LIFE QUOTES XVI

quotations about life

I warmed both hands before the fire of Life;
It sinks, and I am ready to depart.

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR

I Strove with None, for None was Worth My Strife

Tags: Walter Savage Landor


Life does turn on so many queer things ... ball bearings and banana skins.

HUNTER S. THOMPSON

The Paris Review, fall 2000


Solve the problem of life? Live, and you solve it.

IVAN PANIN

Thoughts

Tags: Ivan Panin


Between birth and burial, we find ourselves in a comedy of mysteries. If you don't think life is mysterious, if you believe you have it all mapped out, you aren't paying attention or you've anesthetized yourself with booze or drugs, or with a comforting ideology. And if you don't think life's a comedy--well, friend, you might as well hurry along to that burial. The rest of us need people with whom we can laugh.

DEAN KOONTZ

Odd Apocalypse

Tags: Dean Koontz


Dearly beloved
We are gathered here today
2 get through this thing called life.

PRINCE

"Let's Go Crazy"

Tags: Prince


Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that's the stuff life is made of.

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

Poor Richard's Almanac

Tags: Benjamin Franklin


Life is like invading Russia. A blitz start, massed shakos, plumes dancing like a flustered henhouse; a period of svelte progress recorded in ebullient despatches as the enemy falls back; then the beginning of a long, morale-sapping trudge with rations getting shorter and the first snowflakes upon your face. The enemy burns Moscow and you yield to General January, whose fingernails are very icicles. Bitter retreat. Harrying Cossacks. Eventually you fall beneath a boy-gunner's grapeshot while crossing some Polish river not even marked on your general's map.

JULIAN BARNES

Talking It Over

Tags: Julian Barnes


Life is like playing a violin solo in public and learning the instrument as one goes on.

SAMUEL BUTLER

"How to Make the Best of Life", Essays on Life, Art and Science


Life is sweet.

ENGLISH PROVERB

Tags: English proverbs


Life seems like a haunted wood, where we tremble and crouch and cry.

ALFRED AUSTIN

"A Woman's Apology"

Tags: Alfred Austin


Listen. Are you breathing just a little and calling it a life?

MARY OLIVER

"Have You Ever Tried to Enter the Long Black Branches?", West Wind

Tags: Mary Oliver


Nothing was certain; there were many strange twists and devious turns as one hopped down the overgrown bunnytrail of life.

STEPHEN KING

"Big Driver", Full Dark, No Stars

Tags: Stephen King


Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing,
Only a signal shown and a distant voice in the darkness;
So on the ocean of life we pass and speak one another,
Only a look and a voice, then darkness again and a silence.

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

"The Theologian's Tale", Tales of a Wayside Inn

Tags: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow


Sooner or later we all discover that the important moments in life are not the advertised ones, not the birthdays, the graduations, the weddings, not the great goals achieved. The real milestones are less prepossessing. They come to the door of memory unannounced, stray dogs that amble in, sniff around a bit and simply never leave. Our lives are measured by these.

SUSAN B. ANTHONY

The Ghost in My Life

Tags: Susan B. Anthony


The whole world's a bottle,
And life's but a dram,
When the bottle gets empty,
It sure ain't worth a damn.

BOB DYLAN

"Moonshiner"


Ah, what is life!
'T is but a passing touch upon the world;
A print upon the beaches of the earth
Next flowing wave will wash away.

ANNA KATHERINE GREEN

"Life"

Tags: Anna Katherine Green


All that is born and destroyed is reborn in the sweep of the ages; Life like a decimal ever recurring repeats the old figure.

SRI AUROBINDO

Gems from Sri Aurobindo


Brief and powerless is man's life; on him and all his race the slow, sure doom falls pitiless and dark.

BERTRAND RUSSELL

Philosophical Essays

Tags: Bertrand Russell


Life is occupied in both perpetuating itself and in surpassing itself; if all it does is maintain itself, then living is only not dying.

SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR

The Ethics of Ambiguity


Life should be touched, not strangled.

RAY BRADBURY

Farewell Summer

Tags: Ray Bradbury