LIFE QUOTES XXIX

quotations about life

Each day is a branch of the Tree of Life laden heavily with fruit. If we lie down lazily beneath it, we may starve; but if we shake the branches, some of the fruit will fall for us.

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

Table-Talk


Life is what you do while you're waiting to die.

DONALD TRUMP

interview, Playboy, Mar. 1990

Tags: Donald Trump


All our mortal lives are set in danger and perplexity: one day to prosper, and the next -- who knows? When all is well, then look for rocks ahead.

SOPHOCLES

Philoctetes


To live is to war with trolls.

HENRIK IBSEN

dedicatory lines, Peer Gynt

Tags: Henrik Ibsen


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


Our daily lives have a kaleidoscopic quality, a feeling of walking down a breakfast buffet and spooning out things onto your plate. And there's a lot to eat at this brunch of experience. Too many pineapple rings, too many sausages, too much syrup.

NICHOLSON BAKER

interview, Interview Magazine, September 16, 2013

Tags: Nicholson Baker


I count life just a stuff
To try the soul's strength on.

ROBERT BROWNING

In a Balcony

Tags: Robert Browning


It's only life. We all get through it.

DEAN KOONTZ

Dark Rivers of the Heart

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Life is a journey that's constantly flowing, regardless of the number of candles that will be on your next birthday cake. For you to stay in the same place forever would mean to resist growth. And that's what we're all here to do anyway -- we're here to grow.

ELISE MOREAU

"How to Change Your Life at Any Age", Care2, September 1, 2016


Ah! what is human life?
How, like the dial's tardy-moving shade,
Day after day slides from us unperceiv'd!
The cunning fugitive is swift by stealth;
Too subtle is the movement to be seen;
Yet soon the hour is up--and we are gone.

EDWARD YOUNG

Busiris, King of Egypt: A Tragedy

Tags: Edward Young


If life gives you rotten eggs, make a crepe.

ALI MARGO

"Princess: Life is a bowl of cherries -- so throw that into your crepe", Aspen Times, May 19, 2016


I believe that life is a game, that life is a cruel joke, that life is what happens when you're alive and that you might as well lie back and enjoy it.

NEIL GAIMAN

American Gods

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That was indeed to live -- at one bold swoop to wrest from darkling death the best that death to life can give.

THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH

"Shaw Memorial Ode"

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The facts of life are the impossibilities of fiction.

JEROME K. JEROME

"The Materialisation of Charles and Mivanway"

Tags: Jerome K. Jerome


Is there another life? Shall I awake and find all this a dream? There must be, we cannot be created for this sort of suffering.

JOHN KEATS

letter to Charles Brown, Sep. 30, 1820


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


Dreams dawn and fly: friends smile and die,
Like spring flowers.
Our vaunted life is one long funeral.
Men dig graves, with bitter tears,
For their dead hopes; and all,
Mazed with doubts, and sick with fears,
Count the hours.

MATTHEW ARNOLD

"A Question: To Fausta"

Tags: Matthew Arnold


My theory is to enjoy life, but the practice is against it.

CHARLES LAMB

letter to William Wordsworth, Mar. 20, 1822

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The life that is demanding to be born is limitless. Nature is a spendthrift. Look at the fish and their millions of eggs. For that matter, look at you and me. In our loins are the possibilities of millions of lives. Could we but find time and opportunity and utilize the last bit and every bit of the unborn life that is in us, we could become the fathers of nations and populate continents.

JACK LONDON

The Sea-Wolf


The eternal present is the space within which your whole life unfolds, the one factor that remains constant. Life is now. There was never a time when your life was not now, nor will there ever be.

ECKHART TOLLE

The Power of Now

Tags: Eckhart Tolle