quotations about life
Only the person who has experienced light and darkness, war and peace, rise and fall, only that person has truly experienced life.
STEFAN ZWEIG
The World of Yesterday
Life is a pilgrimage and if you don't play by the rules you don't find the Road to Damascus, you find the Crown of Thorns.
ANITA BROOKNER
The Paris Review, fall 1987
Knowledge about life is one thing; effective occupation of a place in life, with its dynamic currents passing through your being, is another.
WILLIAM JAMES
The Varieties of Religious Experience
Life is good, be it stubbornly long or suddenly
A mortal splendor: meteors are not needed less than mountains.
ROBINSON JEFFERS
"Shine, Perishing Republic"
I am a true adorer of life, and if I can't reach as high as the face of it, I plant my kiss somewhere lower down. Those who understand will require no further explanation.
SAUL BELLOW
Henderson the Rain King
The hearts of all men dwell in the same wilderness.
FRANK HERBERT
Dune Messiah
That life is brief hath seemed a piteous thing
Since the first mortal watched it glide away.
And sad it is that flowers have but one day,
And sad that birds have little time to sing;
That joy is fleeting as the bloom of Spring;
That youth so soon is startled from its play,
And manhood from its labor, to essay
The old vain struggle with the shadowy King.
But sadder far it is that life is long;
Ay, long enough for bliss to turn to bale,
For innocence to lose the dread of wrong,
For hearts to harden, love itself to fail;
And faith be wearied out (O, sad and strange!)
Unless Death save us from the deathly change.
CAROLINE SPENCER
"Life"
Life is life--whether in a cat, or dog or man. There is no difference there between a cat or a man. The idea of difference is a human conception for man's own advantage.
SRI AUROBINDO
attributed, Humanimal
The best life is that which makes the best of life.
IVAN PANIN
Thoughts
He who loveth, knoweth the inner sun; he see'th Life's blaze.
ELISE PUMPELLY CABOT
"Arizona"
You're alive. That means you have infinite potential. You can do anything, make anything, dream anything. If you change the world, the world will change.
NEIL GAIMAN
The Graveyard Book
He had learned the worst lesson that life can teach -- that it makes no sense.
PHILIP ROTH
American Pastoral
How easy life is when it's easy, and how hard when it's hard.
PHILIP ROTH
The Professor of Desire
Is all our Life, then but a dream
Seen faintly in the golden gleam
Athwart Time's dark resistless stream?
LEWIS CARROLL
Sylvie and Bruno
Life is occupied in both perpetuating itself and in surpassing itself; if all it does is maintain itself, then living is only not dying.
SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR
The Ethics of Ambiguity
I look at it this way: How much of the day are you awake? You think, "I've gotta get that dry cleaning, I gotta get this going, and this, and this, and this." And all of a sudden it's dinnertime. And then there's a moment of connection with your spouse or your friends. Then you read and go to bed. Wake up and then it's the same all over. You're not awake, you're not living, you're not experiencing. We start early medicating ourselves. We start kids early, on TV and video games and so on.
TIM ALLEN
Reader's Digest, Oct. 2001
As yet we know nothing of what goes to create or evoke the active spark of life.
BRAM STOKER
"The Jewel of the Seven Stars"
To live means to finesse the processes to which one is subjugated.
BERTOLT BRECHT
On Politics and Society
Life is what you put into it and how much you take out of it. You put in more than is expected, and you take out less than you want.
MICHAEL J. FOX
Good Housekeeping, June 2011
When something makes no sense, sometimes you make something of it. A joke. A spiritual practice. A life.
HEATHER SELLERS
Good Housekeeping, Jan. 2011