LIFE QUOTES XXX

quotations about life

Men regret their life has been ill-spent, but this does not always induce them to make a better use of the time they have yet to live.

JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE

"Of Mankind", Les Caractères


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


So many little lives, amounting to nothing. I ask you: What is infinity multiplied by zero? It is hardly worth our discussion.

ALAN LIGHTMAN

Mr G: A Novel About the Creation

Tags: Alan Lightman


Life consists of nothing but exceptions.

SERGEI LUKYANENKO

Night Watch

Tags: Sergei Lukyanenko


I know that life is a journey I must accept and that pain and confusion are temporary. I know that if I follow my heart, it will lead me where I belong.

JOSH GROBAN

O Magazine, Jan. 2007

Tags: Josh Groban


It's good to do uncomfortable things. It's weight training for life.

ANNE LAMOTT

Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith


The life of man on earth is, as a rule, a dangerous journey, over and through shoals and quicksands, beset on his way outwardly by snares, traps, and insinuating temptations of all sorts, and inwardly, he is besieged by contending emotions of good and evil, perpetually at war with each other; however watchful must he then be to steer clear of all the dangers that beset him, and how necessary for him to keep his eye on the chart and compass God has provided him with for his guidance, and to pray for wisdom to understand it correctly. As on he travels day by day, the scenes he often passes through are varied, strange, and wonderful: first the road may be said to be through a smooth and quiet valley, then there comes a hill to climb; if climbed successfully at once, he often tumbles headlong down again, and next time it is more difficult to get up again; on the other hand, should he continue slowly and gradually on his road, he will find the remainder of his journey for the most part uphill, with now and then level and barren spots to cross, every slip or false step, he takes he finds it harder and harder to regain his lost position, and if weak-minded and faint-hearted, he perishes by the way; but if he has the sterling stuff in him, that will ever make a brave, a great, and a good man, with increasing faith and never-dying hope, head erect and body upright, he calmly but with unyielding determination presses on and on, higher and higher, rarely pausing to look back, but gaining summit after summit and peak after peak, till at the close of his career, he has gained earth's highest pinnacles, and his vision made more bright by the glorified blaze of the setting sun of his life below, he raises his eyes aloft, and there, not far distant, in awe-inspiring and dazzling splendour, he beholds with spell-bound rapture the Land of Beulah, the Plains of Heaven, and the homes prepared from the foundation of the world for the faithful earthly servants of their Heavenly Master.

T. AUGUSTUS FORBES LEITH

"On the Life of Man", Short Essays


Life is a warfare against the malice of others.

BALTASAR GRACIAN

The Art of Worldly Wisdom

Tags: Baltasar Gracian


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

Tags: Ann Wuehler


Like the generations of leaves, the lives of mortal men.
Now the wind scatters the old leaves across the earth,
now the living timber bursts with the new buds
and spring comes round again. And so with men:
as one generation comes to life, another dies away.

HOMER

The Iliad

Tags: Homer


This life is only the anteroom of a greater reality to come.

WM. PAUL YOUNG

The Shack

Tags: Wm. Paul Young


Life was not fair. If you wanted something you had to take it. Before someone else took it from you. Neatly dissected down to its essence, life was one long series of lily pad hoppings. The quick and the resourceful were able to adapt and survive; all others were simply crushed as a more nimble creature landed on the lily pad they had occupied for too long.

DAVID BALDACCI

The Winner

Tags: David Baldacci


There is no normal life. There is only life.

ANNE RICE

The Wolves of Midwinter


One could not do without repetition in life, like the beating of the heart, but it was also true that the beating of the heart was not all there was to life.

KOBO ABE

The Woman in the Dunes

Tags: Kobo Abe


And life itself spoke this secret to me. "Behold," it said, "I am that which must ever overcome itself."

FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE

Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Tags: Friedrich Nietzsche


Philosophers wrestling with the big questions of life are no longer alone. Now scientists are struggling to define life as they manipulate it, look for it on other planets, and even create it in test tubes.

SETH BORENSTEIN

USA Today, Aug. 19, 2007

Tags: Seth Borenstein


Life was meant to be lived, and curiosity must be kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.

ELEANOR ROOSEVELT

preface, Autobiography


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

Tags: Elizabeth Lesser


You have to fight for your life. That's the chief condition on which you hold it.

SAUL BELLOW

Herzog

Tags: Saul Bellow


In a life without obstacles he would doubtless have abandoned himself to chance and to the voluptuous sauntering of adolescence. As he could be free only for an hour or two a day, his strength flowed into that space of time like a river between walls of rock. It is a good discipline for art for a man to confine his efforts between unshakable bounds. In that sense it may be said that misery is a master, not only of thought, but of style; it teaches sobriety to the mind as to the body. When time is doled out and thoughts measured, a man says no word too much, and grows accustomed to thinking only what is essential; so he lives at double pressure, having less time for living.

ROMAIN ROLLAND

Jean-Christophe

Tags: Romain Rolland