Quotes about living
page 5

“The rich prided themselves upon their superiority to those who were less favored; but they had obtained their riches by violation of the law of God. They had neglected to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to deal justly, and to love mercy. They had sought to exalt themselves and to obtain the homage of their fellow creatures. ... They have sold their souls for earthly riches and enjoyments, and have not sought to become rich toward God. The result is, their lives are a failure; their pleasures are now turned to gall, their treasures to corruption.”

Ellen G. White book The Great Controversy

The Great Controversy (1911 edition), p. 248

Love, God, Pleasure, Making love

“Spiritual awakening is not a special feeling, state, or experience. It is not a goal or destination, somewhere to reach in the future. As the Buddha was trying to tell us (though few actually listened), it is not a superhuman achievement or attainment. You don’t have to travel to India to find it. It is not a special state of perfection reserved for the lucky or the privileged few. It is not an exclusive club. It is not an out-of-body experience, and it does not involve living in a cave, shutting off all your beautiful senses, detaching yourself from the realities of this modern world. It cannot be transmitted to you by a fancy bearded (or non-bearded) guru, nor can it be taken away or lost. You do not have to become anyone’s disciple or follower, or give away all your possessions. You do not have to join a cult. You do not have to follow anyone.

Rather, is a constant and ancient invitation – throughout every moment of your life – to trust and embrace yourself exactly as you are, in all your glorious imperfection. It is about being fully present and awake to each precious moment, coming out of the epic movie of past and future (“The Story of Me”) and showing up for life, knowing that even your feelings of non-acceptance are accepted here. It is about radically opening up to this extraordinary gift of existence, embracing both the pain and the joy of it, the bliss and the sorrow, the ecstasy and the overwhelm, the certainty and the doubt. Knowing that you are never separate from the Whole, never broken, never truly lost.”

Jeff Foster (1980) Spiritual teacher

Source: https://www.lifewithoutacentre.com/writings/shockingly-simple-principles-of-spiritual-awakening/

“To the well-fed it seems cowardly to complain of tight boots, because the well-fed live in a different world-a world where, if your boots are tight, you can change them; their minds are not warped by petty discomfort. But below a certain income the petty crowds the large out of existence; one's preoccupation is not with art or religion, but with bad food, hard beds, drudgery and the sack. Serenity is impossible to a poor man in a cold country and even his active thoughts will go in more or less sterile complaint.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

Source: Review of Hunger and Love by Lionel Britton, in The Adelphi (April 1931)

Bad luck, World, Religion, Food

“The living world is not the harsh domain of classical Darwinism, where each struggle against all, with every species, every organism and every gene competing for advantage against every other. Organisms are not skin-enclosed selfish entities, and competition is never unfettered. Life evolves, as does the universe itself, in a 'sacred dance' with an underlying field. This makes living beings into elements in a vast network of intimate relations that embraces the entire biosphere itself an interconnected element within the wider connections that reach into the cosmos.”

Alexis Karpouzos (1967)

Source: https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/14108295.alexis_karpouzos?page=2

Life, World, Making love, Universe

“Fear is the cheapest room in the house. I would like to see you living in better conditions.”

Hafez (1326–1389) Persian poet

“The results of civilization were surprising: our lives became more secure but less free, and we worked a lot harder.”

Eduardo Galeano (1940–2015) Uruguayan writer

As quoted in Mirrors: Stories of Almost Everyone (2009), p. 17

“What matters is the value we've created in our lives, the people we've made happy and how much we've grown as people.”

Daisaku Ikeda (1928) Japanese writer

Happiness, People

“If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day so I never have to live without you.”

A.A. Milne (1882–1956) British author

Friendship, Relationship, Good Night, Goodbye

“Wasting time is one of the worst faults of the world. Life is so short, every moment is so precious and yet, we live as if life will never end.”

Franz Liszt (1811–1886) Hungarian romantic composer and virtuoso pianist

As quoted in Alan Walker, Franz Liszt : The Virtuoso Years, 1811-1847 (1987) Page 117.

Life, World, Time

“I urge you to live to your fullest potential and to never limit your thinking according to the appetite of another individual.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Thinking

“The truth is that, we are born only once; but we must live daily.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Truth

“Since you have already identified the problem, the solution is not far from you. Now it is about making the final decision to live a peaceful life full of blessings.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Life, Peace, Problem, Decision

“The present is short lived. Difficult to define it without disturbing the past and the future events.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Past, Future

“You cannot live your whole life nor base it on the assumption that someone else is going to carry your responsibilities at the finish line.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Life

“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

“Stress,
Anxiety
&
Depression
are caused when we are living to
please others.
Live your life for you.
Remove Toxic people from it.
Avoid
Dysfunction
&
Negativity
at
All Costs!”

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

Life, People

“I walked through the Fire…and lived to tell about it…”

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

“Life has many exciting things in store for you…so many thrilling nooks and crannies…

Don't be a "goody 2 shoes" who runs on the boring and safe side in life…. remaining on the same old path all the time.

Live life as grandly as you can imagine!

Enjoy the winding paths… feel the euphoria from your own microscopic perceptions in the universe…No one else can see what you see.

The times you were fortunate enough to have spent there…in those special places…

Those moments that took your breath away are what make you remember and feel fabulous

No one can know your perspective.”

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

Life, Shoe, Feeling, Imagination

“The way I see it, you should live everyday like its your birthday”

Paris Hilton (1981) American socialite

Way, Birthday, Birthday

“When I treat other people with kindness and love, it is part of my way of paying my debt to God and the world for the privilege of living on this planet.”

Ben Carson (1951) 17th and current United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; American neurosurgeon

Source: Think Big: Unleashing Your Potential for Excellence

Love, God, People, World

“Between the fear that something would happen and the hope that still it wouldn't, there is much more space than one thinks. On that narrow, hard, bare and dark space a lot of us spend their lives.”

Ivo Andrič (1892–1975) novelist, short story writer

Fear, Hope, Thinking

“Even Socrates, who lived a very frugal and simple life, loved to go to the market. When his students asked about this, he replied, "I love to go and see all the things I am happy without.”

Jack Kornfield (1945) American writer

Love, Life, Happiness

“I can't live where I want to, I can't go where I want to go, I can't do what I want to, I can't even say what I want to. I decided I was a very stupid fool not to at least paint as I wanted to.”

Georgia O'Keeffe (1887–1986) American artist

Stupidity, Fools, Painting

“When each expects the other to live in his or her world, to always be there to join in his or her chosen activities, an ego battle inevitably develops.”

James Redfield book The Celestine Prophecy

Source: The Celestine Prophecy

World

“I could die for you. But I couldn't, and wouldn't, live for you.”

Ayn Rand book The Fountainhead

Source: The Fountainhead

“If I had my life to live over again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once every week.”

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

Source: The Autobiography of Charles Darwin, 1809–82

Life, Music, Reading

“You never know what life is like, until you have lived it.”

Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962) American actress, model, and singer

Life

“I couldn't live a week without a private library - indeed, I'd part with all my furniture and squat and sleep on the floor before I'd let go of the 1500 or so books I possess.”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

Books, Sleep, Parting

“We must get beyond passions, like a great work of art. In such miraculous harmony. We should learn to love each other so much to live outside of time… detached.”

Federico Fellini (1920–1993) Italian filmmaker

Source: La Dolce Vita: Federico Fellini's Masterpiece

Love, Art, Learning, Passion

“To live in hearts we leave behind
Is not to die.”

Thomas Campbell (1777–1844) British writer

Hallowed Ground (1825)
Variant: To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die.

Heart, Missing You, For Father

“My longings, my hopes, my dreams, and my every effort has been to live for Him who rescued me, to study for Him who gave me this mind, to serve Him who fashioned my will, and to speak for Him who gave me a voice.”

Ravi Zacharias (1946) Indian philosopher

Source: Jesus Among Other Gods: The Absolute Claims of the Christian Message

Dreams, Hope, Fashion, Effort

“All sins, except a sin against itself, Love should forgive. All lives, save loveless lives, true Love should pardon.”

Oscar Wilde An Ideal Husband

Sir Robert Chiltern, Act II
Source: An Ideal Husband (1895)

Love, Forgiveness

“It's better to die in pursuit of your dreams than to live a life without hope.”

Terry Brooks (1944) American writer

Source: Star Wars - Episode I: The Phantom Menace

Life, Dreams, Hope

“Why, what is to live? Not to eat and drink and breathe,—but to feel the life in you down all the fibres of being, passionately and joyfully.”

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861) English poet, author

Source: The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barret Barrett 1845-1846 Vol I

Life, Feeling, Drink, Passion

“The image is one thing and the human being is another…it's very hard to live up to an image.”

Elvis Presley (1935–1977) American singer and actor

Press conference (June 1972),also quoted in Elvis Culture : Fans, Faith, & Image (1999) by Erika Lee Doss, p. 218

Powerful

“He alone is free who lives with free consent under the entire guidance of reason”

Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) Dutch philosopher

“General fiction is pretty much about ways that people get into problems and screw their lives up. Science fiction is about everything else.”

Marvin Minsky (1927–2016) American cognitive scientist

People, Way, Problem, Science

“Each of us has been made “a little lower than the angels.” What an incomprehensible compliment! But it’s not only a compliment; it’s also a responsibility, for our special status equalizes us with other people in the eyes of God. The Lord has exalted not only me or some special group; God has exalted everyone. It’s the people of Burkina Faso and Niger and Guyana and Haiti. It’s people who never learned to read and write or who live on fifty cents a day. All human beings have been made a little lower than the angels, and we have a responsibility to treat them accordingly.”

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

God, People, Angels, Learning

“Only optimists commit suicide, the optimists who can no longer be... optimists. The others, having no reason to live, why should they have any to die?”

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

All Gall Is Divided (1952)

Suicide

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”

Henry David Thoreau book Walden ou la vie dans les bois

Source: Walden

Life, Learning, Life, Peaceful

“Understand me. I’m not like an ordinary world. I have my madness, I live in another dimension and I do not have time for things that have no soul.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

World, Soul, Understanding, Time

“If you ask me what I came to do in this world, I, an artist, I will answer you: I am here to live out loud!”

Emile Zola (1840–1902) French writer (1840-1902)

As quoted in Writers on Writing‎ (1986) by Jon Winokur.
Variant: If you ask me what I came into this life to do, I will tell you: I came to live out loud.

World

“People who do a job that claims to be creative have to be alone to recharge their batteries. You can’t live 24 hours a day in the spotlight and remain creative. For people like me, solitude is a victory.”

Karl Lagerfeld (1933–2019) German fashion designer

People, Solitude, Victory

“If a society permits one portion of its citizenry to be menaced or destroyed, then, very soon, no one in that society is safe. The forces thus released in the people can never be held in check, but run their devouring course, destroying the very foundations which it was imagined they would save.

But we are unbelievably ignorant concerning what goes on in our country--to say nothing of what goes on in the rest of the world--and appear to have become too timid to question what we are told. Our failure to trust one another deeply enough to be able to talk to one another has become so great that people with these questions in their hearts do not speak them; our opulence is so pervasive that people who are afraid to lose whatever they think they have persuade themselves of the truth of a lie, and help disseminate it; and God help the innocent here, that man or womn who simply wants to love, and be loved. Unless this would-be lover is able to replace his or her backbone with a steel rod, he or she is doomed. This is no place for love. I know that I am now expected to make a bow in the direction of those millions of unremarked, happy marriages all over America, but I am unable honestly to do so because I find nothing whatever in our moral and social climate--and I am now thinking particularly of the state of our children--to bear witness to their existence. I suspect that when we refer to these happy and so marvelously invisible people, we are simply being nostalgic concerning the happy, simple, God-fearing life which we imagine ourselves once to have lived. In any case, wherever love is found, it unfailingly makes itself felt in the individual, the personal authority of the individual. Judged by this standard, we are a loveless nation. The best that can be said is that some of us are struggling. And what we are struggling against is that death in the heart which leads not only to the shedding of blood, but which reduces human beings to corpses while they live.”

James Baldwin (1924–1987) (1924-1987) writer from the United States

Source: nothing personal

Love, Life, Death, God

“Art is a kind of innate drive that seizes a human being and makes him its instrument. To perform this difficult office it is sometimes necessary for him to sacrifice happiness and everything that makes life worth living for the ordinary human being.”

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

Life, Happiness, Art

“I have a lot of work to do today;
I need to slaughter memory,
Turn my living soul to stone
Then teach myself to live again.”

Anna Akhmatova (1889–1966) Russian modernist poet

Source: The Complete Poems of Anna Akhmatova

Soul, Memory

“If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours … In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness.”

Henry David Thoreau book Walden ou la vie dans les bois

Commonly misquoted, converted to imperative mood, as "Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you've imagined. As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler".
Walden (1854)

Life, Law, Dreams, Confidence

“You had to live - did live, from habit that became instinct - in the assumption that evey sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every moment scrutinized.”

George Orwell book 1984

Source: 1984

“We live as we dream - alone. While the dream disappears, the life continues painfully.”

Joseph Conrad book Heart of Darkness

Source: Heart of Darkness

Life, Dreams

“Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men.”

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

Men, Attitude, Powerful

“Real poetry, is to lead a beautiful life. To live poetry is better than to write it.”

Bashō Matsuo (1644–1694) Japanese poet

Life, Beauty

“Do not handicap your children by making their lives easy.”

Robert A. Heinlein Time Enough for Love

Time Enough for Love (1973)

Children, Deep

“People," Geralt turned his head, "like to invent monsters and monstrosities. Then they seem less monstrous themselves. When they get blind-drunk, cheat, steal, beat their wives, starve an old woman, when they kill a trapped fox with an axe or riddle the last existing unicorn with arrows, they like to think that the Bane entering cottages at daybreak is more monstrous than they are. They feel better then. They find it easier to live.”

Andrzej Sapkowski book The Last Wish

Source: The Last Wish (1993)

People, Feeling, Thinking, Cheating

“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

Preface (December 1960) to The Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt (1961), p. xix

Life, For women

“Your children will see what you're all about by what you live rather than what you say.”

Wayne W. Dyer (1940–2015) American writer

Children

“For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors and laugh at them in our turn?”

Jane Austen book Pride and Prejudice

Source: Pride and Prejudice (1813)

Sport

“Between killing and dying there's a third way: live”

Christa Wolf book Cassandra

Source: Kassandra

Way

“To live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often.”

John Henry Newman (1801–1890) English cleric and cardinal

Variant: In a higher world it is otherwise, but here below to live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often.
Source: An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine (1845), Chapter 1, Section 1, Part 7.

Change, Perfection, Wise

“The day of resurrection is determined in this manner. The first Sunday after the full moon in Aries is celebrated as Easter. Aries begins on the 21st day of March and ends approximately on the 19th day of April. The sun’s entry into Aries marks the beginning of Spring The moon in its monthly transit around the earth will form sometime between March 21st and April 25th an opposition to the sun, which opposition is called a full moon, The first Sunday after this phenomenon of the heavens occurs Is celebrated as Easter; the Friday preceding this day is observed as Good Friday. This movable date should tell the observant one to look for some interpretation other than the one commonly accepted. These days do not mark the anniversaries of the death and resurrection of an individual who lived on earth.”

Neville Goddard (1905–1972) American author and lecturer

Source: Your Faith is Your Fortune

Death, Spring, Sun

“We live in an age in which there is no heroic death.”

Yukio Mishima (1925–1970) Japanese author

Death, Age

“To live in the world without becoming aware of the meaning of the world is like wandering about in a great library without touching the books.”

Dan Brown book The Lost Symbol

Source: The Lost Symbol

Books, World

“If you live to be one hundred, you've got it made. Very few people die past that age.”

George Burns (1896–1996) American comedian, actor, and writer

People, Age, Past, Funny

“Too often the people complain that they have done nothing with their
lives and then they wait for somebody to tell them that this isn't so.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Source: What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire

People, Waiting

“About a third of my cases are suffering from no clinically definable neurosis, but from the senselessness and emptiness of their lives. This can be defined as the general neurosis of our times.”

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

Suffering, Time

“I don't dream at night, I dream at day, I dream all day; I'm dreaming for living.”

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

Dreams, Night

“Books are infinite in number and time is short. The secret of knowledge is to take what is essential. Take that and try to live up to it.”

Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher

Secret, Books, Knowledge, Time

“You may have killed God beneath the weight of all that you have said; but don't imagine that, with all that you are saying, you will make a man that will live longer than he.”

Michel Foucault (1926–1984) French philosopher

Source: The Archaeology of Knowledge & The Discourse on Language

God, Imagination

“It takes courage… to endure the sharp pains of self discovery rather than choose to take the dull pain of unconsciousness that would last the rest of our lives.”

Marianne Williamson (1952) American writer

Source: A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of "A Course in Miracles"

Pain, Courage, Courageous

“I know that ghosts have wandered on earth. Be with me always — take any form — drive me mad! Only do not leave me in this abyss where I can not find you! Oh, God! it is unutterable! I can not live without my life! I can not live without my soul!”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

Heathcliff (Ch. XVI).
Source: Wuthering Heights (1847)
Context: Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as long as I am living! You said I killed you — haunt me then! The murdered do haunt their murderers, I believe; I know that ghosts have wandered on earth. Be with me always — take any form — drive me mad! Only do not leave me in this abyss where I can not find you! Oh, God! it is unutterable! I can not live without my life! I can not live without my soul!

Life, God, Soul, Madness

“It is through living that we discover ourselves, at the same time as we discover the world around us.”

Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908–2004) French photographer

Source: Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Modern Century

World, Time

“Every man's life ends the same way. It is only the details of how he lived and how he died that distinguish one man from another.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

Life, Way

“Let your motto then always be 'Excelsior', for by living up to it there is no such word as fail.”

P.T. Barnum (1810–1891) American showman and businessman

Source: The Art of Money Getting

“We make war that we may live in peace.”

Aristotle (-384–-321 BC) Classical Greek philosopher, student of Plato and founder of Western philosophy

War, Peace, Peaceful

“I was stark raving mad, and my family was too polite to mention it. That's what living with the Yamanis does to people. They get so well-mannered they won't mention you're crazy.”

Tamora Pierce book Page

Source: Page

People, Family, Madness

“Think of yourself as dead. You have lived your life. Now, take what's left and live it properly. What doesn't transmit light creates its own darkness.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Source: Meditations

Life, Thinking, Light, Dead

“In his life Christ is an example showing
us how to live in his death he is a sacrifice satisfying our sins in his resurrection a conqueror in his ascension a king in his intercession a high priest.”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

Life, Death, Christ

“Our dreams have been doctored. We belong no where. We sail unanchored on troubled seas. We may never be allowed ashore. Our sorrows will never be sad enough. Our joys never happy enough. Our dreams never big enough. Our lives never important enough. To matter..”

Arundhati Roy (1961) Indian novelist, essayist

Happiness, Sadness, Dreams, Joy

“I found that what I had desired all my life was not to live - if what others are doing is called living - but to express myself.”

Henry Miller book Tropic of Capricorn

Source: Tropic of Capricorn

Life

“This planet has — or rather had — a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much all of the time.”

Douglas Adams (1952–2001) English writer and humorist

Source: The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

People, Problem, Time

“An oppressed class which does not strive to learn to use arms, to acquire arms, only deserves to be treated like slaves. We cannot, unless we have become bourgeois pacifists or opportunists, forget that we are living in a class society from which there is no way out, nor can there be, save through the class struggle. In every class society, whether based on slavery, serfdom, or, as at present, wage-labor, the oppressor class is always armed. Not only the modern standing army, but even the modern militia - and even in the most democratic bourgeois republics, Switzerland, for instance - represent the bourgeoisie armed against the proletariat. That is such an elementary truth that it is hardly necessary to dwell upon it. Suffice it to point to the use of troops against strikers in all capitalist countries.
A bourgeoisie armed against the proletariat is one of the biggest fundamental and cardinal facts of modern capitalist society. And in face of this fact, revolutionary Social-Democrats are urged to “demand” “disarmament”! That is tantamount of complete abandonment of the class-struggle point of view, to renunciation of all thought of revolution. Our slogan must be: arming of the proletariat to defeat, expropriate and disarm the bourgeoisie. These are the only tactics possible for a revolutionary class, tactics that follow logically from, and are dictated by, the whole objective development of capitalist militarism. Only after the proletariat has disarmed the bourgeoisie will it be able, without betraying its world-historic mission, to consign all armaments to the scrap-heap. And the proletariat will undoubtedly do this, but only when this condition has been fulfilled, certainly not before.”

Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution

Source: The Military Programme of the Proletarian Revolution

Truth, World, Way, Learning

“Say you just can't live that negative way
You know what I mean
Make way for the positive day
Cause it's a new day.”

Bob Marley (1945–1981) Jamaican singer, songwriter, musician

Positive Vibration, from the album Rastaman Vibration (1976)
Disputed

Way

“She would live now, not read.”

Alice Munro (1931) Canadian novelist

Source: Dear Life: Stories

Reading

“He who cannot obey himself will be commanded. That is the nature of living creatures.”

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

Nature

“i think thats one of the problems with the world today, nobody knows who they are. everyone is running around looking for an identity, or trying to borrow one, only they dont know it. they actually think they know who they are and hat they are? theyre just a bunch of schleppers… who have no idea what a search for personal truth and identity really is, which would be alright if they didn't get in your way, but they insist that they know everything and that if you dont live their way then youre not living properly and they want to take your space away… they actually want to somehow get into your space and live in it and change it or destroy it… they just cant believe that you know what you are doing and that you are happy and content with it. you see thats the problem right there. if they could see that then they wouldnt have to feel threatened and feel that they have to destroy you before you destroy them. they just cant get it through their philistine heads that you are happy where you are and dont want to have anything to do with them. my space is mine and thats enough for me.”

Hubert Selby Jr. Requiem for a Dream

Source: Requiem for a Dream

Happiness, Truth, World, Way

“In the end
these things matter most:
How well did you love?
How fully did you live?
How deeply did you let go?”

Jack Kornfield (1945) American writer

Source: Buddha's Little Instruction Book

Love

“Are the things you are living for worth Christ dying for?”

Leonard Ravenhill (1907–1994) British writer

Source: Final message to the church (n. d.)

Christ

“I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life; I have envied a great many people who led difficult lives and led them well.”

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

Address in Des Moines, Iowa (4 November 1910)
1910s

Life, People, Envy

“I believe that anyone can be successful in life, regardless of natural talent or the environment within which we live. This is not based on measuring success by human competitiveness for wealth, possessions, influence, and fame, but adhering to God's standards of truth, justice, humility, service, compassion, forgiveness, and love.”

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

Page 28
Post-Presidency, Our Endangered Values (2005)
Source: Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis

Love, Life, God, Truth

“Do not read, as children do, to amuse yourself, or like the ambitious, for the purpose of instruction. No, read in order to live.”

Gustave Flaubert (1821–1880) French writer (1821–1880)

Correspondence, Letters to Mademoiselle Leroyer de Chantepie
Variant: Do not read as children do to enjoy themselves, or, as the ambitious do to educate themselves. No, read to live.
Context: Do not read as children do to enjoy themselves, or, as the ambitious do to educate themselves. No, read to live. (June 1857)

Children, Reading, Deep

“When each day is the same as the next, it’s because people fail to recognize the good things that happen in their lives every day that the sun rises.”

Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist

Variant: When each day is the same as the nest it's because people fail to reconize the good things that happen in thier lives everyday the sunrises
Source: The Alchemist

People, Sun

“I am here to live out loud.”

Emile Zola (1840–1902) French writer (1840-1902)

“All I want to be is very young always and very irresponsible and to feel that my life is my own-to live and be happy and die in my own way to please myself”

Zelda Fitzgerald (1900–1948) Novelist, wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald

Life, Happiness, Way, Feeling

“You can live a whole life time never being awake.”

Dan Millman (1946) American self help writer

Source: Way of the Peaceful Warrior: A Book That Changes Lives

Life, Time

“You should write, first of all, to please yourself. You shouldn't care a damn about anybody else at all. But writing can't be a way of life - the important part of writing is living. You have to live in such a way that your writing emerges from it.”

Doris Lessing (1919–2013) British novelist, poet, playwright, librettist, biographer and short story writer

Life, Way, Parting

“Fight on, brave knights! Man dies, but glory lives! Fight on; death is better than defeat! Fight on brave knights! for bright eyes behold your deeds!”

Walter Scott (1771–1832) Scottish historical novelist, playwright, and poet

Death, Fight

“Dogs are my favorite role models. I want to work like a dog, doing what I was born to do with joy and purpose. I want to play like a dog, with total, jolly abandon. I want to love like a dog, with unabashed devotion and complete lack of concern about what people do for a living, how much money they have, or how much they weigh. The fact that we still live with dogs, even when we don't have to herd or hunt our dinner, gives me hope for humans and canines alike.”

Oprah Winfrey (1954) American businesswoman, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist

Love, Money, People, Dogs

“If you want to say something and have people listen then you have to
wear a mask. If you want to be honest then you have to live a lie.”

Banksy pseudonymous England-based graffiti artist, political activist, and painter

People, Lie

“My music fights against the system that teaches to live and die.”

Bob Marley (1945–1981) Jamaican singer, songwriter, musician

Music, Fight

“How many women are there…who because of their husbands' harshness spend their weary lives in the bond of marriage in greater suffering than if they were slaves among the Saracens?”

Christine de Pizan book The Book of the City of Ladies

Quantes femmes est il qui usent leur vie au lien de mariage par la durte de leurs maris en plus grant penitence que se elles feussent esclaves entre les sarazins.
Part II, ch. 13, pp. 118-19.
Le Livre de la Cité des Dames (c. 1405)
Source: The Book of the City of Ladies

Women, Marriage, Suffering

“The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it.”

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

Variant: The world is dangerous, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.

People, World, Evil

Quotes about living page 5

Quotes about living
page 5