Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
I learned I could live more than one life in a lifetime.
—Marlo Morgan (1937–98) American Novelist, Author
Every organism has one and only one central need in life, to fulfill its own potentialities.
—Rollo May (1909–94) American Philosopher
Every story is a variation on a single theme: This shouldn’t be happening. I shouldn’t be having this experience. God is unjust. Life isn’t fair.
—Byron Katie (b.1942) American Speaker, Author
Life always gives us exactly the teacher we need at every moment. This includes every mosquito, every misfortune, every red light, every traffic jam, every obnoxious supervisor (or employee), every illness, every loss, every moment of joy or depression, every addiction, every piece of garbage, every breath. Every moment is the guru.
—Joko Beck (1917–2011) American Zen Teacher
What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
We tear life out of life to use it for looking at itself.
—Antonio Porchia (1885–1968) Italian Poet
You can observe a lot by just watching.
—Yogi Berra (1925–2015) American Sportsperson
Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather must recognize that it is he who is asked. In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible.
—Viktor Frankl (1905–97) Austrian Psychiatrist, Psychotherapist
When you cling, life is destroyed; when you hold on to anything, you cease to live.
—Anthony de Mello (1931–87) Indian-born American Theologian
The only way to have a life is to commit to it like crazy.
—Angelina Jolie (b.1975) American Actor, Humanitarian
It is not length of life, but depth of life.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
Perhaps nothing would be a lesson to us if it didn’t come too late. It’s well we should feel as life’s a reckoning we can’t make twice over; there’s no real making amends in this world, any more nor you can mend a wrong subtraction by doing your addition right.
—George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans) (1819–80) English Novelist
Remember that life is neither pain nor pleasure; it is serious business, to be entered upon with courage and in a spirit of self-sacrifice.
—Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–59) French Historian, Political Scientist
No man needs sympathy because he has to work. Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.
—Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American Head of State, Political leader, Historian, Explorer
Life may have no meaning. Or even worse, it may have a meaning of which I disapprove.
—Ashleigh Brilliant (b.1933) British Cartoonist, Author
The way you create any outcome in your life is to hold the vision of your deepest desires. At the same time, though, you must honestly and accurately assess your current situation and how it relates to your greater vision. By doing this, you engage tension between what is and what can be. This tension is the primary creative force behind the manifestation of any outcome. It’s as natural and powerful as the force of gravity.
—David Emerald
Everything I need to know is revealed to me. Everything I need comes to me. All is well in my life.
—Louise Hay (b.1926) American Author
To live your life in the fear of losing it is to lose the point of life.
—Malcolm S. Forbes (1919–1990) American Publisher, Businessperson
When ‘Omer smote ‘is bloomin’ lyre, He’d ‘eard men sing by land an’ sea; An’ what he thought ‘e might require, ‘E went and took-the same as me.
—Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) British Children’s Books Writer, Short story, Novelist, Poet, Journalist
They that have lived a single day have lived an age.
—Jean de La Bruyere (1645–96) French Satiric Moralist, Author
Measure your health by your sympathy with morning and spring. If there is no response in you to the awakening of nature, if the prospect of an early morning walk does not banish sleep, if the warble of the first bluebird does not thrill you, know that the morning and spring of your life are past. Thus may you feel your pulse.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
To know oneself is the first step toward making flow a part of one’s entire life. But just as there is no free lunch in the material economy, nothing comes free in the psychic one. If one is not willing to invest psychic energy in the internal reality of consciousness, and instead squanders it in chasing external rewards, one loses mastery of one’s life, and ends up becoming a puppet of circumstances.
—Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1934–2021) Hungarian-American Psychologist
Live while you live, the epicure would say, and seize the pleasures of the passing day.—Live while you live, the sacred preacher cries, and give to God each moment as it flies.—Lord, in my views, let both united be. I live in pleasure while I live to thee.
—Philip Doddridge (1702–51) English Nonconformist Religious Leader, Educator, Hymn writer
He who binds to himself a joy
Doth the winged life destroy;
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in Eternity’s sunrise.
—William Blake (1757–1827) English Poet, Painter, Printmaker
I slept and I dreamed that life is all joy, I woke and I saw that life is all service. I served and I saw that service is joy.
—Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali Poet, Polymath
Life is activity, hence the deep-seated objections to negations.
—James Truslow Adams (1878–1949) American Historian, Writer
You want to change your life? Control the only thing you can control: the meaning you give something.
—Tony Robbins (b.1960) American Self-Help Author, Entrepreneur
There is nothing like dead matter or empty space. Everything is full of light, energy, change, spirit and inter-communication.
—Hans Taeger
Now I know that when I am angry at my husband, I simply have to ask myself, “What am I not doing in my life that I could be doing that I am blaming him for not doing for me?”
—Susan Jeffers (1938–2012) American Psychologist, Self-Help Author