LIFE QUOTES XXVIII

quotations about life

A life is such a strange object, at one moment translucent, at another utterly opaque, an object I make with my own hands, an object imposed on me, an object for which the world provides the raw material and then steals it from me again, pulverized by events, scattered, broken, scored yet retaining its unity; how heavy it is and how inconsistent: this contradiction breeds many misunderstandings.

SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR

After the War


Like the generations of leaves, the lives of mortal men.
Now the wind scatters the old leaves across the earth,
now the living timber bursts with the new buds
and spring comes round again. And so with men:
as one generation comes to life, another dies away.

HOMER

The Iliad

Tags: Homer


Life is the lust of a lamp for the light that is dark till the dawn of the day that we die.

ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE

"Nephelidia"

Tags: Algernon Charles Swinburne


The life most of us live are lives we are forced to live by immediate needs, influences, and pressures.

WALTER MOSLEY

Black Genius

Tags: Walter Mosley


No man ever sailed over exactly the same route that another sailed over before him; every man who starts on the ocean of life arches his sails to an untried breeze.

WILLIAM MATHEWS

Hints on Success in Life


From whatever point he starts, whatever path he follows, modern man comes to the same conclusion: behind its visible appearances, life hides a meaning that is eternally inaccessible to penetration by the spirit that seeks for its discovery, caught in the dilemma of being aware that it is impossible to find it, and yet also impossible to renounce the hopeless quest.

ARTHUR ADAMOV

"Le refus", L'Heure Nouvelle


How fugitive and brief is mortal life between the budding and the falling leaf.

THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH

"Two Moods"

Tags: Thomas Bailey Aldrich


Whether there is to be another world or not, it seems to me we ought to be deeply thankful for having been permitted to live, even though we see no prospect of living again. It is something to have had this wonderful gift of "life." Yesterday but a little dust, today alive, with life before us, and the powers of speech, observation, and thought--the capacity to understand something of the earth around and the heavens above; with bodily health, a properly trained mind, internal resources adequate to the inevitable difficulties that will have to be overcome; the culture of the understanding and taste, an object in life earnestly sought after; the happy time of courtship; the affection of wife and children, the interest in watching their progress forward up the hill that you are steadily going down--all indicate that we should so live that while we live "life must be worth living," and that it is possible to make life not only endurable, but something unquestionably good, happy, and desirable, by turning to their best uses our capabilities, and using wisely the immense resources in this world, of which we have the benefit, and for which we ought to be thankful.

JAMES PLATT

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


Into the void of silence, into the empty space of nothing, the joy of life is unfurled.

C. S. LEWIS

The Magician's Nephew

Tags: C. S. Lewis


The life that is demanding to be born is limitless. Nature is a spendthrift. Look at the fish and their millions of eggs. For that matter, look at you and me. In our loins are the possibilities of millions of lives. Could we but find time and opportunity and utilize the last bit and every bit of the unborn life that is in us, we could become the fathers of nations and populate continents.

JACK LONDON

The Sea-Wolf


Sometimes I believe that this less material life is our truer life, and that our vain presence on the terraqueous globe is itself the secondary or merely virtual phenomenon.

H. P. LOVECRAFT

"Beyond the Wall of Sleep"


I count life just a stuff
To try the soul's strength on.

ROBERT BROWNING

In a Balcony

Tags: Robert Browning


Philosophers wrestling with the big questions of life are no longer alone. Now scientists are struggling to define life as they manipulate it, look for it on other planets, and even create it in test tubes.

SETH BORENSTEIN

USA Today, Aug. 19, 2007

Tags: Seth Borenstein


Life is as the current spark on the miner's wheel of flints;
While it spinneth, there is light; stop it, all is darkness.

MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER

Proverbial Philosophy

Tags: Martin Farquhar Tupper


Life is sad
Life is a bust
All ya can do is do what you must

BOB DYLAN

"Buckets of Rain"

Tags: Bob Dylan


The unfairness of life is indicative of trees. I planted twenty trees on the same block. It's so fucking weird. Six became huge. One is giant. And there are some little shitty ones. Same soil. Same water. Same seed. But those little ones just don't grow. I can't explain it.

TIM ALLEN

Esquire, Nov. 2011

Tags: Tim Allen


How strange a checker-work of Providence is the life of man!

DANIEL DEFOE

Robinson Crusoe

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Though life's tuition is always ruinous, inexorably we learn.

JOHN BARTH

The Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor

Tags: John Barth


Life consists of nothing but exceptions.

SERGEI LUKYANENKO

Night Watch

Tags: Sergei Lukyanenko


You sit
Like a rain puddle in hell
Knitting the socks
Of your life.

CHARLES SIMIC

My Noiseless Entourage

Tags: Charles Simic