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Quotations about life

Will RogersEven if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.

 - Will Rogers

Tags:   complacency  life  track  

Joseph CampbellOur life evokes our character and you find out more about yourself as you go on.

 - Joseph Campbell

Tags:   character  life  self  

Joseph CampbellThe happy ending is justly scorned as a misrepresentation; for the world, as we know it, as we have seen it, yields but one ending; death, disintegration, dismemberment, and the crucifixion of our heart with the passing of the forms which we have loved.

 - Joseph Campbell

Tags:   death  life  

Henry David ThoreauMany men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.

 - Henry David Thoreau

Tags:   fishing  life  

Government's first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives.

 - Ronald Reagan

Tags:   duty  government  life  people  protection  

Jim RohnIf you don't design your own life plan, chances are you'll fall into someone else's plan.  And guess what they have planned for you? Not much.

 - Jim Rohn

Tags:   life  planning  

Eleanor RooseveltOne's philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes. In the long run, we shape our lives and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And, the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility.

 - Eleanor Roosevelt

Tags:   choices  life  philosophy  responsibility  

Bertrand RussellThe life of man is a long march through the night, surrounded by invisible foes, tortured by weariness and pain, towards a goal that few can hope to reach, and where none may tarry long.

 - Bertrand Russell

Tags:   life  pain  struggle  

Haruki MurakamiHolding this soft, small living creature in my lap this way, though, and seeing how it slept with complete trust in me, I felt a warm rush in my chest. I put my hand on the cat's chest and felt his heart beating. The pulse was faint and fast, but his heart, like mine, was ticking off the time allotted to his small body with all the restless earnestness of my own.

 - Haruki Murakami

Tags:   cats  life  trust  

Friedrich NietzschePeople are always angry at anyone who chooses very individual standards for his life; because of the extraordinary treatment which that man grants to himself, they feel degraded, like ordinary beings.

 - Friedrich Nietzsche

Tags:   anger  life  standards  

John AdamsThe longer I live, the more I read, the more patiently I think, and the more anxiously I inquire, the less I seem to know...Do justly. Love mercy. Walk humbly. This is enough.

 - John Adams

Tags:   humble  life  mercy  

Mahatma GandhiLive as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.

 - Mahatma Gandhi

Tags:   death  learning  life  

Robert FrostIn three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on.

 - Robert Frost

Tags:   life  

Anne FrankI don't want to have lived in vain like most people. I want to be useful or bring enjoyment to all people, even those I've never met. I want to go on living even after my death!

 - Anne Frank

Tags:   death  enjoyment  immortality  life  

AristotleHappiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.

 - Aristotle

Tags:   happiness  life  purpose  

James BaldwinPeople pay for what they do, and still more for what they have allowed themselves to become. And they pay for it very simply; by the lives they lead.

 - James Baldwin

Tags:   choices  life  

BuddhaIn the end these things matter most: How well did you love? How fully did you live? How deeply did you let go?

 - Gautama Buddha

Tags:   life  love  

Marcus Tullius CiceroFor books are more than books, they are the life, the very heart and core of ages past, the reason why men worked and died, the essence and quintessence of their lives.

 - Marcus Tullius Cicero

Tags:   books  history  life  

Agatha ChristieI like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow; but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing.

 - Agatha Christie

Tags:   life  sorrow  

James BaldwinPerhaps the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble, is that we will sacrifice all the beauty of our lives, will imprison ourselves in totems, taboos, crosses, blood sacrifices, steeples, mosques, races, armies, flags, nations, in order to deny the fact of death, the only fact we have. It seems to me that one ought to rejoice in the fact of death--ought to decide, indeed, to earn one's death by confronting with passion the conundrum of life.

 - James Baldwin

Tags:   death  life  religion  trouble  

EpicurusAccustom yourself to the belief that death is of no concern to us, since all good and evil lie in sensation and sensation ends with death. Therefore the true belief that death is nothing to us makes a mortal life happy, not by adding to it an infinite time, but by taking away the desire for immortality. For there is no reason why the man who is thoroughly assured that there is nothing to fear in death should find anything to fear in life.

So, too, he is foolish who says that he fears death, not because it will be painful when it comes, but because the anticipation of it is painful; for that which is no burden when it is present gives pain to no purpose when it is anticipated. Death, the most dreaded of evils, is therefore of no concern to us; for while we exist death is not present, and when death is present we no longer exist.

 - Epicurus

Tags:   anticipation  death  fear  immortality  life  

Jim RohnIf you don't design your own life plan, chances are you'll fall into someone else's plan. And guess what they have planed for you? Not much.

 - Jim Rohn

Tags:   control  life  plans  

Maya AngelouMy mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.

 - Maya Angelou

Tags:   compassion  humor  life  passion  style  

Maya AngelouLove life. Engage in it. Give it all you've got. Love it with a passion because life truly does give back, many times over, what you put into it.

 - Maya Angelou

Tags:   life  passion  reward  

Susan CainThe secret to life is to put yourself in the right lighting. For some, it's a Broadway spotlight; for others, a lamplit desk. Use your natural powers -- of persistence, concentration, and insight -- to do work you love and work that matters. Solve problems. make art, think deeply.

 - Susan Cain

Tags:   life  persistence  problems  work  

Neil deGrasse TysonThe problem, often not discovered until late in life, is that when you look for things in life like love, meaning, motivation, it implies they are sitting behind a tree or under a rock. The most successful people in life recognize, that in life they create their own love, they manufacture their own meaning, they generate their own motivation. For me, I am driven by two main philosophies, know more today about the world than I knew yesterday. And lessen the suffering of others. You'd be surprised how far that gets you.

 - Neil deGrasse Tyson

Tags:   learning  life  motivation  philosophy  

Carl JungIt is often tragic to see how blatantly a man bungles his own life and the lives of others yet remains totally incapable of seeing how much the whole tragedy originates in himself, and how he continually feeds it and keeps it going.

 - Carl Jung

Tags:   delusion  life  tragedy  

John MuirBears are made of the same dust as we, and breathe the same winds and drink of the same waters. A bear's days are warmed by the same sun, his dwellings are overdomed by the same blue sky, and his life turns and ebbs with heart-pulsings like ours, and was poured from the same First Fountain. And whether he at last goes to our stingy heaven or no, he has terrestrial immortality. His life not long, not short, knows no beginning, no ending. To him life unstinted, unplanned, is above the accidents of time, and his years, markless and bound less, equal Eternity.

 - John Muir

Tags:   animals  bears  immortality  life  

Kenzaburo OeThe dead can survive as part of the lives of those that still live.

 - Kenzaburo Oe

Tags:   dead  life  

Diane AckermanI don't want to get to the end of my life and find that I have just lived the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as well.

 - Diane Ackerman

Tags:   life  

Richard FeynmanFall in love with some activity, and do it!

Nobody ever figures out what life is all about, and it doesn't matter. Explore the world. Nearly everything is really interesting if you go into it deeply enough. Work as hard and as much as you want to on the things you like to do the best.

Don't think about what you want to be, but what you want to do. Keep up some kind of a minimum with other things so that society doesn't stop you from doing anything at all.

 - Richard Feynman

Tags:   exploration  interests  life  motivation  work  

Albert EinsteinLife is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.

 - Albert Einstein

Tags:   balance  life  

Bertrand RussellTo fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already 3-parts dead.

 - Bertrand Russell

Tags:   fear  life  love  

Charles DarwinOwing to this struggle for life, any variation, however slight and from whatever cause proceeding, if it be in any degree profitable to an individual of any species, in its infinitely complex relations to other organic beings and to external nature, will tend to the preservation of that individual, and will generally be inherited by its offspring. The offspring, also, will thus have a better chance of surviving.

 - Charles Darwin

Tags:   evolution  genetics  inheritance  life  offspring  species  survival  

The average man, who does not know what to do with his life, wants another one which will last forever.

 - Anatole France

Tags:   immortality  life  purpose  

Woody AllenLife is full of misery, loneliness, and suffering - and it's all over much too soon.

 - Woody Allen

Tags:   life  misery  suffering  

With the endless cycle of sunrise and sunset, life shortens. Engrossed in mundane tasks, man fails to notice the passage of time. Nor anxiety is felt at witnessing birth, advance of years, suffering and finally death. Oh, the world becomes intoxicated after drinking the wine of delusion.

 - Bhartrhari

Tags:   age  delusion  life  time  

The life of man is the incessant walk of nature, wherein every moment is a step towards death. Even our growing to perfection is a progress to decay. Every thought we have is a sand running out of the glass of life.

 - Owen Feltham

Tags:   death  dieing  life  

Carl JungThe afternoon of human life must also have a significance of its own and cannot be merely a pitiful appendage to life's morning.

 - Carl Jung

Tags:   age  aging  life  meaning  purpose  

AristotleA state exists for the sake of a good life, and not for the sake of a life only: if life only were the object, slaves and brute animals might form a state, but they cannot, for they have no share in happiness or in a life of free choice.

 - Aristotle

Tags:   choice  freedom  government  life  

To know how to grow old is the master-work of wisdom, and one of the most difficult chapters in the great art of living.

 - Henri-Frédéric Amiel

Tags:   age  aging  life  wisdom  

Richard DawkinsWhat lies at the heart of every living thing is not a fire, not warm breath, not a "spark of life." It is information, words, instructions. If you want a metaphor, don't think of tires and sparks and breath. Think, instead, of a billion discrete, digital characters carved in tablets of crystal. If you want to understand life, don't think about vibrant, throbbing gels and oozes, think about information technology.

 - Richard Dawkins

Tags:   information  instructions  life  spark  

Charles DarwinConsider the view now held by most physicists, namely, that the sun with all the planets will in time grow too cold for life, unless indeed some great body dashes into the sun, and thus gives it fresh life. Believing as I do that man in the distant future will be a far more perfect creature than he now is, it is an intolerable thought that he and all other sentient beings are doomed to complete annihilation after such long-continued slow progress.

 - Charles Darwin

Tags:   death  Earth  humanity  life  

David HumeWhen we reflect on the shortness and uncertainty of life, how despicable seem all our pursuits of happiness.

 - David Hume

Tags:   happiness  life  uncertainty  

Horace Abridge your hopes in proportion to the shortness of the span of human life; for while we converse, the hours, as if envious of our pleasure, fly away; enjoy, therefore, the present time, and trust not too much to what tomorrow may produce.

 - Horace

Tags:   expectations  hopes  life  

Horace He possesses dominion over himself and is happy, who can every day say, “I have lived.” To-morrow the Heavenly Father may either involve the world in dark clouds or cheer it with clear sunshine; he will not, however, render ineffectual the things which have already taken place.

 - Horace

Tags:   change  life  potential  

Michel de MontaigneEvery period of life has its peculiar prejudices; whoever saw old age, that did not applaud the past, and condemn the present times?

 - Michel de Montaigne

Tags:   aging  life  predjudice  

Michel de MontaigneIt is indeed the boundary of life, beyond which we are not to pass; which the law of nature has pitched for a limit not to be exceeded.

 - Michel de Montaigne

Tags:   death  life  nature  

Michel de MontaigneLife in itself is neither good nor evil, it is the scene of good or evil, as you make it.

 - Michel de Montaigne

Tags:   evil  good  life  

Bruce LeeThe key to immortality is first living a life worth remembering

 - Bruce Lee

Tags:   immortality  life  

Our attitudes control our lives. Attitudes are a secret power working twenty-four hours a day, for good or bad. It is of paramount importance that we know how to harness and control this great force.

 - Tom Blandi

Tags:   attitude  life  

Friedrich NietzscheNo one can build you the bridge on which you, and only you, must cross the river of life. There may be countless trails and bridges and demigods who would gladly carry you across; but only at the price of pawning and forgoing yourself. There is one path in the world that none can walk but you. Where does it lead? Don't ask, walk!

 - Friedrich Nietzsche

Tags:   goals  life  perseverance  

All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter into another!

 - Anatole France

Tags:   change  life  melancholoy  

William PennI expect to pass through life but once. If, therefore, there be any kindness I can show, or any good thing I can do to any fellow being, let me do it now, for I shall not pass this way again.

 - William Penn

Tags:   kindness  life  

Life is not about waiting for the storms to pass . . . It's about learning how to dance in the rain.

 - Vivian Greene

Tags:   challenges  life  perseverance  

Walt DisneyA person should set his goals as early as he can and devote all his energy and talent to getting there. With enough effort, he may achieve it. Or he may find something that is even more rewarding. But in the end, no matter what the outcome, he will know he has been alive.

 - Walt Disney

Tags:   goals  life  rewards  talent  

Steve JobsYour time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

 - Steve Jobs

Tags:   dogma  intuition  life  opinions  time  

Diane AckermanI don't want to get to the end of my life and find that I lived just the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as well.

 - Diane Ackerman

Tags:   breadth  experiences  life  

Marcus AureliusThou must now at last perceive that a limit of time is fixed for thee, which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from the mind, it will go and thou wilt go, and it will never return.

 - Marcus Aurelius

Tags:   life  mortality  time  

Samuel JohnsonIt matters not how a man dies, but how he lives. The act of dying is not of importance, it lasts so short a time.

 - Samuel Johnson

Tags:   death  dieing  life  

Steve JobsRemembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything -- all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure -- these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

 - Steve Jobs

Tags:   choices  death  life  

Michel de MontaigneWherever your life ends, it is all there. The advantage of living is not measured by length, but by use; some men have lived long, and lived little; attend to it while you are in it. It lies in your will, not in the number of years, for you to have lived enough.

 - Michel de Montaigne

Tags:   age  life  

Steve JobsWhen I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I've looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

 - Steve Jobs

Tags:   change  life  stagnation  

Steve JobsYour work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you 'Il know when you find it.

 - Steve Jobs

Tags:   life  meaning  satisfaction  work  

Anne FrankI want to go on living even after my death! And therefore I am grateful to God for giving me this gift, this possibility of developing my-self and of writing, of expressing all that is in me. I can shake off everything if I write; my sorrows disappear, my courage is reborn.

 - Anne Frank

Tags:   courage  expression  immortality  life  writing  

George OrwellA man is ethical only when life, as such, is sacred to him, that of plants and animals as that of his fellow men, and when he devotes himself helpfully to all life that is in need of help.

 - George Orwell

Tags:   animals  ethics  help  life  

Charles DarwinThus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.

 - Charles Darwin

Tags:   evolution  life  nature  species  

Leo TolstoyOur body is a machine for living. It is organized for that, it is its nature. Let life go on in it unhindered and let it defend itself, it will do more than if you paralyze it by encumbering it with remedies.

 - Leo Tolstoy

Tags:   humans  life  remedies  

Mark TwainAnnihilation has no terrors for me, because I have already tried it before I was born -- a hundred million years -- and I have suffered more in an hour, in this life, than I remember to have suffered in the whole hundred million years put together. There was a peace, a serenity, an absence of all sense of responsibility, an absence of worry, an absence of care, grief, perplexity; and the presence of a deep content and unbroken satisfaction in that hundred million years of holiday which I look back upon with a tender longing and with a grateful desire to resume, when the opportunity comes.

 - Mark Twain

Tags:   death  life  suffering  

Henry David ThoreauI went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, to discover that I had not lived.

 - Henry David Thoreau

Tags:   life  nature  

Liu CixinThe universe is a dark forest. Every civilization is an armed hunter stalking through the trees like a ghost, gently pushing aside branches that block the path and trying to tread without sound. Even breathing is done with care. The hunter has to be careful, because everywhere in the forest are stealthy hunters like him. If he finds other life—another hunter, an angel or a demon, a delicate infant or a tottering old man, a fairy or a demigod—there's only one thing he can do: open fire and eliminate them. In this forest, hell is other people. An eternal threat that any life that exposes its own existence will be swiftly wiped out. This is the picture of cosmic civilization. It's the explanation for the Fermi Paradox.

 - Liu Cixin

Tags:   aliens  civilization  life  threats  universe