quotations about life
The purpose of life is a life of purpose.
BONG R. OSORIO
"The purpose of life is a life of purpose", The Philippine Star, June 20, 2016
There is nothing at all in life, except what we put there.
MADAME SWETCHINE
"Airelles", The Writings of Madame Swetchine
My life is one long blooper reel!
TOM WILSON
Ziggy, Jan. 12, 2000
All of life is a foreign country.
JACK KEROUAC
letter, June 24, 1949
I have not wasted life, but life hath wasted me.
BHARTRHARI
"Against the Desire of Worldly Things"
Though I be shut in darkness, and become insentient dust blown idly here and there, I count oblivion a scant price to pay for having once had held against my lip life's brimming cup of hydromel and rue--for having once known woman's holy love and a child's kiss, and for a little space been boon companion to the Day and Night, Fed on the odors of the summer dawn, and folded in the beauty of the stars. Dear Lord, though I be changed to senseless clay, and serve the potter as he turns his wheel, I thank Thee for the gracious gift of tears!
THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH
"Two Moods"
In such a porcelain life one likes to be sure that all is well lest one stumble upon one's hopes in a pile of broken crockery.
EMILY DICKINSON
letter to Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Bowles, Aug. 1858?
Like water spilt upon the ground--alas,
Our little lives flow swiftly on and pass;
Yet may they bring rich harvests and green grass!
HENRY VAN DYKE
"Epigrams and Greetings"
Life is one long struggle in the dark.
LUCRETIUS
De Rerum Natura
Every life is many days, day after day. We walk through ourselves, meeting robbers, ghosts, giants, old men, young men, wives, widows, brothers-in-love. But always meeting ourselves.
JAMES JOYCE
Ulysses
Every day is the same thing out the door
Feel further away then ever before
Some things in life, it gets too late to learn
Well, I'm lost somewhere
I must have made a few bad turns
BOB DYLAN
"Highlands"
Life is not the unique property of Earth. Nor is life in the shape of human beings. Life takes many forms on other planets and far stars, forms that would seem bizarre to humans, as human life is bizarre to other life-forms.
H. P. LOVECRAFT
"The Dark Brotherhood"
The most important part of living is not the living but the pondering upon it.
SINCLAIR LEWIS
Arrowsmith
Desire, both the whispers and the shouts, is the map we have been given to find the only life worth living.
JOHN ELDREDGE
Desire
Life and death have been lacking in my life.
JORGE LUIS BORGES
prologue, Discussion
Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.
JOHN LENNON
"Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy)", Double Fantasy
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
Every person, all the events of your life are there because you have drawn them there. What you choose to do with them is up to you.
RICHARD BACH
Illusions
He is dead already who doth not feel
Life is worth living still.
ALFRED AUSTIN
"Is Life Worth Living?", Lyrical Poems
Well yet, this life such as it is, yet we love it, and loath we are to end it; and if it be in hazard by the law, what running, riding, posting, suing, bribing, and if all will not serve, what breaking prison is there for it!
LANCELOT ANDREWES
Ninety-six Sermons