What a life! True life is elsewhere. We are not in the world.
—Arthur Rimbaud (1854–91) French Poet, Adventurer
Life is a tough proposition and the first hundred years are the hardest.
—Wilson Mizner (1876–1933) American Dramatist
Life’s but a day at most.
—George Burns (1896–1996) American Comedian
I have done my fiddling so long under Vesuvius that I have almost forgotten to play, and can only wait for the eruption and think it long of coming. Literally no man has more wholly outlived life than I. And still it’s good fun.
—Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–94) Scottish Novelist
The art of living lies not in eliminating but in growing with troubles.
—Bernard M. Baruch (1870–1965) American Financier, Economic Consultant
Every true man, sir, who is a little above the level of the beasts and plants does not live for the sake of living, without knowing how to live; but he lives so as to give a meaning and a value of his own to life.
—Luigi Pirandello (1867–1936) Italian Dramatist, Novelist, Short Story Writer
Some people go through life trying to find out what the world holds for them only to find out too late that it’s what they bring to the world that really counts.
—Lucy Maud Montgomery (1874–1942) Canadian Novelist
Life is like a box of chocolates: You never know what you’re gonna get.
—Movie: Forrest Gump
Two babies were born on the same day at the same hospital. They lay there and looked at each other. Their families came and took them away. Eighty years later, by a bizarre coincidence, they lay in the same hospital, on their deathbeds, next to each other. One of them looked at the other and said, so. What did you think?
—Steven Wright (b.1955) American Comedian, Actor, Writer
Life at the greatest and best is but a froward child, that must be humored and coaxed a little till it falls asleep, and then all the care is over.
—Oliver Goldsmith (1730–74) Irish Novelist, Playwright, Poet
Life is the farce which everyone has to perform.
—Arthur Rimbaud (1854–91) French Poet, Adventurer
Be glad of life because it gives you to chance to love and to work and to play and to look up at the stars.
—Henry van Dyke Jr. (1852–1933) American Author, Educator, Clergyman
Half my life is an act of revision.
—John Irving (b.1942) American Modern Novelist
We take these risks, not to escape life, but to prevent life from escaping us.
—Anonymous
Live your life as though your every act were to become a universal law.
—Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) Prussian German Philosopher, Logician
All that man has will he give for his life.
—The Holy Bible Scripture in the Christian Faith
In soft regions are born soft men.
—Herodotus (c.485–425 BCE) Ancient Greek Historian
He who is not busy being born is busy dying.
—Bob Dylan (b.1941) American Singer-songwriter
Not where I breathe, but where I love, I live; Not where I love, but where I am, I die.
—Robert South (1634–1716) English Theologian, Preacher
There has to be evil so that good can prove its purity above it.
—Buddhist Teaching
It is not reason which is the guide of life, but custom.
—David Hume (1711–76) Scottish Philosopher, Historian
It has always been difficult for Man to realize that his life is all an art. It has been more difficult to conceive it so than to act it so. For that is always how he has more or less acted it.
—Havelock Ellis (1859–1939) British Essayist, Physician
It’s not true that life is one damn thing after another; it’s one damn thing over and over.
—Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950) American Poet, Playwright, Feminist
Life is a comedy for those who think… and a tragedy for those who feel.
—Horace Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford (1717–97) English Art Historian, Man of Letters, Politician
There are four things every person has more of than they know; sins, debt, years, and foes.
—Persian Proverb
Today, you have 100% of your life left.
—Tom Hopkins (b.1944) American Sales Coach
Let us live while we live.
—Philip Doddridge (1702–51) English Hymn Writer, Educator, Religious Leader
The enjoyments of this life are not equal to its evils.
—Pliny the Elder (23–79CE) Roman Statesman, Scholar
In a real sense, people who have read good literature have lived more than people who cannot or will not read. It is not true that we have only one life to live; if we can read, we can live as many more lives and as many kinds of lives as we wish.
—S. I. Hayakawa (1906–92) Canadian-Born American Academic
We have penetrated far less deeply into the regularities obtaining within the realm of living things, but deeply enough nevertheless to sense at least the rule of fixed necessity… what is still lacking here is a grasp of the connections of profound generality, but not a knowledge of order itself.
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born Physicist
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