LIFE QUOTES XXV

quotations about life

When our life is a continuous trial, the moments of respite seem only to substitute the heaviness of dread for the heaviness of actual suffering; the curtain of cloud seems parted an instant only that we may measure all its horror as it hangs low, black, and imminent, in contrast with the transient brightness; the waterdrops that visit the parched lips in the desert bear with them only the keen imagination of thirst.

GEORGE ELIOT

Janet's Repentance


To live life well is to express life poorly; if one expresses life too well, one is living it no longer.

GASTON BACHELARD

Fragments of a Poetics of Fire

Tags: Gaston Bachelard


How strange it is, our little procession of life! The child says, "When I am a big boy." But what is that? The big boy says, "When I grow up." And then, grown up, he says, "When I get married." But to be married, what is that after all? The thought changes to "When I'm able to retire." And then, when retirement comes, he looks back over the landscape traversed; a cold wind seems to sweep over it; somehow he has missed it all, and it is gone.

STEPHEN LEACOCK

Feast of Stephen


The most refined abstractions of logic conduct to a view of life, which, though startling to the apprehension, is, in fact, that which the habitual sense of its repeated combinations has extinguished in us. It strips, as it were, the painted curtain from this scene of things. I confess that I am one of those who are unable to refuse my assent to the conclusions of those philosophers who assert that nothing exists but as it is perceived.

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

"On Life", Essays and Letters


There is more to life than not dying.

CASSANDRA CLARE

Clockwork Angel

Tags: Cassandra Clare


Life consists of nothing more than the happiness we can get out of it.

JEAN ANOUILH

Antigone

Tags: Jean Anouilh


I think you've got to be truthful about the life you have. Otherwise, there's no possibility of achieving the life you want.

JAMES BALDWIN

Another Country

Tags: James Baldwin


It was good that God kept the truths of life from the young as they were starting out or else they'd have no heart to start at all.

CORMAC MCCARTHY

All the Pretty Horses

Tags: Cormac McCarthy


Life ... is only heavy and none else; there is only the one trip, all heavy. Heavy that leads to the grave. For everyone and everything.

PHILIP K. DICK

A Scanner Darkly

Tags: Philip K. Dick


Life figures itself to me as a festal or funereal procession.

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

"The Procession of Life"

Tags: Nathaniel Hawthorne


Along the road of life are many pleasure resorts, but think not that by tarrying in them you will take more days to the journey. The day of your arrival is already recorded.

AMBROSE BIERCE

"Epigrams of a Cynic"

Tags: Ambrose Bierce


Life is my college. May I graduate well, and earn some honors!

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

journal, Mar. 1859

Tags: Louisa May Alcott


While there's life, there's hope.

ENGLISH PROVERB


A life ill spent makes a sad old age.

SPANISH PROVERB


Life is futile unless it be directed towards a definite goal.

STEFAN ZWEIG

Twenty-Four Hours in the Life of a Woman

Tags: Stefan Zweig


I'd rather sing one wild song and burst my heart with it, than live a thousand years watching my digestion and being afraid of the wet.

JACK LONDON

The Turtles of Tasman


My life is a tree,
Yoke-fellow of the earth;
Pledged,
By roots too deep for remembrance,
To stand hard against the storm,
To fill by Place.
(But high in the branches of my green tree there is a wild bird singing:
Wind-free are the wings of my bird: she hath built no mortal nest.)

KARLE WILSON BAKER

The Tree

Tags: Karle Wilson Baker


Whoever has lived long enough to find out what life is, knows how deep a debt of gratitude we owe to Adam, the first great benefactor of our race. He brought death into the world.

MARK TWAIN

The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson

Tags: Mark Twain


If you have no wounds, how can you know if you're alive?

EDWARD ALBEE

The Play About the Baby

Tags: Edward Albee


The secret of the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment of existence is: to live dangerously!

FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE

The Joyful Wisdom

Tags: Friedrich Nietzsche