LIFE QUOTES XXXV

quotations about life

Man's life is entirely in his operations, which may all be classed under three heads: he thinks, he feels, and he acts -- these three modes of activity exhaust his powers.

WILLIAM BATCHELDER GREENE

The Doctrine of Life

Tags: William Batchelder Greene


Nothing comes at all -- never anything. And I cannot accustom myself to that. It is this monotony, this absolute fixity in life, that is the hardest thing for me to endure. I should like to go away from here. Go away? But where and how? I do not know, and I stay.

OCTAVE MIRBEAU

The Diary of a Chambermaid

Tags: Octave Mirbeau


Life is a Shylock; always it demands
The fullest userer's interest for each pleasure.
Gifts are not freely scattered by its hands;
We make returns for every borrowed treasure.

ELLA WHEELER WILCOX

"The Law"


It's a shallow life that doesn't give a person a few scars.

GARRISON KEILLOR

"Could I have been any more inept?", Salon, Oct. 26, 1999

Tags: Garrison Keillor


Life is often wasted in a search after unattainable advantages, and generally, through the scruples of pride and vanity, our happiness is delayed from day to day, by a rejection of those pleasures and benefits which are within our reach.

CHARLES WILLIAM DAY

The Maxims, Experiences, and Observations of Agogos

Tags: Charles William Day


Human life [is] ... a process of filling in time until the arrival of death, or Santa Claus, with very little choice, if any, of what kind of business one is going to transact during the long wait.

ERIC BERNE

Games People Play

Tags: Eric Berne


Do you know the only value life has is what life puts upon itself? And it is of course overestimated, for it is of necessity prejudiced in its own favour.

JACK LONDON

The Sea Wolf

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The understanding of human existence that sees life as having death as its inevitable end presumes that life is lived only in opposition to dying and seeks the conquest of death; that is, immortality, or eternal life. Here, death is always seen as alien to life, something to be overcome. In contrast to this, the understanding of human existence as a continuous living-and-dying does not view life and death as objects in mutual opposition but as two aspects of indivisible reality. Present life is understood as something that undergoes continuous living-and-dying.

MASAO ABE

Zen and the Modern World

Tags: Masao Abe


Tell someone you love them because life is short, but shout it in Klingon because life is also terrifying and confusing.

ANONYMOUS


The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty: not knowing what comes next.

URSULA K. LE GUIN

The Left Hand of Darkness

Tags: Ursula K. Le Guin


What the philosophers once knew as life has become the sphere of private existence and now of mere consumption, dragged along as an appendage of the process of material production, without autonomy or substance of its own.

THEODOR W. ADORNO

Minima Moralia


Life is like sex. It's not always good, but it's always worth trying.

PAMELA ANDERSON

Star

Tags: Pamela Anderson


There was that law of life so cruel and so just which demanded that one must grow or else pay more for remaining the same.

NORMAN MAILER

The Deer Park

Tags: Norman Mailer


Life is a strange thing. Why this longing for life? It is a game which no man wins. To live is to toil hard and to suffer sore, till old age creeps heavily upon us and we throw down our hands on the cold ashes of dead fires. It is hard to live. In pain the babe sucks his first breath, in pain the old man gasps his last, and all his days are full of trouble and sorrow; yet he goes down to the open arms of death, stumbling, falling, with head turned backward, fighting to the last. And death is kind. It is only life and the things of life that hurt. Yet we love life and we hate death. It is very strange.

JACK LONDON

Tales of the North

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Life, the river of the Spirit, consenting to anguish and sorrow.

SRI AUROBINDO

Ahana

Tags: Sri Aurobindo


If it is life that you feel you are missing I can tell you where to find it. In the law courts, in business, in government. There is nothing occurring in the streets. Nothing but a dumbshow composed of the helpless and the impotent.

CORMAC MCCARTHY

Suttree

Tags: Cormac McCarthy


Ordinary life does not interest me. I seek only the high moments.

ANAIS NIN

diary, winter, 1931-32


This world is a vaporous jest at best,
Tossed off by the gods in laughter,
And a cruel attempt at wit were it,
If nothing better came after.

ELLA WHEELER WILCOX

"A Gray Mood"


Life has possibilities; death has none.

REUEN THOMAS

Thoughts for the Thoughtful

Tags: Thomas Reuen


When life looks like it's falling apart, it may just be falling in place.

BEVERLY SOLOMON

Good Housekeeping, Aug. 2009

Tags: Beverly Solomon