LIFE QUOTES XXV

quotations about life

He had learned the worst lesson that life can teach -- that it makes no sense.

PHILIP ROTH

American Pastoral


Begin at once to live, and count each separate day as a separate life.

SENECA

Ad Lucilium Epistulae Morales


Life was a storm to wander through.

STEPHEN VINCENT BENET

"The Quality of Courage"

Tags: Stephen Vincent Benet


Behold the life at ease; it drifts,
The sharpened life commands its course.

GEORGE MEREDITH

"Hard Weather"

Tags: George Meredith


Though I be shut in darkness, and become insentient dust blown idly here and there, I count oblivion a scant price to pay for having once had held against my lip life's brimming cup of hydromel and rue--for having once known woman's holy love and a child's kiss, and for a little space been boon companion to the Day and Night, Fed on the odors of the summer dawn, and folded in the beauty of the stars. Dear Lord, though I be changed to senseless clay, and serve the potter as he turns his wheel, I thank Thee for the gracious gift of tears!

THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH

"Two Moods"

Tags: Thomas Bailey Aldrich


Sometimes I believe that this less material life is our truer life, and that our vain presence on the terraqueous globe is itself the secondary or merely virtual phenomenon.

H. P. LOVECRAFT

"Beyond the Wall of Sleep"


Thus will we deal with life, my little help-meet. Will we not, eh? What though it blink at us like an owl that is blinded by the sun, we will yet force it to smile.

LEONID ANDREYEV

The Life of Man

Tags: Leonid Andreyev


You tasted it. Isn't that enough? Of what do you ever get more than a taste? That's all we're given in life, that's all we're given of life. A taste. There is no more.

PHILIP ROTH

The Dying Animal


To live means to finesse the processes to which one is subjugated.

BERTOLT BRECHT

On Politics and Society

Tags: Bertolt Brecht


Men regret their life has been ill-spent, but this does not always induce them to make a better use of the time they have yet to live.

JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE

"Of Mankind", Les Caractères


The golden moments in the stream of life rush past us, and we see nothing but sand; the angels come to visit us, and we only know them when they are gone.

GEORGE ELIOT

Janet's Repentance

Tags: George Eliot


Life being full of harsh realities, we seek relief from them in a variety of pleasing delusions.

CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE

Intuitions and Summaries of Thought


Real life seldom structures a decent denouement.

DAN SIMMONS

Hyperion

Tags: Dan Simmons


No man ever sailed over exactly the same route that another sailed over before him; every man who starts on the ocean of life arches his sails to an untried breeze.

WILLIAM MATHEWS

Hints on Success in Life


Nothing is easier than to simplify life and them make a philosophy about it. The trouble is that the resulting philosophy is true only of that simplified life.

WALTER LIPPMANN

Drift and Mastery: An Attempt to Diagnose the Current Unrest

Tags: Walter Lippmann


In the chequered area of human experience the seasons are all mingled as in the golden age: fruit and blossom hang together; in the same moment the sickle is reaping and the seed is sprinkled; one tends the green cluster and another treads the wine-press. Nay, in each of our lives harvest and spring-time are continually one, until Death himself gathers us and sows us anew in his invisible fields.

GEORGE ELIOT

Daniel Deronda


The occurrence of an event is not the same thing as knowing what it is that one has lived through.

JAMES BALDWIN

Another Country

Tags: James Baldwin


The life of man is a long march through the night, surrounded by invisible foes, tortured by weariness and pain, towards a goal that few can hope to reach, and where none may tarry long.

BERTRAND RUSSELL

A Free Man's Worship

Tags: Bertrand Russell


Life goes on forever like the gnawing of a mouse.

EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY

"Ashes of Life"

Tags: Edna St. Vincent Millay


Life is composed of lights and shadows, and we would be untruthful, insincere, and saccharine if we tried to pretend there were no shadows. Most things are good, and they are the strongest things; but there are evil things too, and you are not doing a child a favor by trying to shield him from reality. The important thing is to teach a child that good can always triumph over evil.

WALT DISNEY

"Deeds Rather Than Words"

Tags: Walt Disney