Start living now. Stop saving the good china for that special occasion. Stop withholding your love until that special person materializes. Every day you are alive is a special occasion. Every minute, every breath, is a gift from God.
—Mary Manin Morrissey (b.1949) American Christian Religious Leader, Teacher
Providence has its appointed hour for everything. We cannot command results, we can only strive.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869–1948) Indian Hindu Political leader
Life is made up, not of great sacrifices or duties, but of little things, in which smiles and kindness and small obligations, given habitually, are what win and preserve the heart and secure comfort.
—Humphry Davy (1778–1829) British Chemist, Inventor
Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises.
—Samuel Butler
And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–65) American Head of State
It is normal to give away a little of one’s life in order not to lose it all.
—Albert Camus (1913–60) Algerian-born French Philosopher, Dramatist, Essayist, Novelist, Author
A man walks through life painting a portrait, not of what he would have done, could have done, or should have done, but of what he did.
—Anonymous
The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another; and his humblest hour is when he compares the volume as it is with what he vowed to make it.
—J. M. Barrie (1860–1937) Scottish Novelist, Dramatist
Life has its own hidden forces which you can only discover by living.
—Soren Kierkegaard (1813–55) Danish Philosopher, Theologian
Life is a great big canvas, and you should throw all the paint you can on it.
—Danny Kaye (1913–87) American Actor, Singer, Comedian
We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.
—Plato (428 BCE–347 BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Mathematician, Educator
Anything for the quick life, as the man said when he took the situation at the lighthouse.
—Charles Dickens (1812–70) English Novelist
Life is hardly more than a fraction of a second. Such a little time to prepare oneself for eternity!
—Paul Gauguin (1848–1903) French Post-Impressionist Painter
This is a world of action, and not for moping and droning in.
—Charles Dickens (1812–70) English Novelist
Life can be wildly tragic at times, and I’ve had my share. But whatever happens to you, you have to keep a slightly comic attitude. In the final analysis, you have got not to forget to laugh.
—Katharine Hepburn (1907–2003) American Actor, TV Personality
Life is too important to be taken seriously.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
We never live; we are always in the expectation of living.
—Voltaire (1694–1778) French Philosopher, Author
Life is not a series of gig lamps symmetrically arranged; life is a luminous halo, a semi-transparent envelope surrounding us from the beginning of consciousness to the end.
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English Novelist
There is no real excellence in all of this world which can be separated from right living.
—David Starr Jordan (1851–1931) American Zoologist, Educator, Peace Activist
Life is an exciting business, and most exciting when it is lived for others.
—Helen Keller (1880–1968) American Author
Most of us spend our lives as if we had another one in the bank.
—Unknown
O to have my life henceforth a poem of new joys!
To dance, clap hands, exult, shout, skip, leap, roll on, float on,
To be a sailor of the world, bound for all ports,
A ship itself, (see indeed these sails I spread to the sun and air,)
A swift and swelling ship, full of rich words—full of joys.
—Walt Whitman (1819–92) American Poet, Essayist, Journalist, American, Poet, Essayist, Journalist
Don’t brood. Get on with living and loving. You don’t have forever.
—Leo Buscaglia (1924–98) American Motivational Speaker
Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the question themselves, as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, some day far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.”
—Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) Austrian Poet
After all, life is really simple; we ourselves create the circumstances that complicate it.
—Unknown
Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.
—Helen Keller (1880–1968) American Author
Life is a mirror and will reflect back to the thinker what he thinks into it.
—Ernest Holmes (1887–1960) American New Thought Writer, Teacher
Imagine life as a game in which you are juggling some five balls in the air. You name them … work, family, health, friends and spirit, and you’re keeping all of these in the air. You will soon understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. But the other four balls … family, health, friends and spirit … are made of glass. If you drop one of these, they will be irrevocably scuffed, marked, nicked, damaged or even shattered. They will never be the same.
—Indian Proverb
The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of a mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one.
—Wilhelm Stekel (1868–1940) Austrian Physician, Psychologist
Life is not lost by dying; life is lost minute by minute, day by dragging day, in all the thousand small uncaring ways.
—Stephen Vincent Benet (1898–1943) American Poet
Life is a frail moth flying
Caught in the web of the years that pass.
—Sara Teasdale (1884–1933) American Poet
I can’t imagine a person becoming a success who doesn’t give this game of life everything he’s got.
—Walter Cronkite (1916–2009) American Journalist, Television
Life is a succession of moments. To live each one is to succeed.
—Corita Kent (1918–86) American Artist, Graphic Artist, Educator
We do not need to proselytize either by our speech or by our writing. We can only do so really with our lives. Let our lives be open books for all to study.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869–1948) Indian Hindu Political leader
It’s extraordinary how we go through life with eyes half shut, with dull ears, with dormant thoughts. Perhaps it’s just as well; and it may be that it is this very dullness that makes life to the incalculable majority so supportable and so welcome.
—Joseph Conrad (1857–1924) Polish-born British Novelist
I trust life not because I trust the world, but because I trust the God who lives in my heart.
—Marianne Williamson (b.1952) American Activist, Author, Lecturer
When you cease to make a contribution, you begin to die.
—Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American First Lady, Diplomat, Humanitarian
Just when I think I have learned the way to live, life changes and I am left the same. The more things change the more I am the same. I am what I started with, and when it is all over I will be all that is left of me.
—Hugh Prather (b.1938) American Christian Author, Minister, Counselor
A life is like a tree—if you don’t make it straight when its young and green, you’ll never do it when it’s old and dry.
—Unknown
The trick in life is to not fear death, but not to welcome it either.
—Anonymous
I could not, at any age, be content to take my place in a corner by the fireside and simply look on. Life was meant to be lived. Curiosity must be kept alive. The fatal thing is the rejection. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.
—Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American First Lady, Diplomat, Humanitarian
All of the animals except for man know that the principle business of life is to enjoy it.
—Samuel Butler
Two urns on Jove’s high throne have ever stood,
The source of evil one, and one of good;
From thence the cup of mortal man he fills,
Blessings to these, to those distributes ills;
To most he mingles both.
—Homer (751–651 BCE) Ancient Greek Poet
Here is a test to find whether your mission on earth is finished: if you’re alive, it isn’t.
—Richard Bach (b.1936) American Novelist, Aviator
I don’t want to live. I want to love first, and live incidentally.
—Zelda Fitzgerald (1899–1948) American Writer, Artist
The wonderful thing about books is that they allow us to enter imaginatively into someone else’s life. And when we do that, we learn to sympathize with other people. But the real surprise is that we also learn truths about ourselves, about our own lives that somehow we hadn’t been able to see before.
—Katherine Paterson (b.1932) American Novelist, Writer
Life’s splendor forever lies in wait about each one of us in all its fullness, but veiled from view, deep down, invisible, far off. It is there, though, not hostile, not reluctant, not deaf. If you summon it by the right word, by its right name, it will come.
—Franz Kafka (1883–1924) Austrian Novelist, Short Story Writer
Four Lessons on Life 1. Never take down a fence until you know why it was put up. 2. If you get too far ahead of the army, your soldiers may mistake you for the enemy. 3. Don’t complain about the bottom rungs of the ladder; they helped to get you higher. 4. If you want to enjoy the rainbow, be prepared to endure the storm.
—Warren W. Wiersbe (1929–2019) American Pastor, Biblical Scholar
I think these difficult times have helped me to understand better than before how infinitely rich and beautiful life is in every way and that so many things that one goes around worry about are of no importance whatsoever.
—Karen Blixen (Isak Dinesen) (1885–1962) Danish Novelist, Short-story Writer
Take life just as though it was—as it is—an earnest, vital and important affair. Take it as though you were born to the task of performing a merry part in it—as though, the world awaited your coming.
Take it as though it was a grand opportunity to do and achieve, to carry forward great and good schemes, to help and cheer a suffering, weary, it may be heart-broken brother. Now and then a man stands aside from the crowd, labors earnestly, steadfastly, confidently, and straightway becomes famous for wisdom, intellect, skill, greatness of some sort. The world wonders, admires, idolizes, and it only illustrates what others may do if they take hold of life with a purpose.
The miracle, or the power, that elevates the few, is to be found in their industry, application, and perseverance under the promptings of a brave, determined spirit.
—Unknown