LIFE QUOTES XII

quotations about life

Enjoy your own life without comparing it with that of another.

ANONYMOUS


Life is the wave's deep whisper on the shore
Of a great sea beyond.

HENRY ABBEY

"The Roman Sentinel"

Tags: Henry Abbey


If we look at life in its various stages, has it been worth living at each period? It is rarely doubted as regards the youth. Life is to them a joyous thing--all is fresh and new; and life to their minds seems plastic and pliable; they have the experiment of living their life before them. Putting aside the fact that men do not start in the world with the desire for, or properly trained to make the "best of this life," we will consider if "life lived as it is" by the majority, life as realized in ordinary life, is worth living. And the reply must be, "Yes." Man has a body fitted and adapted for the purposes of life; and although, because of his own disobedience or the faults of his predecessors, he may not enjoy good health, yet the majority have a bodily structure that, if carefully attended to, will enable them successfully to do their work and feel it is a privilege to live, and be able to earn sufficient to live upon; and I think it must be admitted that to the majority, by the use of their brains, by industry, and by thrift, there is the possibility of securing sufficient to supply all with the ways and means of life. Wealth, no doubt, is power; it gives great influence, secures its possessor from many annoyances, gives facilities for attempting and effecting what others might dream of in vain; but it is a mistake to think that "life is more worth living" to the rich man than to the poor. Wealth can only belong to the few, and it would be impossible to imagine that the Creator had done His work so badly that only the "idle rich" were able to enjoy this life. The morning can find you without anxiety; the day may find you equal to the fulfilment of your duties; you may do your work willingly and cheerfully; you may retain the bright cloudlessness of your early days--"the child's heart within the man's"--and, day by day, enjoy life, and retire to rest without its bringing to you sleeplessness or morbid terrors, if you be a machanic, perhaps more so than if you were a Rothschild. Each and every condition of life has its duties and anxieties, its troubles and drawbacks, as well as its pleasures. I have implicit faith in the Creator's law of compensation. My belief is, that God wills, and has so arranged that in all ranks of life, let the difference of condition or capability be what it may, each one has it within him to make his life beautiful and happy. To every living being life is preferable to death; life to each and every one of us "is worth living."

JAMES PLATT

"Is Life Worth Living?", Platt's Essays


For life, with all it yields of joy and woe,
And hope and fear, -- believe the aged friend --
Is just a chance o' the prize of learning love.

ROBERT BROWNING

A Death in the Desert

Tags: Robert Browning


What is our life but a succession of preludes to that unknown song whose first solemn note is sounded by death?

ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE

Méditations Poétiques

Tags: Alphonse de Lamartine


Life is like our game of whist ... I don't enjoy the game much, but I like to play my cards well, and see what will be the end of it.

GEORGE ELIOT

Felix Holt


[A] carefully constructed life is a meticulous diversion from living.

J.R. KINNARD

"'Completely Unknown' Deals in Ambiguity and Subtle Charms", PopMatters, September 1, 2016


Life is an immense dream. Why toil?
All day long I drowse with wine,
And lie by the post at the front door.
Awakening, I gaze upon the garden trees,
And, hark, a bird is singing among the flowers.
Pray, what season may this be?
Ah, the songster's a mango-bird,
Singing to the passing wind of spring.
I muse and muse myself to sadness,
Once more I pour my wine, and singing aloud,
Await the bright moonrise.
My song is ended--
What troubled my soul?--I remember not.

LI BAI

"Awakening From Sleep on a Spring Day"

Tags: Li Bai


Life is just a party, and parties weren't meant 2 last.

PRINCE

"1999"

Tags: Prince


The truth about the world ... is that anything is possible. Had you not seen it all from birth and thereby bled it of its strangeness it would appear to you for what it is, a hat trick in a medicine show, a fevered dream, a trance bepopulate with chimeras having neither analogue nor precedent, an itinerant carnival, a migratory tentshow whose ultimate destination after many a pitch in many a mudded field is unspeakable and calamitous beyond reckoning.

CORMAC MCCARTHY

Blood Meridian


Life is always uncertain, and common prudence dictates to every man the necessity of settling his temporal concerns, while it is in his power, and while the mind is calm and undisturbed.

GEORGE WASHINGTON

letter to Mrs. Martha Washington, Jun. 18, 1775

Tags: George Washington


Life must be lived with courage, with climbing and risks, else there is no happiness, no hope, no true success, no future.

JENNETTE LEE

The Ibsen Secret

Tags: Jennette Lee


Life is lumpy. And a lump in the oatmeal, a lump in the throat, and a lump in a breast are not the same lump. One should learn the difference.

ROBERT FULGHUM

Uh-Oh


Still, life had a way of adding day to day.

VIRGINIA WOOLF

Mrs. Dalloway

Tags: Virginia Woolf


A man's life is like a well, not like a snake--it should be measured by its depth, not by its length.

AUSTIN O'MALLEY

Keystones of Thought


Life is a spell so exquisite that everything conspires to break it.

EMILY DICKINSON

letter to Louisa and Frances Norcross, Apr. 1873

Tags: Emily Dickinson


Into each life some rain must fall.

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

"The Rainy Day"

Tags: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow


There is no way to penetrate the surface of life but by attacking it earnestly at a particular point.

CHARLES HORTON COOLEY

Human Nature and the Social Order

Tags: Charles Horton Cooley


Well, you live your life the way you want, I live mine the way I want. We see who makes it farther.

DAVID BALDACCI

The Simple Truth

Tags: David Baldacci


With only one example of life -- the stuff we see on Earth -- we don't really have a good, universally accepted definition of life. NASA some years ago defined life as "a self-sustaining chemical system capable of Darwinian evolution." Not bad, but technically a single rabbit hopping around your garden is not alive, because by itself it can't reproduce.

JOEL ACHENBACH

"The 4 biggest milestones in the history of life on Earth", Albuquerque Journal, September 1, 2016