LIFE QUOTES XXVI

quotations about life

Life is life--whether in a cat, or dog or man. There is no difference there between a cat or a man. The idea of difference is a human conception for man's own advantage.

SRI AUROBINDO

attributed, Humanimal

Tags: Sri Aurobindo


My theory is to enjoy life, but the practice is against it.

CHARLES LAMB

letter to William Wordsworth, Mar. 20, 1822

Tags: Charles Lamb


No man ever sailed over exactly the same route that another sailed over before him; every man who starts on the ocean of life arches his sails to an untried breeze.

WILLIAM MATHEWS

Hints on Success in Life


The occurrence of an event is not the same thing as knowing what it is that one has lived through.

JAMES BALDWIN

Another Country

Tags: James Baldwin


This life is only the anteroom of a greater reality to come.

WM. PAUL YOUNG

The Shack

Tags: Wm. Paul Young


Try not to turn your life into a race, least of all an obstacle race.

JOSÉ BERGAMÍN

Head in the Clouds

Tags: José Bergamín


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


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


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


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


As long as you were prepared to stay in it life found room for you. Life was like that, helplessly promiscuous, a doorman who let everyone in.

GLEN DUNCAN

Talulla Rising

Tags: Glen Duncan


Each day is a branch of the Tree of Life laden heavily with fruit. If we lie down lazily beneath it, we may starve; but if we shake the branches, some of the fruit will fall for us.

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

Table-Talk


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

Tags: Henry Miller


He who loveth, knoweth the inner sun; he see'th Life's blaze.

ELISE PUMPELLY CABOT

"Arizona"


I am a spectator, so to speak, of the molecular whirlwind which men call individual life; I am conscious of an incessant metamorphosis, an irresistible movement of existence, which is going on within me -- and this phenomenology of myself serves as a window opened upon the mystery of the world.

HENRI-FREDERIC AMIEL

introduction, Journal Intime

Tags: Henri Frederic Amiel


I fall upon the thorns of life, I bleed. And then? I fall upon the thorns of life, I bleed. And what next? I get laid, I take a short holiday, but very soon after I fall upon those same thorns with gratification in pain, or suffering in joy -- who knows what the mixture is! What good, what lasting good is there in me? Is there nothing else between birth and death but what I can get out of this perversity -- only a favorable balance of disorderly emotions? No freedom? Only impulses? And what about all the good I have in my heart -- does it mean anything? Is it simply a joke? A false hope that makes a man feel the illusion of worth? And so he goes on with his struggles. But this good is no phony. I know it isn't. I swear it.

SAUL BELLOW

Herzog


If we could live for a million years, then maybe it would be worthwhile to create some problems. But our life is short. Now you see, we are guests here on this planet, visitors who have come for a short time, so we need to use our days wisely, to make our world a little better for everyone.

DOUGLAS CARLTON ABRAMS

The Book of Joy

Tags: Douglas Carlton Abrams


In life, unlike chess, the game continues after checkmate.

ISAAC ASIMOV

Fantastic Voyage II

Tags: Isaac Asimov


Life is exponential. Two becomes four, becomes ten thousand, becomes a plague.

PAOLO BACIGALUPI

The Windup Girl

Tags: Paolo Bacigalupi


Life is no way to treat an animal.

KURT VONNEGUT

A Man Without a Country

Tags: Kurt Vonnegut