LIFE QUOTES XXIX

quotations about life

Every day is a careful balance fought between the despondency that threatens to swamp me and the incredible joy of living.

CHRIS ABANI

Kalakuta Republic

Tags: Chris Abani


Flirting with death is the spice of life.

MARGARET LOCK

Twice Dead

Tags: Margaret Lock


Life appears in a vast variety and innumerable succession of individual forms, since the most salient character of the universe is just that it ceaselessly gives birth to living individuals.

JOSEPH ALEXANDER LEIGHTON

Man and the Cosmos: An Introduction to Metaphysics

Tags: Joseph Alexander Leighton


The meaning of life is that it is to be lived, and it is not to be traded and conceptualized and squeezed into a pattern of systems.

BRUCE LEE

Striking Thoughts: Bruce Lee's Wisdom for Daily Living

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How strange it is, our little procession of life! The child says, "When I am a big boy." But what is that? The big boy says, "When I grow up." And then, grown up, he says, "When I get married." But to be married, what is that after all? The thought changes to "When I'm able to retire." And then, when retirement comes, he looks back over the landscape traversed; a cold wind seems to sweep over it; somehow he has missed it all, and it is gone.

STEPHEN LEACOCK

Feast of Stephen


Life is but sighs; and, when they cease, 'tis over.

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR

Imaginary Conversations

Tags: Walter Savage Landor


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

CHARLES LAMB

letter to William Wordsworth, Mar. 20, 1822

Tags: Charles Lamb


Wrong life cannot be lived rightly.

THEODOR W. ADORNO

Minima Moralia

Tags: Theodor W. Adorno


The life of man is a long march through the night, surrounded by invisible foes, tortured by weariness and pain, towards a goal that few can hope to reach, and where none may tarry long.

BERTRAND RUSSELL

A Free Man's Worship

Tags: Bertrand Russell


Life is not like water. Things in life don't necessarily flow over the shortest possible route.

HARUKI MURAKAMI

1Q84

Tags: Haruki Murakami


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


That's one of the many things I hate about life, that it's a hideously cliched business.

JOHN BANVILLE

The Paris Review, spring 2009

Tags: John Banville


Only the person who has experienced light and darkness, war and peace, rise and fall, only that person has truly experienced life.

STEFAN ZWEIG

The World of Yesterday


Life is strange and changeful, and the crystal is in the steel at the point of fracture, and the toad bears a jewel in its forehead, and the meaning of moments passes like the breeze that scarcely ruffles the leaf of the willow.

ROBERT PENN WARREN

All the King's Men


Life is good, be it stubbornly long or suddenly
A mortal splendor: meteors are not needed less than mountains.

ROBINSON JEFFERS

"Shine, Perishing Republic"

Tags: Robinson Jeffers


The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began,
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.

J. R. R. TOLKIEN

The Fellowship of the Ring

Tags: J. R. R. Tolkien


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


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

Tags: Leonid Andreyev


Life cannot find reasons to sustain it, cannot be a source of decent mutual regard, unless each of us resolves to breathe such qualities into it.

FRANK HERBERT

Heretics of Dune


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"