950) American poet
Rachel Carson (1907–1964) American marine biologist and conservationist
Source: The Sense of Wonder (1965), p. 55 and Back Cover
Steven Pressfield (1943) United States Marine
Source: The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks & Win Your Inner Creative Battles
“But on paper, things can live forever.
On paper, a butterfly
never dies.”
Jacqueline Woodson book Brown Girl Dreaming
Source: Brown Girl Dreaming
“To die is poignantly bitter, but the idea of having to die without having lived is unbearable.”
Erich Fromm (1900–1980) German social psychologist and psychoanalyst
Source: Man for Himself (1947), Ch. 4
“We do not live to think, but, on the contrary, we think in order that we may succeed in surviving.”
José Ortega Y Gasset (1883–1955) Spanish liberal philosopher and essayist
Tsunetomo Yamamoto book Hagakure
As translated by William Scott Wilson. This first sentence of this passage was used as a military slogan during the early 20th century to encourage soldiers to throw themselves into battle. Variant translations:
Bushido is realised in the presence of death. In the case of having to choose between life and death you should choose death. There is no other reasoning. Move on with determination. To say dying without attaining ones aim is a foolish sacrifice of life is the flippant attitude of the sophisticates in the Kamigata area. In such a case it is difficult to make the right judgement. No one longs for death. We can speculate on whatever we like. But if we live without having attaining that aim, we are cowards. This is an important point and the correct path of the Samurai. When we calmly think of death morning and evening and are in despair, We are able to gain freedom in the way of the Samurai. Only then can we fulfil our duty without making mistakes in life.
By the Way of the warrior is meant death. The Way of the warrior is death. This means choosing death whenever there is a choice between life and death. It means nothing more than this. It means to see things through, being resolved.
I have found that the Way of the samurai is death. This means that when you are compelled to choose between life and death, you must quickly choose death.
The way of the Samurai is in death.
I have found the essence of Bushido: to die!
Hagakure (c. 1716)
Source: Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai
Context: The Way of the Samurai is found in death. When it comes to either/or, there is only the quick choice of death. It is not particularly difficult. Be determined and advance. To say that dying without reaching one's aim is to die a dog's death is the frivolous way of sophisticates. When pressed with the choice of life or death, it is not necessary to gain one's aim.
We all want to live. And in large part we make our logic according to what we like. But not having attained our aim and continuing to live is cowardice. This is a thin dangerous line. To die without gaining one's aim is a dog's death and fanaticism. But there is no shame in this. This is the substance of the Way of the Samurai. If by setting one's heart right every morning and evening, one is able to live as though his body were already dead, he gains freedom in the Way. His whole life will be without blame, and he will succeed in his calling.
“I want to live my life so that my nights are not full of regrets.”
D.H. Lawrence (1885–1930) English novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, literary critic and painter
“To live every day as if it had been stolen from death, that is how I would like to live.”
Garth Stein The Art of Racing in the Rain
Source: The Art of Racing in the Rain
“Because I live in the real world where vampires burn in the sun.”
L.J. Smith (1965) American author
“Our lives are one masked ball.”
Gaston Leroux book The Phantom of the Opera
Source: The Phantom of the Opera
Edward Abbey (1927–1989) American author and essayist
Misattributed
“I'm the nicest goddamn dame that ever lived.”
Bette Davis (1908–1989) film and television actress from the United States
“I was born an American, I live like an American, I will die an American.”
John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America
Gena Showalter (1975) American writer
Source: The Darkest Night
Terence McKenna (1946–2000) American ethnobotanist
Shamanism and the Archaic Revival http://www.matrixmasters.net/blogs/?p=1242
“Stronger than iron
crueler than death
sweeter than springtime
it lives beyond breath”
Juliet Marillier (1948) New Zealand fiction writer
Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
“Write only if you cannot live without writing. Write only what you alone can write.”
Elie Wiesel (1928–2016) writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate, and Holocaust survivor
“A person starts to live when he can live outside himself.”
Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity
“Live your life in every way to earn and keep the respect of the people you respect.”
Brian Tracy (1944) American motivational speaker and writer
Alexander Pope (1688–1744) eighteenth century English poet
Source: Prologue to Mr. Addison's Cato (1713), Line 1.
Brené Brown (1965) US writer and professor
Source: Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead
“We are not wholly bad or good, who live our lives under Milk Wood.”
Dylan Thomas book Under Milk Wood
Source: Under Milk Wood
“You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment.”
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist
Susan Wiggs (1958) American writer
Source: Summer by the Sea
“bitter is a bad way to live!”
Margaret Peterson Haddix Among the Impostors
Source: Among the Impostors
David Foster Wallace (1962–2008) American fiction writer and essayist
Source: Consider the Lobster and Other Essays
John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America
"Proclamation 3560 — Thanksgiving Day, 1963" (5 November 1963) http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=9511<!-- Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project --> <br class="br">1963 <br class="br">Context: Today we give our thanks, most of all, for the ideals of honor and faith we inherit from our forefathers — for the decency of purpose, steadfastness of resolve and strength of will, for the courage and the humility, which they possessed and which we must seek every day to emulate. As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words but to live by them.<br>Let us therefore proclaim our gratitude to Providence for manifold blessings — let us be humbly thankful for inherited ideals — and let us resolve to share those blessings and those ideals with our fellow human beings throughout the world.
Naoko Takeuchi (1967) Japanese manga artist
Source: Sailor Moon, Vol. 1
“To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet
Edward Abbey (1927–1989) American author and essayist
A Voice Crying in the Wilderness (Vox Clamantis in Deserto) (1990)
“A fish and a bird may indeed fall in love, but where shall they live?”
Elizabeth Gilbert book Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage
Source: Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage