quotations about life
It is astonishing how much more anxious people are to lengthen life than to improve it; and as misers often lose large sums of money in attempting to make more, so do hypochondriacs squander large sums of time in search of nostrums by which they vainly hope they may get more time to squander.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
Life is a theatre of alarms and contentions.
CHARLES HORTON COOLEY
Human Nature and the Social Order
When we dead awaken ... we see that we have never lived.
HENRIK IBSEN
When We Dead Awaken
Life is a mixed bag of success and failure.
NAWAZUDDIN SIDDIQUI
The Times of India, May 25, 2016
Life? Bah! It has no value. Of cheap things it is the cheapest. Everywhere it goes begging. Nature spills it out with a lavish hand. Where there is room for one life, she sows a thousand lives, and it's life eats life till the strongest and most piggish life is left.
JACK LONDON
The Sea-Wolf
Human life is a pilgrimage from the unknown to the unknown. No one knows whence he emanated or whither he is bound.
FEMI ABBAS
"A decade of royalty and faith", The Nation, September 2, 2016
Work, whiskey, and cards were life.
HENRY ADAMS
The Education of Henry Adams
Life is a horizontal fall.
JEAN COCTEAU
Opium
Life seems but a quick succession of busy nothings.
JANE AUSTEN
Mansfield Park
Life is a crucible. We are thrown into it, and tried.
E. H. CHAPIN
Living Words
Life is a dance. To master it, we must master the rhythm of our lives.
MICHAEL MAMAS
"In the Rhythm of Life, Timing is Everything", Huffington Post, August 19, 2016
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
Life is full of doors that don't open when you knock, equally spaced amid those that open when you don't want them to.
ROGER ZELAZNY
Blood of Amber
It's a great time to be alive and talking about life. We just learned that geologists found what appear to be fossilized stromatolites in 3.7-billion-year-old rocks in Greenland. That suggests life popped up on Earth ridiculously soon after the planet formed. And last we learned about the discovery of a planet orbiting Proxima Centauri, the nearest star to our sun. Meanwhile we now know planets are common. Maybe the universe is simply throbbing with life!
JOEL ACHENBACH
"The 4 biggest milestones in the history of life on Earth", Albuquerque Journal, September 1, 2016
The advantage of literature over life is that its characters are clearly defined, and act consistently.
JEROME K. JEROME
"Reginald Blake, Financier and Cad"
Black river of torture, writhing senselessly, whirlpool of life, in vain I search thee for one moment's rest.
ELISE PUMPELLY CABOT
"Arizona"
Life
You have been good to me....
You have not made yourself too dear
to juggle with.
LOLA RIDGE
"Comrades"
Sounds of life and movement, people getting ready and people giving up, the sound of hope and the sound of hanging on, and behind them all, the quiet, deadly ticking of a thousand hungry clocks...
HUNTER S. THOMPSON
The Rum Diary
The purpose of life is a life of purpose.
BONG R. OSORIO
"The purpose of life is a life of purpose", The Philippine Star, June 20, 2016
Life is like a school; one can learn, one can graduate, one can skip a grade or stay behind.
ELIZABETH LESSER
The New American Spirituality: A Seeker's Guide