quotations about life
Life is a theatre of alarms and contentions.
CHARLES HORTON COOLEY
Human Nature and the Social Order
Our life a harp is, with unnumbered strings,
And tones and symphonies; but our poor skill
Some shallow notes from its great music brings.
JOHN BOYLE O'REILLY
"Dolores"
There are those who say that life is like a book, with chapters for each event in your life and a limited number of pages on which you can spend your time. But I prefer to think that a book is like a life, particularly a good one, which is well to worth staying up all night to finish.
DANIEL HANDLER
(as Lemony Snicket), Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid
Life is a sculpture, chip, chip, chip. In good time, with good patience, even the most formidable rock can be shaped.
BERNARD BECKETT
Malcolm & Juliet
He lived the life he lived, like anybody, I guess, and he paid his dues, like everybody. Maybe what I mean when I say he made his life so hard was that he always tried to pay his dues in front.
JAMES BALDWIN
Just Above My Head
Life is reduced to a bunch of fights over territory.
KOBO ABE
The Ark Sakura
Who fears death does not enjoy life.
SPANISH PROVERB
What is life if not the shadow of a fleeting dream?
UMBERTO ECO
Baudolino
Ordinary life does not interest me. I seek only the high moments.
ANAIS NIN
diary, winter, 1931-32
When life looks like it's falling apart, it may just be falling in place.
BEVERLY SOLOMON
Good Housekeeping, Aug. 2009
Life is magical. There is something wonderful in being alive, in having within one's self all sorts of possibilities.
ARTHUR LYNCH
Moods of Life
Your life is like a little flute complaining
A long way off, beyond the willow trees:
A long way off, and nothing left remaining
But memory of a music on the breeze.
HILAIRE BELLOC
Sonnets
Human life is a pilgrimage from the unknown to the unknown. No one knows whence he emanated or whither he is bound.
FEMI ABBAS
"A decade of royalty and faith", The Nation, September 2, 2016
He whose daily life has been a rounded whole, is easy in his mind.
SENECA
Ad Lucilium Epistulae Morales
Life is never a thing of continuous bliss. There is no paradise. Fight and laugh and feel bitter and feel bliss: and fight again. Fight, fight. That is life.
D. H. LAWRENCE
Studies in Classic American Literature
Let me leap naked through life's testing flame,
And bear to lose, and yet endure to win.
KENNETH RAND
"The World-Slave"
The true life is not reducible to words spoken or written, not by anyone, ever. The true life takes place when we're alone, thinking, feeling, lost in memory, dreamingly self-aware, the submicroscopic moments.
DON DELILLO
Point Omega
Life has possibilities; death has none.
REUEN THOMAS
Thoughts for the Thoughtful
Life consists in molting our illusions. We form creeds today only to throw them away tomorrow. The eagle molts a feather because he is growing a better one.
ELBERT HUBBARD
The American Bible
All of life is a foreign country.
JACK KEROUAC
letter, June 24, 1949