quotations about life
His dangerous, overwhelming lust for life had failed to involve him in anything deeper than perhaps half a dozen extremely casual acquaintanceships in about as many bars.
JAMES BALDWIN
Another Country
Trifles make the sum of life.
CHARLES DICKENS
David Copperfield
Everyday life cannot be cast in heroic mould. No doubt there seems, at any rate at first sight, no room left in this scheme of life for that longing after the infinite which expands the mind and soul. But what is there to prevent me from launching on that boundless sea our familiar craft?
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Letters of Two Brides
What mean the discipline and trial of life? What mean the dark shocks of disappointment, the breaking of hopes, the sundering of human ties, the terrible baptism of suffering and of fire, if there is not something beyond? If in every bath of sweat and tears, every drop of sorrow, every falling wave, there is something by which I am led more near to God, by which my soul is made stronger and purified, then I can understand life. But if I am hurled in the chaos of life--battered by sorrow today, and kicked by misfortune tomorrow--stricken by my fondest hopes, deluded and deceived, and all is to end in nothingness, I must confess that you present a problem I cannot solve.
E. H. CHAPIN
Living Words
If you always do the easy and comfortable thing, life ends up being difficult and uncomfortable. If you do the difficult and uncomfortable thing, however, life ends up being easy and comfortable.
ERNIE J. ZELINSKI
Look Ma, Life's Easy
The evil fortune of the living in no way affects the dead.
ARISTOTLE
Nicomachean Ethics
It's only life. We all get through it.
DEAN KOONTZ
Odd Hours
It's good to do uncomfortable things. It's weight training for life.
ANNE LAMOTT
Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith
Life is a constant series of new and familiar challenges, adversities that wax and wane until the end.
ANDREW PASCHAL
"Singles Going Steady", PopMatters, September 1, 2016
Life is, alas, one eternal combat.
SARAH BERNHARDT
The Idol of Paris
Life seems so vulgar, so easily content with the commonplace things of every day, and yet it always nurses and cherishes certain higher claims in secret, and looks about for the means of satisfying them.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe
There are sad times, of course, but then life is a mixture and an authentic life story is the good, the bad, and everything in between.
NIK FARAH
"Recording a life is so precious", The Star, August 12, 2016
The best life is that which makes the best of life.
IVAN PANIN
Thoughts
Life is a series of obstacles. It's not supposed to be easy. It is how you deal with these obstacles that define you as a person.
RAUL CARRANZA
"UC San Diego grad with muscular dystrophy shows incredible strength to achieve his dreams", University of California, June 16, 2016
As yet we know nothing of what goes to create or evoke the active spark of life.
BRAM STOKER
"The Jewel of the Seven Stars"
There's a kind of emptiness at the center of life ... nothing to form your life on, or by.
SAUL BELLOW
AGNI interview, 1997
How good is man's life, the mere living!
How fit to employ
All the heart and the soul and the senses
Forever in joy!
ROBERT BROWNING
"Saul"
Life is a struggle, and if you should feel really happy, be patient: this will pass.
GARRISON KEILLOR
A Prairie Home Companion, 2006
The realization that life is absurd and cannot be an end, but only a beginning. This is a truth nearly all great minds have taken as their starting point. It is not this discovery that is interesting, but the consequences and rules of action drawn from it.
ALBERT CAMUS
attributed, Albert Camus and the Philosophy of the Absurd
Life consists of nothing more than the happiness we can get out of it.
JEAN ANOUILH
Antigone