LIFE QUOTES XXIX

quotations about life

Life is good, be it stubbornly long or suddenly
A mortal splendor: meteors are not needed less than mountains.

ROBINSON JEFFERS

"Shine, Perishing Republic"

Tags: Robinson Jeffers


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


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

JOHN BARTH

The Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor

Tags: John Barth


Only the person who has experienced light and darkness, war and peace, rise and fall, only that person has truly experienced life.

STEFAN ZWEIG

The World of Yesterday


Along the road of life are many pleasure resorts, but think not that by tarrying in them you will take more days to the journey. The day of your arrival is already recorded.

AMBROSE BIERCE

"Epigrams of a Cynic"

Tags: Ambrose Bierce


And life itself spoke this secret to me. "Behold," it said, "I am that which must ever overcome itself."

FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE

Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Tags: Friedrich Nietzsche


They say there is nothing new under any sun. But if each life is not new, each single life, then why are we born?

URSULA K. LE GUIN

The Dispossessed

Tags: Ursula K. Le Guin


The life of man is a long march through the night, surrounded by invisible foes, tortured by weariness and pain, towards a goal that few can hope to reach, and where none may tarry long.

BERTRAND RUSSELL

A Free Man's Worship

Tags: Bertrand Russell


Life! Don't talk to me about life.

DOUGLAS ADAMS

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Tags: Douglas Adams


Wrong life cannot be lived rightly.

THEODOR W. ADORNO

Minima Moralia

Tags: Theodor W. Adorno


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


Life is but sighs; and, when they cease, 'tis over.

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR

Imaginary Conversations

Tags: Walter Savage Landor


But better die than live mechanically a life that is a repetition of repetitions.

D. H. LAWRENCE

Women in Love


Life appears in a vast variety and innumerable succession of individual forms, since the most salient character of the universe is just that it ceaselessly gives birth to living individuals.

JOSEPH ALEXANDER LEIGHTON

Man and the Cosmos: An Introduction to Metaphysics

Tags: Joseph Alexander Leighton


As long as you live, keep learning how to live.

SENECA

Ad Lucilium Epistulae Morales

Tags: Seneca


Every day is a careful balance fought between the despondency that threatens to swamp me and the incredible joy of living.

CHRIS ABANI

Kalakuta Republic

Tags: Chris Abani


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

Tags: Baba Hari Dass


Life, authentic life, is supposed to be all struggle, unflagging action and affirmation, the will butting its blunt head against the world's wall, suchlike, but when I look back I see that the greater part of my energies was always given over to the simple search for shelter, for comfort, for, yes, I admit it, for cosiness. This is a surprising, not to say shocking, realisation. Before, I saw myself as something of a buccaneer, facing all-comers with a cutlass in my teeth, but now I am compelled to acknowledge that this was a delusion. To be concealed, protected, guarded, that is all I have ever truly ever wanted, to burrow down into a place of womby warmth and cower there.

JOHN BANVILLE

The Sea

Tags: John Banville


Life is so complicated a game that the devices of skill are liable to be defeated at every turn by air-blown chances, incalculable as the descent of thistle-down.

GEORGE ELIOT

Romola

Tags: George Eliot