We live, not as we wish to, but as we can.
—Menander (c.343–c.291 BCE) Greek Comic Dramatist, Poet
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
Where there is life there is wishful thinking.
—Gerald F. Lieberman
Don’t be afraid of death so much as an inadequate life.
—Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956) German Poet, Playwright, Theater Personality
Life’s but a day at most.
—George Burns (1896–1996) American Comedian
Just as a candle cannot burn without fire, men cannot live without a spiritual life.
—Buddhist Teaching
If our life is unhappy it is painful to bear; if it is happy it is horrible to lose. So the one is pretty equal to the other.
—Jean de La Bruyere (1645–96) French Satiric Moralist, Author
Life is a means of extracting fiction.
—Robert Stone (1937–2015) American Novelist, Short Story-Writer
Life, we learn too late, is in the living, in the tissue of every day and hour.
—Stephen Leacock (1869–1944) Canadian Political Scientist, Humorist
I think that, as life is action and passion, it is required of a man that he should share the passion and action of his time at peril of being judged not to have lived.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841–1935) American Jurist, Author
The surrender of life is nothing to sinking down into acknowledgment of inferiority.
—John C. Calhoun (1782–1850) American Head of State, Politician, Activist
Do not take life too seriously—you will never get out of it alive.
—Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) American Writer, Publisher, Artist, Philosopher
Life is just a journey.
—Diana, Princess of Wales (1961–97) English Royal, Humanitarian, Peace Activist
It is not reason which is the guide of life, but custom.
—David Hume (1711–76) Scottish Philosopher, Historian
Life is always walking up to us and saying, “Come on in, the living’s fine,” and what do we do? Back off and take its picture.
—Russell Baker (1925–2019) American Journalist, Humorist, Television Host
Life is obstinate and clings closest where it is most hated.
—Mary Shelley (1797–1851) English Novelist
For everything that lives is holy, life delights in life.
—William Blake (1757–1827) English Poet, Painter, Printmaker
The foot feels the foot when it feels the ground.
—Buddhist Teaching
What a life! True life is elsewhere. We are not in the world.
—Arthur Rimbaud (1854–91) French Poet, Adventurer
The slightest living thing answers a deeper need than all the works of man because it is transitory. It has an evanescence of life, or growth, or change: it passes, as we do, from one stage to another, from darkness to darkness, into a distance where we, too, vanish out of sight. A work of art is static; and its value and its weakness lie in being so: but the tuft of grass and the clouds above it belong to our own traveling brotherhood.
—Freya Stark (1893–1993) British Explorer, Writer
Nobody gets to live life backward. Look ahead, that is where your future lies.
—Ask Ann Landers (1918–2002) American Advice Columnist
All of life is a foreign country.
—Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) American Novelist, Poet
If life was fair, Elvis would be alive and all the impersonators would be dead.
—Johnny Carson (1925–2005) American Comedian
Living Life Tomorrow’s fate, though thou be wise, Thou canst not tell nor yet surmise; Pass, therefore, not today in vain, For it will never come again.
—Omar Khayyam (1048–1123) Persian Mathematician
We have long forgotten the ritual by which the house of our life was erected. But when it is under assault and enemy bombs are already taking their toll, what enervated, perverse antiquities do they not lay bare in the foundations.
—Walter Benjamin
You only live once; but if you live it right, once is enough.
—Unknown
It is advisable that a person know at least three things, where they are, where they are going, and what they had best do under the circumstances.
—John Ruskin (1819–1900) English Writer, Art Critic
You cannot travel the path until you have become the path itself.
—Buddhist Teaching
Life is a bridge. Cross over it, but build no house on it.
—Indian Proverb
People say that what we’re all seeking in life is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experience on the purely physical plane will have resonances within our innermost being and reality, so that we actually fee the rapture of being alive.
—Joseph Campbell (1904–87) American Mythologist, Writer, Lecturer