quotations about life
Whether there is to be another world or not, it seems to me we ought to be deeply thankful for having been permitted to live, even though we see no prospect of living again. It is something to have had this wonderful gift of "life." Yesterday but a little dust, today alive, with life before us, and the powers of speech, observation, and thought--the capacity to understand something of the earth around and the heavens above; with bodily health, a properly trained mind, internal resources adequate to the inevitable difficulties that will have to be overcome; the culture of the understanding and taste, an object in life earnestly sought after; the happy time of courtship; the affection of wife and children, the interest in watching their progress forward up the hill that you are steadily going down--all indicate that we should so live that while we live "life must be worth living," and that it is possible to make life not only endurable, but something unquestionably good, happy, and desirable, by turning to their best uses our capabilities, and using wisely the immense resources in this world, of which we have the benefit, and for which we ought to be thankful.
JAMES PLATT
"Is Life Worth Living?", Platt's Essays
A life is such a strange object, at one moment translucent, at another utterly opaque, an object I make with my own hands, an object imposed on me, an object for which the world provides the raw material and then steals it from me again, pulverized by events, scattered, broken, scored yet retaining its unity; how heavy it is and how inconsistent: this contradiction breeds many misunderstandings.
SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR
After the War
I count life just a stuff
To try the soul's strength on.
ROBERT BROWNING
In a Balcony
It is in life as it is in ways, the shortest way is commonly the foulest, and surely the fairer way is not much about.
FRANCIS BACON
Advancement of Learning
It's good to do uncomfortable things. It's weight training for life.
ANNE LAMOTT
Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith
Life consists of nothing but exceptions.
SERGEI LUKYANENKO
Night Watch
Life is a horizontal fall.
JEAN COCTEAU
Opium
Life is a journey that's constantly flowing, regardless of the number of candles that will be on your next birthday cake. For you to stay in the same place forever would mean to resist growth. And that's what we're all here to do anyway -- we're here to grow.
ELISE MOREAU
"How to Change Your Life at Any Age", Care2, September 1, 2016
Life is as the current spark on the miner's wheel of flints;
While it spinneth, there is light; stop it, all is darkness.
MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER
Proverbial Philosophy
Life is indeed either a rich possession or a poor, according as it is made subservient to noble aims or ignoble pleasures.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
Life is sad
Life is a bust
All ya can do is do what you must
BOB DYLAN
"Buckets of Rain"
Life is so complicated a game that the devices of skill are liable to be defeated at every turn by air-blown chances, incalculable as the descent of thistle-down.
GEORGE ELIOT
Romola
Life is Supercalifragilisticexpialidocius.
JULIE ANDREWS
Star Weekly, Apr. 29, 1965
Like the generations of leaves, the lives of mortal men.
Now the wind scatters the old leaves across the earth,
now the living timber bursts with the new buds
and spring comes round again. And so with men:
as one generation comes to life, another dies away.
HOMER
The Iliad
Men regret their life has been ill-spent, but this does not always induce them to make a better use of the time they have yet to live.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of Mankind", Les Caractères
Mortal! that cull'st the flowers of life,
Think not to escape the thorn.
WILLIAM B. TAPPAN
"The Thorn of Life"
Philosophers wrestling with the big questions of life are no longer alone. Now scientists are struggling to define life as they manipulate it, look for it on other planets, and even create it in test tubes.
SETH BORENSTEIN
USA Today, Aug. 19, 2007
Study more how to die than how to live; if you would live till you were old, live as if you were to die when you are young.
WELLINS CALCOTT
Thoughts Moral and Divine
The life most of us live are lives we are forced to live by immediate needs, influences, and pressures.
WALTER MOSLEY
Black Genius
There is no normal life. There is only life.
ANNE RICE
The Wolves of Midwinter