quotations about 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
I think you've got to be truthful about the life you have. Otherwise, there's no possibility of achieving the life you want.
JAMES BALDWIN
Another Country
I was thinking how amazing it was that the world contained so many lives. Out in these streets people were embroiled in a thousand different matters, money problems, love problems, school problems. People were falling in love, getting married, going to drug rehab, learning how to ice-skate, getting bifocals, studying for exams, trying on clothes, getting their hair-cut and getting born. And in some houses people were getting old and sick and were dying, leaving others to grieve. It was happening all the time, unnoticed, and it was the thing that really mattered.
JEFFREY EUGENIDES
Middlesex
If I don't have time to live my life well the first time, when am I going to find the time to go back and live it over?
ROBERT FULGHUM
Uh-Oh
In life, unlike chess, the game continues after checkmate.
ISAAC ASIMOV
Fantastic Voyage II
Into the void of silence, into the empty space of nothing, the joy of life is unfurled.
C. S. LEWIS
The Magician's Nephew
Is there another life? Shall I awake and find all this a dream? There must be, we cannot be created for this sort of suffering.
JOHN KEATS
letter to Charles Brown, Sep. 30, 1820
Life is dangerous. That's what makes it interesting.
JOHN TWELVE HAWKS
The Traveler
Life is good, be it stubbornly long or suddenly
A mortal splendor: meteors are not needed less than mountains.
ROBINSON JEFFERS
"Shine, Perishing Republic"
Life is not a bed of roses.
ENGLISH PROVERB
Life is one long struggle in the dark.
LUCRETIUS
De Rerum Natura
Life is short, if we are only said to live when we enjoy ourselves; and if we were merely to count up the hours we spent agreeably, a great number of years would hardly make up a life of a few months.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of the Affections", Les Caractères
Life is the tamer of the wild beast of humanity.
EDWIN LEIBFREED
"Childhood", A Soliloquy of Life
Life was meant to be lived, and curiosity must be kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.
ELEANOR ROOSEVELT
preface, Autobiography
Nothing is easier than to simplify life and them make a philosophy about it. The trouble is that the resulting philosophy is true only of that simplified life.
WALTER LIPPMANN
Drift and Mastery: An Attempt to Diagnose the Current Unrest
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
Q: Is life a dream or a meditation? A: Life is a meditation when you know it is a dream.
BABA HARI DASS
Yoga Journal, May 1977
The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began,
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.
J. R. R. TOLKIEN
The Fellowship of the Ring
But better die than live mechanically a life that is a repetition of repetitions.
D. H. LAWRENCE
Women in Love
Every noble life becomes a revelation of the spirit which the love and joy of mankind cannot let perish from remembrance.
AMOS BRONSON ALCOTT
Table Talk