quotations about life
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
Life is one long struggle in the dark.
LUCRETIUS
De Rerum Natura
Life figures itself to me as a festal or funereal procession.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
"The Procession of Life"
Life is a string of uncooked macaroni on a double strand of sewing thread. Not even spray painted gold. Some people have strings of expensive pearls for lives, but not me ... I have macaroni and sewing thread.
ANN WUEHLER
The Care and Feeding of Baby Birds
Much too oft we make life gloomy--
When happy we might be,
If we gathered more of sunshine,
And not dark shadows see.
ARDELIA COTTON BARTON
Thoughts
You can swim in life and seawater, but both are hard to swallow.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
To live means to finesse the processes to which one is subjugated.
BERTOLT BRECHT
On Politics and Society
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
When life is too easy for us, we must beware or we may not be ready to meet the blows which sooner or later come to everyone, rich or poor.
ELEANOR ROOSEVELT
My Day
I accept that life is uncertain--that the goal is not to become more certain about anything but to relax more into the mystery of not knowing what will come next. And then, miracle of miracles, out there in the deep and uncertain water, I come into a peaceful knowing--a faithful wisdom that surpasses control and certainty.
ELIZABETH LESSER
Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow
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"
Behold the life at ease; it drifts,
The sharpened life commands its course.
GEORGE MEREDITH
"Hard Weather"
All life is only a set of pictures in the brain, among which there is no difference betwixt those born of real things and those born of inward dreamings, and no cause to value the one above the other.
H. P. LOVECRAFT
"The Silver Key"
In life, unlike chess, the game continues after checkmate.
ISAAC ASIMOV
Fantastic Voyage II
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
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
The facts of life are the impossibilities of fiction.
JEROME K. JEROME
"The Materialisation of Charles and Mivanway"
There is nothing at all in life, except what we put there.
MADAME SWETCHINE
"Airelles", The Writings of Madame Swetchine
Dreams dawn and fly: friends smile and die,
Like spring flowers.
Our vaunted life is one long funeral.
Men dig graves, with bitter tears,
For their dead hopes; and all,
Mazed with doubts, and sick with fears,
Count the hours.
MATTHEW ARNOLD
"A Question: To Fausta"
Life is short, but its ills make it seem long.
PUBLILIUS SYRUS
The Moral Sayings of Publilius Syrus