quotations about life
Living is a disease from the pains of which sleep eases us every sixteen hours; sleep is but a palliative, death alone is the cure.
CHAMFORT
The Cynic's Breviary
Nothing comes at all -- never anything. And I cannot accustom myself to that. It is this monotony, this absolute fixity in life, that is the hardest thing for me to endure. I should like to go away from here. Go away? But where and how? I do not know, and I stay.
OCTAVE MIRBEAU
The Diary of a Chambermaid
Real life was messier than fiction, and in it you didn't always have time to do or say the right things.
BENTLEY LITTLE
The Resort
Life is a marathon. It takes time, patience and commitment to creating a comeback.
GREG M. DAVIS
"Donald Trump Does Not Know the Struggle of African Americans", Time, September 1, 2016
If I don't have time to live my life well the first time, when am I going to find the time to go back and live it over?
ROBERT FULGHUM
Uh-Oh
I have not wasted life, but life hath wasted me.
BHARTRHARI
"Against the Desire of Worldly Things"
Like water spilt upon the ground--alas,
Our little lives flow swiftly on and pass;
Yet may they bring rich harvests and green grass!
HENRY VAN DYKE
"Epigrams and Greetings"
Life is not the unique property of Earth. Nor is life in the shape of human beings. Life takes many forms on other planets and far stars, forms that would seem bizarre to humans, as human life is bizarre to other life-forms.
H. P. LOVECRAFT
"The Dark Brotherhood"
Life is the tamer of the wild beast of humanity.
EDWIN LEIBFREED
"Childhood", A Soliloquy of Life
Life, the river of the Spirit, consenting to anguish and sorrow.
SRI AUROBINDO
Ahana
Death gives a life to some men and women compared with which their so-called existence here is as nothing. Which is the truer life of Shakespeare, Handel, that divine woman who wrote the Odyssey, and of Jane Austen -- the life which palpitated with sensible warm motion within their own bodies, or that in virtue of which they are still palpitating in ours?
SAMUEL BUTLER
"How to Make the Best of Life", Essays on Life, Art and Science
There are those who say that life is like a book, with chapters for each event in your life and a limited number of pages on which you can spend your time. But I prefer to think that a book is like a life, particularly a good one, which is well to worth staying up all night to finish.
DANIEL HANDLER
(as Lemony Snicket), Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid
Life is like patchwork: every day there is a fresh bit to be put on. We must understand more correctly how to fit in better the bits needed day by day in repairing this patchwork life of ours. As it is, the three-cornered bits too often get put into the square places; but it is essential for man's happiness that he comprehends and unhesitatingly accepts as a truism that it rests with us to make this patchwork to our own liking; that we have the power to shape this life of ours more regularly, harmoniously, and blend it more perfectly; and that our life as it is, or as it might be, depends upon whether this be done in the right spirit.
JAMES PLATT
Platt's Essays
Life is like sex. It's not always good, but it's always worth trying.
PAMELA ANDERSON
Star
Will our life not be a tunnel between two vague clarities? Or will it not be a clarity between two dark triangles?
PABLO NERUDA
The Book of Questions
The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty: not knowing what comes next.
URSULA K. LE GUIN
The Left Hand of Darkness
The world is a grindstone and life is your nose.
FRED ALLEN
attributed, The Mammoth Book of Comic Quotes
Flirting with death is the spice of life.
MARGARET LOCK
Twice Dead
As long as you live, keep learning how to live.
SENECA
Ad Lucilium Epistulae Morales
It's well we should feel as life's a reckoning we can't make twice over; there's no real making amends in this world, any more nor you can mend a wrong subtraction by doing your addition right.
GEORGE ELIOT
Adam Bede