LIFE QUOTES XXXVI

quotations about life

The game of life is good, though all of life may be hurt, and though all lives lose the game in the end.

JACK LONDON

John Barleycorn

Tags: Jack London


Life is never a thing of continuous bliss. There is no paradise. Fight and laugh and feel bitter and feel bliss: and fight again. Fight, fight. That is life.

D. H. LAWRENCE

Studies in Classic American Literature

Tags: D. H. Lawrence


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


What the philosophers once knew as life has become the sphere of private existence and now of mere consumption, dragged along as an appendage of the process of material production, without autonomy or substance of its own.

THEODOR W. ADORNO

Minima Moralia


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"

Tags: Matthew Arnold


Sometimes life takes hold of one, carries the body along, accomplishes one's history, and yet is not real, but leaves oneself as it were slurred over.

D. H. LAWRENCE

Sons and Lovers

Tags: D. H. Lawrence


What is life if not the shadow of a fleeting dream?

UMBERTO ECO

Baudolino

Tags: Umberto Eco


Life consists in molting our illusions. We form creeds today only to throw them away tomorrow. The eagle molts a feather because he is growing a better one.

ELBERT HUBBARD

The American Bible


Everything is so comfortable; the tea-urn hisses so plainly, the toast is so warm, the breakfast so neat, the food so edible, that one turns away, in excitable moments, a little angrily from anything so quiet, tame, and sober. Have we not always hated this life?

WILLIAM BAGEHOT

Literary Studies

Tags: Walter Bagehot


Who fears death does not enjoy life.

SPANISH PROVERB


Live life fully while you're here. Experience everything. Take care of yourself and your friends. Have fun, be crazy, be weird. Go out and screw up! You're going to anyway, so you might as well enjoy the process!

ANTHONY ROBBINS

Awaken the Giant Within

Tags: Anthony Robbins


I submit to you that if a man has not discovered something that he will die for, he isn't fit to live.

MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.

speech during the Great March on Detroit, Jun. 23, 1963

Tags: Martin Luther King, Jr.


Life is a strange thing. Why this longing for life? It is a game which no man wins. To live is to toil hard and to suffer sore, till old age creeps heavily upon us and we throw down our hands on the cold ashes of dead fires. It is hard to live. In pain the babe sucks his first breath, in pain the old man gasps his last, and all his days are full of trouble and sorrow; yet he goes down to the open arms of death, stumbling, falling, with head turned backward, fighting to the last. And death is kind. It is only life and the things of life that hurt. Yet we love life and we hate death. It is very strange.

JACK LONDON

Tales of the North

Tags: Jack London


Short is life, but endless is the theme.

EDWARD COUNSEL

Maxims


Life has possibilities; death has none.

REUEN THOMAS

Thoughts for the Thoughtful

Tags: Thomas Reuen


Seek not life's jewels where the poppies grow,
Nor where Desire, all passion-poisoned, rears
Her luring domes, but in the heart of woe,
With shores far washed by sanctifying tears.

EDWARD ROBESON TAYLOR

"Life's Jewels"

Tags: Edward Robeson Taylor


The greatest philosophy of life should be to live for the benefit of others as much as one lives for the benefit of self. And that is what philosophers call a footprint on the sands of time.

FEMI ABBAS

"A decade of royalty and faith", The Nation, September 2, 2016


Life is like a school; one can learn, one can graduate, one can skip a grade or stay behind.

ELIZABETH LESSER

The New American Spirituality: A Seeker's Guide

Tags: Elizabeth Lesser


Life itself is your teacher, and you are in a state of constant learning.

BRUCE LEE

Striking Thoughts: Bruce Lee's Wisdom for Daily Living