quotations about life
Life itself suggests a higher good than life itself can yield.
E. H. CHAPIN
Living Words
Real life seldom structures a decent denouement.
DAN SIMMONS
Hyperion
The meaning of our lives is revealed through experiences that at first seem at odds with each other--moments we wish would never end and moments we wish had never begun.
JOHN ELDREDGE
Desire
The realization that life is absurd and cannot be an end, but only a beginning. This is a truth nearly all great minds have taken as their starting point. It is not this discovery that is interesting, but the consequences and rules of action drawn from it.
ALBERT CAMUS
attributed, Albert Camus and the Philosophy of the Absurd
I compare human life to a large mansion of many apartments, two of which I can only describe, the doors of the rest being as yet shut upon me.
JOHN KEATS
letter to John Hamilton Reynolds, May 3, 1818
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
The best life is that which makes the best of life.
IVAN PANIN
Thoughts
Do you know the only value life has is what life puts upon itself? And it is of course overestimated, for it is of necessity prejudiced in its own favour.
JACK LONDON
The Sea Wolf
Life is short, but its ills make it seem long.
PUBLILIUS SYRUS
The Moral Sayings of Publilius Syrus
One's life has value so long as one attributes value to the life of others.
SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR
The Coming of Age
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
It's only life. We all get through it.
DEAN KOONTZ
Odd Hours
A woman has to live her life, or live to repent not having lived it.
D. H. LAWRENCE
Lady Chatterley's Lover
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
When something makes no sense, sometimes you make something of it. A joke. A spiritual practice. A life.
HEATHER SELLERS
Good Housekeeping, Jan. 2011
Life is what you put into it and how much you take out of it. You put in more than is expected, and you take out less than you want.
MICHAEL J. FOX
Good Housekeeping, June 2011
Life is like a moustache. It can be wonderful or terrible. But it always tickles.
NORA ROBERTS
From the Heart
The rich pearl of life,
Soon moulders in its blackened urn, the tomb.
ISAAC MCLELLAN
"Musings"
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"
Life is good, be it stubbornly long or suddenly
A mortal splendor: meteors are not needed less than mountains.
ROBINSON JEFFERS
"Shine, Perishing Republic"