quotations about life
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
Into each life some rain must fall.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
"The Rainy Day"
Let life happen to you. Believe me: life is in the right, always.
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Letters to a Young Poet
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
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
To those who view the voyage of life from the port of departure the bark that has accomplished any considerable distance appears already in close approach to the farther shore.
AMBROSE BIERCE
"The Death of Halpin Frayser"
Each life is one short word slowly uttered.
LOUISE ERDRICH
The Blue Jay's Dance
Still, life had a way of adding day to day.
VIRGINIA WOOLF
Mrs. Dalloway
A whole lifetime was too short to bring out, the full flavour; to extract every ounce of pleasure, every shade of meaning.
VIRGINIA WOOLF
Mrs. Dalloway
Life is a lot like math. There's always new stuff to do, always another problem to solve. Work through it one problem at a time.
STEPHANIE SANTILLO
"Sheehan valedictorian: 'Life is a lot like math'", My Record Journal, June 3, 2016
Child, child, have patience and belief, for life is many days, and each present hour will pass away.
THOMAS WOLFE
You Can't Go Home Again
O harp of life, so speedily unstrung!
THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH
"Two Moods"
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
Yes, life is but a waste,
A cheerless pathway, where
No healthy fruit allures the taste,
No flowerets balm the air,
If Love, the wild rose, ne'er luxuriates there.
WILLIAM B. TAPPAN
"Love"
The art of life is the art of avoiding pain; and he is the best pilot, who steers clearest of the rocks and shoals with which it is beset.
THOMAS JEFFERSON
letter to Mrs. Cosway, Oct. 12, 1786
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
Our lives teach us who we are.
SALMAN RUSHDIE
London Independent, Feb. 4, 1990
Life is a wheel, and if you wait long enough, it always comes back around to where it started.
STEPHEN KING
Duma Key
What is the meaning of life?... A simple question; one that tended to close in on one with years. The great revelation had never come. The great revelation perhaps never did come. Instead there were little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark.
VIRGINIA WOOLF
To the Lighthouse
Life seems so long, and its capacity so great, to one who knows nothing of all the intervals it needs must hold -- intervals between aspirations, between actions, pauses as inevitable as the pauses of sleep. And life looks impossible to the young unfortunate, unaware of the inevitable and unfailing refreshment. It would be for their peace to learn that there is a tide in the affairs of men, in a sense more subtle -- if it is not too audacious to add a meaning to Shakespeare -- than the phrase was meant to contain. Their joy is flying away from them on its way home; their life will wax and wane; and if they would be wise, they must wake and rest in its phases, knowing that they are ruled by the law that commands all things -- a sun's revolutions and the rhythmic pangs of maternity.
ALICE MEYNELL
"The Rhythm of Life", The Rhythm of Life and Other Essays