LIFE QUOTES XXXIV

quotations about life

No lifetime is long enough for those ... who simply wish to understand themselves and their lives. It is, perhaps, the curse of being human, but also a blessing.

DAN SIMMONS

The Rise of Endymion


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

Tags: Bentley Little


Life is the apprenticeship to progressive renunciation, to the steady diminution of our claims, of our hopes, of our powers, of our liberty.

HENRI-FREDERIC AMIEL

Journal Intime

Tags: Henri Frederic Amiel


Life, the river of the Spirit, consenting to anguish and sorrow.

SRI AUROBINDO

Ahana

Tags: Sri Aurobindo


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

Tags: Sebastien Roch Nicolas Chamfort


Life consists of nothing but exceptions.

SERGEI LUKYANENKO

Night Watch

Tags: Sergei Lukyanenko


Well yet, this life such as it is, yet we love it, and loath we are to end it; and if it be in hazard by the law, what running, riding, posting, suing, bribing, and if all will not serve, what breaking prison is there for it!

LANCELOT ANDREWES

Ninety-six Sermons

Tags: Lancelot Andrewes


Life meaning is always a derivative phenomenon that materializes when we have transcended ourselves, when we have forgotten ourselves and become absorbed in someone (or something) outside ourselves.

IRVIN D. YALOM

The Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy

Tags: Irvin D. Yalom


That was indeed to live -- at one bold swoop to wrest from darkling death the best that death to life can give.

THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH

"Shaw Memorial Ode"

Tags: Thomas Bailey Aldrich


When people say that they are happy with their lives, they do not usually mean that they are literally joyful, or experiencing pleasure, all the time. They mean that, upon reflection on the balance sheet of pleasures and pains, they feel the balance to be reasonably positive over the long term.

DANIEL NETTLE

Happiness: The Science Behind Your Smile

Tags: Daniel Nettle


No man is matriculated to the art of life till he has been well tempted.

GEORGE ELIOT

Romola


This world is a vaporous jest at best,
Tossed off by the gods in laughter,
And a cruel attempt at wit were it,
If nothing better came after.

ELLA WHEELER WILCOX

"A Gray Mood"


Life is a strange thing. Why this longing for life? It is a game which no man wins. To live is to toil hard and to suffer sore, till old age creeps heavily upon us and we throw down our hands on the cold ashes of dead fires. It is hard to live. In pain the babe sucks his first breath, in pain the old man gasps his last, and all his days are full of trouble and sorrow; yet he goes down to the open arms of death, stumbling, falling, with head turned backward, fighting to the last. And death is kind. It is only life and the things of life that hurt. Yet we love life and we hate death. It is very strange.

JACK LONDON

Tales of the North

Tags: Jack London


Sometimes life takes hold of one, carries the body along, accomplishes one's history, and yet is not real, but leaves oneself as it were slurred over.

D. H. LAWRENCE

Sons and Lovers

Tags: D. H. Lawrence


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


As regards the present life, it would seem that it is really possible for it, at least, to be made into something very satisfactory, since it is a simple matter of fact that some men, no matter what their condition in life, do contrive to get enjoyment and happiness out of it. To secure success in our vocation, we need a knowledge of its technicalities; to free the mind from doubt, to keep a man superior to temptation, we must give him good moral principles and habits. A purposeless life is deprived of much that is enjoyable in this world. Contrast the life of those who go through the world as if they were here but to eat, sleep, and die--no aim, purpose, or object before them--with that of those who daily work onward with an object before them, the determination to enjoy life, to make the best of life, to do their duty themselves, their fellow-men, and their God; obedient from the pleasure of doing God's will, and virtuous without everlastingly thinking of what virtue is to do for them; the desire to please God, to be living in harmony with Him, developing the highest aspirations of the soul, the moral tastes purified and exalted by daily communion with God, and the wish to live a life in obedience to His authority, compelling yon to be good, feeling yourself under a law whose voice is clear, resolute, and uniform--a law which tells you to adhere to the right, and avoid the expedient--which enables you to act upon principle, and not be led by the impulse of passion, or the plausibility of appearance.

JAMES PLATT

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


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

Tags: Daniel Handler


I know that life is a journey I must accept and that pain and confusion are temporary. I know that if I follow my heart, it will lead me where I belong.

JOSH GROBAN

O Magazine, Jan. 2007

Tags: Josh Groban


He is dead already who doth not feel
Life is worth living still.

ALFRED AUSTIN

"Is Life Worth Living?", Lyrical Poems

Tags: Alfred Austin


It's a shallow life that doesn't give a person a few scars.

GARRISON KEILLOR

"Could I have been any more inept?", Salon, Oct. 26, 1999

Tags: Garrison Keillor