quotations about life
When something makes no sense, sometimes you make something of it. A joke. A spiritual practice. A life.
HEATHER SELLERS
Good Housekeeping, Jan. 2011
Real life seldom structures a decent denouement.
DAN SIMMONS
Hyperion
Life itself suggests a higher good than life itself can yield.
E. H. CHAPIN
Living Words
Life itself was only futility, vain words, a squabble of cap and bells.
MICHEL FOUCAULT
Madness & Civilization
It's only life. We all get through it.
DEAN KOONTZ
Odd Hours
It's good to do uncomfortable things. It's weight training for life.
ANNE LAMOTT
Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith
Life is short, but its ills make it seem long.
PUBLILIUS SYRUS
The Moral Sayings of Publilius Syrus
The best life is that which makes the best of life.
IVAN PANIN
Thoughts
Much too oft we make life gloomy--
When happy we might be,
If we gathered more of sunshine,
And not dark shadows see.
ARDELIA COTTON BARTON
Thoughts
For some reason or the other man looks for the miracle, and to accomplish it he will wade through blood. He will debauch himself with ideas, he will reduce himself to a shadow if for only one second of his life he can close his eyes to the hideousness of reality. Everything is endured--disgrace, humiliation, poverty, war, crime, ennui--in the belief that overnight something will occur, a miracle, which will render life tolerable.
HENRY MILLER
Tropic of Cancer
Mortal! that cull'st the flowers of life,
Think not to escape the thorn.
WILLIAM B. TAPPAN
"The Thorn of Life"
He who loveth, knoweth the inner sun; he see'th Life's blaze.
ELISE PUMPELLY CABOT
"Arizona"
I compare human life to a large mansion of many apartments, two of which I can only describe, the doors of the rest being as yet shut upon me.
JOHN KEATS
letter to John Hamilton Reynolds, May 3, 1818
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"
Behold the life at ease; it drifts,
The sharpened life commands its course.
GEORGE MEREDITH
"Hard Weather"
Life is no way to treat an animal.
KURT VONNEGUT
A Man Without a Country
The most important part of living is not the living but the pondering upon it.
SINCLAIR LEWIS
Arrowsmith
The hearts of all men dwell in the same wilderness.
FRANK HERBERT
Dune Messiah
To live life well is to express life poorly; if one expresses life too well, one is living it no longer.
GASTON BACHELARD
Fragments of a Poetics of Fire
Life is what you put into it and how much you take out of it. You put in more than is expected, and you take out less than you want.
MICHAEL J. FOX
Good Housekeeping, June 2011