Life Quotes

Death is more universal than life; everyone dies but not everyone lives.
– A. Sachs
Life has taught us that love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction.
– Antoine De Saint-Exupery
The soul is the captain and ruler of the life of morals.
– Sallust
Life is like and ever-shifting kaleidoscope - a slight change, and all patterns alter.
– Sharon Salzberg
Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you.
– Carl Sandburg
Happiness is the only sanction of life; where happiness fails, existence remains a mad and lamentable experiment.
– George Santayana
Music is essentially useless, as life is: but both have an ideal extension which lends utility to its conditions.
– George Santayana
Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. In the first stage of life the mind is frivolous and easily distracted, it misses progress by failing in consecutiveness and persistence. This is the condition of children and barbarians, in which instinct has learned nothing from experience.
– George Santayana
The fact that we don't know this man, isn't important really. Cause his experience is our experience, and his fate is our fate. Vani tass, vani tatum, et omni i vani tass, says the preacher. All is vanity I think that's a pretty good epitaph for all of us. When we're stripped of all our worldly possessions and all our fame, family, friends, we all face death alone. But it's that solitude in death that's our common bond in life. I know it's ironic, but that's just the way things are. Vani tass, vani tatum, et omni i vani tass. Only when we understand all is vanity, only then, it isn't.
– Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider
If you were in a burning house and there was a cat and a Rembrandt, what would you save? The cat...you would save the cat, because the cat is alive. The art is dead. It's just paint on a canvas, ink on a page. To live for art is to deny life. It's just to destroy life.
– Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider
Men are confused. They're conflicted. They want a woman who's their intellectual equal, but they're afraid of women like that. They want a woman they can dominate, but then they hate her for being weak. It's an ambivalence that goes back to a man's relationship with his mother. Source of his life, center of his universe, object of both his fear and his love.
– Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider
I am going to concentrate on what's important in life. I'm going to strive everyday to be a kind and generous and loving person. I'm going to keep death right here, so that anytime I even think about getting angry at you or anybody else, I'll see death and I'll remember.
– Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider
Death is the enemy. I spent 10 years of my life singlemindedly studying, practicing, fighting hand to hand in close quarters to defeat the enemy, to send him back bloodied and humble and I am not going to roll over and surrender.
– Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider
Life here is so elemental. So real. Without the interference of civilization you can really experience things like,...silence. Silence and darkness in its purity. Right now, right outside my window all I can see is a black void. Endless darkness. It's totally exhilarating, and I feel very lucky to be here. Very, very lucky.
– Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider
I feel like I can handle a lot of things. I can handle a parasitic infection and separating lesions, arterial sclerosis. But this stuff...I just want to go through life thinking people are happy, naive as that may sound.
– Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider
Life is everywhere. The earth is throbbing with it, it's like music. The plants, the creatures, the ones we see, the ones we don't see, it's like one, big, pulsating symphony.
– Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider
A person has three choices in life. You can swim against the tide and get exhausted, or you can tread water and let the tide sweep you away, or you can swim with the tide, and let it take you where it wants you to go.
– Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider
If we were not all so interested in ourselves, life would be so uninteresting that none of us would be able to endure it.
– Arthur Schopenhauer
My life has no purpose, no direction, no aim, no meaning, and yet I'm happy. I can't figure it out. What am I doing right?
– Charles M. Schulz
That's the secret to life... replace one worry with another....
– Charles M. Schulz
The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and to let it come in.
– Morrie Schwartz
You need only claim the event of your life to make yourself yours. When you truly possess all you have been and done, which may take some time, you are fierce with reality.
– Florida Scott-Maxwell
It is through creating, not possessing, that life is revealed.
– Vida D. Scudder
There must be more to life than having everything.
– Maurice Sendak
As was his language so was his life.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
It should be our care not so much to live a long life as a satisfactory one.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Life without the courage for death is slavery.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
To be always fortunate, and to pass through life with a soul that has never known sorrow, is to be ignorant of one half of nature.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
While the fates permit, live happily; life speeds on with hurried step, and with winged days the wheel of the headlong year is turned.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
I like life. It's something to do.
– Ronnie Shakes
His life was gentle; and the elements
So mixed in him, that Nature might stand up,
And say to all the world, THIS WAS A MAN!
– William Shakespeare
Mine honour is my life; both grow in one; take honour from me and my life is done.
– William Shakespeare
The sands are number'd that make up my life.
– William Shakespeare
To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep:
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to,--'t is a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub:
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.
– William Shakespeare
There is a tide in the affairs of men
Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
– William Shakespeare
Life is as tedious as a twice-told tale
Vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man.
– William Shakespeare
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
– William Shakespeare
Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.
– William Shakespeare
The better part of valor is discretion, in the which better part I have saved my life.
– William Shakespeare
You are going to let the fear of poverty govern your life and your reward will be that you will eat, but you will not live.
– George Bernard Shaw
There are two tragedies in life. One is not to get your heart's desire. The other is to get it.
– George Bernard Shaw
Women upset everything. When you let them into your life, you find that the woman is driving at one thing and you're driving at another.
– George Bernard Shaw
Alcohol is a very necessary article... It makes life bearable to millions of people who could not endure their existence if they were quite sober. It enables Parliament to do things at eleven at night that no sane person would do at eleven in the morning.
– George Bernard Shaw
This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.
– George Bernard Shaw
What is life but a series of inspired follies? The difficulty is to find them to do. Never lose a chance: it doesn't come every day.
– George Bernard Shaw
The game of life is the game of boomerangs. Our thoughts, deeds and words return to us sooner or later, with astounding accuracy.
– Florence Shinn
Trouble is part of your life, and if you don't share it, you don't give the person who loves you a chance to love you enough.
– Dinah Shore
Life is too important to take seriously.
– Corky Siegel
In early childhood you may lay the foundation of poverty or riches, industry or idleness, good or evil, by the habits to which you train your children. Teach them right habits then, and their future life is safe.
– Lydia Sigourney
There are two things to aim at in life: first, to get what you want; and, after that, to enjoy it. Only the wisest of mankind achieve the second.
– Logan Pearsall Smith
People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading.
– Logan Pearsall Smith
There is one piece of advice, in a life of study, which I think no one will object to; and that is, every now and then to be completely idle - to do nothing at all.
– Sydney Smith
Do not pursue what is illusory - property and position: all that is gained at the expense of your nerves decade after decade and can be confiscated in one fell night. Live with a steady superiority over life - don't be afraid of misfortune, and do not yearn after happiness; it is after all, all the same: the bitter doesn't last forever, and the sweet never fills the cup to overflowing.
– Alexander Solzhenitsyn
One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: That word is love.
– Sophocles
No man loves life like him that's growing old.
– Sophocles
Leave each one his touch of folly; it helps to lighten life's burden which, if he could see himself as he is, might be too heavy to carry.
– John Lancaster Spalding
Be on the alert to recognize your prime at whatever time of your life it may occur.
– Muriel Spark
This is our purpose: to make as meaningful as possible this life that has been bestowed upon us; to live in such a way that we may be proud of ourselves; to act in such a way that some part of us lives on.
– Oswald Spengler
Sleep after toil, port after stormy seas, ease after war, death after life does greatly please.
– Edmund Spenser
If I had my life to live over... I'd dare to make more mistakes next time.
– Nadine Stair
The moment we begin to fear the opinions of others and hesitate to tell the truth that is in us, and from motives of policy are silent when we should speak, the divine floods of light and life no longer flow into our souls.
– Elizabeth Cady Stanton
With age come the inner, the higher life. Who would be forever young, to dwell always in externals?
– Elizabeth Cady Stanton
The first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: Decide what you want.
– Ben Stein
I came to realize that life lived to help others is the only one that matters and that it is my duty...This is my highest and best use as a human.
– Ben Stein
There comes a time in every man's life and I've had many of them.
– Casey Stengel
Life is too complicated not to be orderly.
– Martha Stewart
I'm going to a special place when I die, but I want to make sure my life is special while I'm here.
– Payne Stewart
The chief lesson I have learned in a long life is that the only way to make a man trustworthy is to trust him; and the surest way to make him untrustworthy is to distrust him and show your distrust.
– Henry L. Stimson
I have learned throughout my life as a composer chiefly through my mistakes and pursuits of false assumptions, not by my exposure to founts of wisdom and knowledge.
– Igor Stravinsky
I have always regarded myself as the pillar of my life.
– Meryl Streep
Never say never, for if you live long enough, chances are you will not be able to abide by its restrictions. Never is a long, undependable time, and life is too full of rich possibilities to have restrictions placed upon it.
– Gloria Swanson
Some people are born on third base and go through life thinking they hit a triple.
– Barry Switzer
Whoever destroys a single life is as guilty as though he had destroyed the entire world; and whoever resues a single life earns as much merit as though he had rescued the entire world.
– Babylonian Talmud
Mistake not. Those pleasures are not pleasures that trouble the quiet and tranquillity of thy life.
– Jeremy Taylor
Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life. Aim above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something.
– Henry David Thoreau
Many that live deserve death. And some die that deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then be not too eager to deal out death in the name of justice, fearing for your own safety. Even the wise cannot see all ends.
– J. R. R. Tolkien
'I wish life was not so short,' he thought. 'Languages take such a time, and so do all the things one wants to know about.'
– J. R. R. Tolkien
If one has no vanity in this life of ours, there is no sufficient reason for living.
– Leo Tolstoy
Painting is an attempt to come to terms with life. There are as many solutions as there are human beings.
– George Tooker
No man's life, liberty or property are safe while the legislature is in session.
– Judge Gideon J. Tucker
There is no mystery, at least not the kind you want. In real life there are no fogbound moors or clues on matchbooks or fifth columnists waiting to be unmasked. it would be nice if here were, because then there would be solutions to things in life, but it doesn't always work that way. Everyone likes a good detective story. I went through my Hammett phase in college. I think the attraction is, in life our mysteries aren't exciting. You know? They're just intractable and depressing and enervating. Like, why do we always hurt the ones we love. Where does the money go? ...in a detective story, at least the universe makes sense. It was him. He did it. The natural order is disturbed, but the beauty of it is that it's restored again.
– Rogers Turrentine
Part of the secret of success in life is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside.
– Mark Twain
All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence; then success is sure.
– Mark Twain
After all it is those who have a deep and real inner life who are best able to deal with the irritating details of outer life.
– Evelyn Underhill
We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
– US Declaration of Independence
Monsieur l'abbé, I detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write.
– Voltaire
Like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made sense from things she found in gift shops.
– Kurt Vonnegut
Learning to live what you're born with is the process, the involvement, the making of a life.
– Diane Wakoski
The animals of the planet are in desperate peril... Without free animal life I believe we will lose the spiritual equivalent of oxygen.
– Alice Walker
Reality continues to ruin my life.
– Bill Watterson
We must not allow the clock and the calendar to blind us to the fact that each moment of life is a miracle and mystery.
– H. G. Wells
The purpose of life is to fight maturity.
– Dick Werthimer
The aim of life is self-development. To realize one's nature perfectly - that is what each of us is here for.
– Oscar Wilde
One should absorb the colour of life, but one should never remember its details. Details are always vulgar.
– Oscar Wilde
I love acting. It is so much more real than life.
– Oscar Wilde
Life is an unbroken succession of false situations.
– Thornton Wilder
Football is a mistake. It combines the two worst elements of American life. Violence and committee meetings.
– George F. Will
I would not waste my life in friction when it could be turned into momentum.
– Frances E. Willard
If you want your life to be more rewarding, you have to change the way you think.
– Oprah Winfrey
Living in the moment brings you a sense of reverence for all of life's blessings.
– Oprah Winfrey