quotations about life
The loves and hours of the life of a man,
They are swift and sad, being born of the sea.
ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE
The Triumph of Time
If you have no wounds, how can you know if you're alive?
EDWARD ALBEE
The Play About the Baby
We cross the stream of life at different places. Some wade through the shallows in a drought, others have to swim across deep waters in a storm.
CHARLES EDWARD JERNINGHAM
The Maxims of Marmaduke
Thus will we deal with life, my little help-meet. Will we not, eh? What though it blink at us like an owl that is blinded by the sun, we will yet force it to smile.
LEONID ANDREYEV
The Life of Man
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
Some moments in a life, and they needn't be very long or seem very important, can make up for so much in that life; can redeem, justify, that pain, that bewilderment, with which one lives, and invest one with the courage not only to endure it, but to profit from it; some moments teach one the price of the human connection: if one can live with one's own pain, then one respects the pain of others, and so, briefly, but transcendentally, we can release each other from pain.
JAMES BALDWIN
Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone
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
Life is Supercalifragilisticexpialidocius.
JULIE ANDREWS
Star Weekly, Apr. 29, 1965
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
I look at it this way: How much of the day are you awake? You think, "I've gotta get that dry cleaning, I gotta get this going, and this, and this, and this." And all of a sudden it's dinnertime. And then there's a moment of connection with your spouse or your friends. Then you read and go to bed. Wake up and then it's the same all over. You're not awake, you're not living, you're not experiencing. We start early medicating ourselves. We start kids early, on TV and video games and so on.
TIM ALLEN
Reader's Digest, Oct. 2001
All our mortal lives are set in danger and perplexity: one day to prosper, and the next -- who knows? When all is well, then look for rocks ahead.
SOPHOCLES
Philoctetes
Life started out one thing and then suddenly turned a corner and became something else.
JEFFREY EUGENIDES
Middlesex
The bright side of life's unpredictability is that it's not over until it's over. As dark as the passages and confusing as the cul-de-sacs that you find yourself in are, progress is nevertheless being made. Something is unfolding. You are becoming.
MARION WINIK
Ladies Home Journal, Dec. 2008
Anything in life is possible if you make it happen.
JACK LALANNE
Fiscal Fitness: 8 Steps to Wealth & Health from America's Leaders of Fitness
Life is a journey that's constantly flowing, regardless of the number of candles that will be on your next birthday cake. For you to stay in the same place forever would mean to resist growth. And that's what we're all here to do anyway -- we're here to grow.
ELISE MOREAU
"How to Change Your Life at Any Age", Care2, September 1, 2016
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
The most important part of living is not the living but the pondering upon it.
SINCLAIR LEWIS
Arrowsmith
Life is a stream
On which we strew
Petal by petal the flower of our heart.
AMY LOWELL
"Petals", A Dome of Many-coloured Glass
Life is an arrow, therefore you must know
What mark to aim at, how to use the bow--
Then draw it to the head and let it go!
HENRY VAN DYKE
"Epigrams and Greetings"
He who loveth, knoweth the inner sun; he see'th Life's blaze.
ELISE PUMPELLY CABOT
"Arizona"