LIFE QUOTES XXXIV

quotations about life

Life consists of nothing but exceptions.

SERGEI LUKYANENKO

Night Watch

Tags: Sergei Lukyanenko


Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass,
Stains the white radiance of Eternity,
Until Death tramples it to fragments.

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

Adonais

Tags: Percy Bysshe Shelley


Life and the world, or whatever we call that which we are and feel, is an astonishing thing. The mist of familiarity obscures from us the wonder of our being. We are struck with admiration at some of its transient modifications, but it is itself the great miracle. What are changes of empires, the wreck of dynasties, with the opinions which supported them; what is the birth and the extinction of religious and of political systems to life? What are the revolutions of the globe which we inhabit, and the operations of the elements of which it is composed, compared with life? What is the universe of stars, and suns, of which this inhabited earth is one, and their motions, and their destiny, compared with life? Life, the great miracle, we admire not, because it is so miraculous. It is well that we are thus shielded by the familiarity of what is at once so certain and so unfathomable, from an astonishment which would otherwise absorb and overawe the functions of that which is its object.

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

"On Life", Essays and Letters

Tags: Percy Bysshe Shelley


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


Our lives fade behind us before we die.

JOHN UPDIKE

Rabbit is Rich

Tags: John Updike


Life is the apprenticeship to progressive renunciation, to the steady diminution of our claims, of our hopes, of our powers, of our liberty.

HENRI-FREDERIC AMIEL

Journal Intime

Tags: Henri Frederic Amiel


No man is matriculated to the art of life till he has been well tempted.

GEORGE ELIOT

Romola


It's a shallow life that doesn't give a person a few scars.

GARRISON KEILLOR

"Could I have been any more inept?", Salon, Oct. 26, 1999

Tags: Garrison Keillor


This world is a vaporous jest at best,
Tossed off by the gods in laughter,
And a cruel attempt at wit were it,
If nothing better came after.

ELLA WHEELER WILCOX

"A Gray Mood"


When people say that they are happy with their lives, they do not usually mean that they are literally joyful, or experiencing pleasure, all the time. They mean that, upon reflection on the balance sheet of pleasures and pains, they feel the balance to be reasonably positive over the long term.

DANIEL NETTLE

Happiness: The Science Behind Your Smile

Tags: Daniel Nettle


No lifetime is long enough for those ... who simply wish to understand themselves and their lives. It is, perhaps, the curse of being human, but also a blessing.

DAN SIMMONS

The Rise of Endymion


Living is a disease from the pains of which sleep eases us every sixteen hours; sleep is but a palliative, death alone is the cure.

CHAMFORT

The Cynic's Breviary

Tags: Sebastien Roch Nicolas Chamfort


Life, the river of the Spirit, consenting to anguish and sorrow.

SRI AUROBINDO

Ahana

Tags: Sri Aurobindo


Death gives a life to some men and women compared with which their so-called existence here is as nothing. Which is the truer life of Shakespeare, Handel, that divine woman who wrote the Odyssey, and of Jane Austen -- the life which palpitated with sensible warm motion within their own bodies, or that in virtue of which they are still palpitating in ours?

SAMUEL BUTLER

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


Well yet, this life such as it is, yet we love it, and loath we are to end it; and if it be in hazard by the law, what running, riding, posting, suing, bribing, and if all will not serve, what breaking prison is there for it!

LANCELOT ANDREWES

Ninety-six Sermons

Tags: Lancelot Andrewes


As regards the present life, it would seem that it is really possible for it, at least, to be made into something very satisfactory, since it is a simple matter of fact that some men, no matter what their condition in life, do contrive to get enjoyment and happiness out of it. To secure success in our vocation, we need a knowledge of its technicalities; to free the mind from doubt, to keep a man superior to temptation, we must give him good moral principles and habits. A purposeless life is deprived of much that is enjoyable in this world. Contrast the life of those who go through the world as if they were here but to eat, sleep, and die--no aim, purpose, or object before them--with that of those who daily work onward with an object before them, the determination to enjoy life, to make the best of life, to do their duty themselves, their fellow-men, and their God; obedient from the pleasure of doing God's will, and virtuous without everlastingly thinking of what virtue is to do for them; the desire to please God, to be living in harmony with Him, developing the highest aspirations of the soul, the moral tastes purified and exalted by daily communion with God, and the wish to live a life in obedience to His authority, compelling yon to be good, feeling yourself under a law whose voice is clear, resolute, and uniform--a law which tells you to adhere to the right, and avoid the expedient--which enables you to act upon principle, and not be led by the impulse of passion, or the plausibility of appearance.

JAMES PLATT

"Is Life Worth Living?", Platt's Essays


Life meaning is always a derivative phenomenon that materializes when we have transcended ourselves, when we have forgotten ourselves and become absorbed in someone (or something) outside ourselves.

IRVIN D. YALOM

The Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy

Tags: Irvin D. Yalom


By the time you learn the rules of life, you're too old to play the game.

GRENVILLE KLEISER

Dictionary of Proverbs

Tags: Grenville Kleiser


Real life was messier than fiction, and in it you didn't always have time to do or say the right things.

BENTLEY LITTLE

The Resort

Tags: Bentley Little


The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty: not knowing what comes next.

URSULA K. LE GUIN

The Left Hand of Darkness

Tags: Ursula K. Le Guin