quotations about life
Life seems so vulgar, so easily content with the commonplace things of every day, and yet it always nurses and cherishes certain higher claims in secret, and looks about for the means of satisfying them.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe
Rest not! Life is sweeping by;
Go and dare before you die.
Something mighty and sublime
Leave behind to conquer time!
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
"Haste Not--Rest Not"
There is nothing men are so anxious to keep, and yet are so careless about, as life.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of Mankind", Les Caractères
When our life is a continuous trial, the moments of respite seem only to substitute the heaviness of dread for the heaviness of actual suffering; the curtain of cloud seems parted an instant only that we may measure all its horror as it hangs low, black, and imminent, in contrast with the transient brightness; the waterdrops that visit the parched lips in the desert bear with them only the keen imagination of thirst.
GEORGE ELIOT
Janet's Repentance
Life is a struggle, and if you should feel really happy, be patient: this will pass.
GARRISON KEILLOR
A Prairie Home Companion, 2006
Life is too short for aught but high endeavor.
ELLA WHEELER WILCOX
"Life Is Too Short"
Life is an uncertain flower--oft by the tempest o'erthrown.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
You have not lost all when you have life.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
Life should be a fruitful garden,
Fair in blossom, and rich in seed;
Conscience, the sharp and faithful warden,
Watchful against the frost and weed.
Study should its labyrinths trace
Where wisdom's pleasant waters flow;
And industry the garden grace
With plants that choicest gifts bestow.
C. B. LANGSTON
"What Should Life Be?"
Life seems like a haunted wood, where we tremble and crouch and cry.
ALFRED AUSTIN
"A Woman's Apology"
Sooner or later we all discover that the important moments in life are not the advertised ones, not the birthdays, the graduations, the weddings, not the great goals achieved. The real milestones are less prepossessing. They come to the door of memory unannounced, stray dogs that amble in, sniff around a bit and simply never leave. Our lives are measured by these.
SUSAN B. ANTHONY
The Ghost in My Life
I am a true adorer of life, and if I can't reach as high as the face of it, I plant my kiss somewhere lower down. Those who understand will require no further explanation.
SAUL BELLOW
Henderson the Rain King
Life is a corrupting process from the time a child learns to play his mother off against his father in the politics of when to go to bed; he who fears corruption fears life.
SAUL ALINSKY
Rules for Radicals
He or she who has made the best of the life after death has made the best of the life before it.
SAMUEL BUTLER
"How to Make the Best of Life", Essays on Life, Art and Science
The world comes to us in an endless stream of puzzle pieces that we would like to think all fit together somehow, but that in fact never do.
ROBERT M. PIRSIG
Lila
The purpose of life is to be defeated by greater and greater things.
RAINER MARIA RILKE
attributed, The Waking Dream
You tasted it. Isn't that enough? Of what do you ever get more than a taste? That's all we're given in life, that's all we're given of life. A taste. There is no more.
PHILIP ROTH
The Dying Animal
Life is just a short period of time in which you are alive.
PHILIP ROTH
American Pastoral
There are sad times, of course, but then life is a mixture and an authentic life story is the good, the bad, and everything in between.
NIK FARAH
"Recording a life is so precious", The Star, August 12, 2016
You're alive. That means you have infinite potential. You can do anything, make anything, dream anything. If you change the world, the world will change.
NEIL GAIMAN
The Graveyard Book