380+ Life Quotes to Inspire Your Journey and Find Purpose

Life, as both the journey of human experience and the gift of existence itself, is a profound treasure. As a journey, life is filled with growth, connection, and meaning, offering moments of joy and lessons in resilience. As the essence of existence, life is the force that unites all living beings, showcasing the beauty of nature and the miracle of creation. Recognizing life’s dual nature inspires us to cherish our time, respect all forms of life, and contribute to the harmony of the world.

1. “Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?’”
2. “The quality, not the longevity, of one’s life is what is important.”
3. “There is nothing more tragic than to find an individual bogged down in the length of life, devoid of breadth.”
4. “Whatever your life’s work is, do it well. A man should do his job so well that the living, the dead, and the unborn could do it no better.”
5. “There comes a time when people get tired of being pushed out of the glittering sunlight of life’s July and left standing amid the piercing chill of an alpine November.”
6. “Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.”
7. “If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music.”
8. “Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions.”
9. “The devil has put a penalty on all things we enjoy in life. Either we suffer in health or we suffer in soul or we get fat.”
10. “I believe that a simple and unassuming manner of life is best for everyone, best both for the body and the mind.”
11. “Without deep reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people.”
12. “Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.”
13. “The monotony and solitude of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind.”
14. “I want to go when I want. It is tasteless to prolong life artificially. I have done my share; it is time to go. I will do it elegantly.”
15. “Superstition is the poetry of life.”
16. “Plunge boldly into the thick of life, and seize it where you will, it is always interesting.”
17. “What is important in life is life, and not the result of life.”
18. “A useless life is an early death.”
19. “I can tell you, honest friend, what to believe: believe life; it teaches better than book or orator.”
20. “Life belongs to the living, and he who lives must be prepared for changes.”
21. “It is not doing the thing we like to do, but liking the thing we have to do, that makes life blessed.”
22. “All theory, dear friend, is gray, but the golden tree of life springs ever green.”
23. “Those who hope for no other life are dead even for this.”
24. “What life half gives a man, posterity gives entirely.”
25. “Life is the childhood of our immortality.”
26. “What is my life if I am no longer useful to others?”
27. “Music is either sacred or secular. The sacred agrees with its dignity, and here has its greatest effect on life, an effect that remains the same through all ages and epochs. Secular music should be cheerful throughout.”
28. “An unused life is an early death.”
29. “He only earns his freedom and his life who takes them every day by storm.”
30. “The most happy man is he who knows how to bring into relation the end and beginning of his life.”
31. “This is the highest wisdom that I own; freedom and life are earned by those alone who conquer them each day anew.”
32. “Character develops itself in the stream of life.”
33. “Talent develops in quiet places, character in the full current of human life.”
34. “Every step of life shows much caution is required.”
35. “Just as courage imperils life, fear protects it.”
36. “Just as courage is the danger of life, so is fear its safeguard.”
37. “Man and animals are in reality vehicles and conduits of food, tombs of animals, hostels of Death, coverings that consume, deriving life by the death of others.”
38. “Our life is made by the death of others.”
39. “All knowledge which ends in words will die as quickly as it came to life, with the exception of the written word: which is its mechanical part.”
40. “Life well spent is long.”
41. “As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so a life well spent brings happy death.”
42. “Our life of poverty is as necessary as the work itself. Only in heaven will we see how much we owe to the poor for helping us to love God better because of them.”
43. “Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”
44. “I never did a day’s work in my life. It was all fun.”
45. “If some years were added to my life, I would give fifty to the study of the Yi, and then I might come to be without great faults.”
46. “If we don’t know life, how can we know death?”
47. “Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.”
48. “Death and life have their determined appointments; riches and honors depend upon heaven.”
49. “The expectations of life depend upon diligence; the mechanic that would perfect his work must first sharpen his tools.”
50. “The great epochs of our life are the occasions when we gain the courage to rebaptize our evil qualities as our best qualities.”
51. “Let us beware of saying that death is the opposite of life. The living being is only a species of the dead, and a very rare species.”
52. “The lie is a condition of life.”
53. “Judgments, value judgments concerning life, for or against, can in the last resort never be true: they possess value only as symptoms, they come into consideration only as symptoms – in themselves such judgments are stupidities.”
54. “Art is the proper task of life.”
55. “There are people who want to make men’s lives more difficult for no other reason than the chance it provides them afterwards to offer their prescription for alleviating life; their Christianity, for instance.”
56. “We love life, not because we are used to living but because we are used to loving.”
57. “Regarding life, the wisest men of all ages have judged alike: it is worthless.”
58. “Without music, life would be a mistake.”
59. “He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. Is not life a hundred times too short for us to bore ourselves?”
60. “Is life not a thousand times too short for us to bore ourselves?”
61. “In poverty and other misfortunes of life, true friends are a sure refuge. The young they keep out of mischief; to the old they are a comfort and aid in their weakness, and those in the prime of life they incite to noble deeds.”
62. “The ideal man bears the accidents of life with dignity and grace, making the best of circumstances.”
63. “The state comes into existence for the sake of life and continues to exist for the sake of good life.”
64. “The ultimate value of life depends upon awareness and the power of contemplation rather than upon mere survival.”
65. “It is best to rise from life as from a banquet, neither thirsty nor drunken.”
66. “Those who educate children well are more to be honored than they who produce them; for these only gave them life, those the art of living well.”
67. “Men create gods after their own image, not only with regard to their form but with regard to their mode of life.”
68. “Different men seek after happiness in different ways and by different means, and so make for themselves different modes of life and forms of government.”
69. “Politicians also have no leisure, because they are always aiming at something beyond political life itself, power and glory, or happiness.”
70. “The energy of the mind is the essence of life.”
71. “Thou wilt find rest from vain fancies if thou doest every act in life as though it were thy last.”
72. “The wise man does not expose himself needlessly to danger, since there are few things for which he cares sufficiently; but he is willing, in great crises, to give even his life – knowing that under certain conditions it is not worthwhile to live.”
73. “It is a common saying, and in everybody’s mouth, that life is but a sojourn.”
74. “Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything.”
75. “We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.”
76. “No evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death.”
77. “Life must be lived as play.”
78. “Apply yourself both now and in the next life. Without effort, you cannot be prosperous. Though the land be good, You cannot have an abundant crop without cultivation.”
79. “I exhort you also to take part in the great combat, which is the combat of life, and greater than every other earthly conflict.”
80. “The direction in which education starts a man will determine his future in life.”
81. “If a man neglects education, he walks lame to the end of his life.”
82. “Justice in the life and conduct of the State is possible only as first it resides in the hearts and souls of the citizens.”
83. “Attention to health is life’s greatest hindrance.”
84. “Each year has been so robust with problems and successes and learning experiences and human experiences that a year is a lifetime at Apple. So this has been ten lifetimes.”
85. “Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith.”
86. “I believe life is an intelligent thing: that things aren’t random.”
87. “I was lucky – I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents’ garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years, Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees.”
88. “Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it.”
89. “Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.”
90. “Bottom line is, I didn’t return to Apple to make a fortune. I’ve been very lucky in my life and already have one. When I was 25, my net worth was $100 million or so. I decided then that I wasn’t going to let it ruin my life. There’s no way you could ever spend it all, and I don’t view wealth as something that validates my intelligence.”
91. “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”
92. “I don’t think I’ve ever worked so hard on something, but working on Macintosh was the neatest experience of my life. Almost everyone who worked on it will say that. None of us wanted to release it at the end. It was as though we knew that once it was out of our hands, it wouldn’t be ours anymore.”
93. “No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new.”
94. “Woz is living his own life now. He hasn’t been around Apple for about five years. But what he did will go down in history.”
95. “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.”
96. “For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: ‘If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?’ And whenever the answer has been ‘No’ for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.”
97. “These technologies can make life easier, can let us touch people we might not otherwise. You may have a child with a birth defect and be able to get in touch with other parents and support groups, get medical information, the latest experimental drugs. These things can profoundly influence life. I’m not downplaying that.”
98. “My favorite things in life don’t cost any money. It’s really clear that the most precious resource we all have is time.”
99. “I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.”
100. “I’ll always stay connected with Apple. I hope that throughout my life I’ll sort of have the thread of my life and the thread of Apple weave in and out of each other, like a tapestry. There may be a few years when I’m not there, but I’ll always come back.”
101. “We don’t get a chance to do that many things, and every one should be really excellent. Because this is our life. Life is brief, and then you die, you know? So this is what we’ve chosen to do with our life.”
102. “I have a great respect for incremental improvement, and I’ve done that sort of thing in my life, but I’ve always been attracted to the more revolutionary changes. I don’t know why. Because they’re harder. They’re much more stressful emotionally. And you usually go through a period where everybody tells you that you’ve completely failed.”
103. “Through clever and constant application of propaganda, people can be made to see paradise as hell, and also the other way round, to consider the most wretched sort of life as paradise.”
104. “By the skillful and sustained use of propaganda, one can make a people see even heaven as hell or an extremely wretched life as paradise.”
105. “Political work is the life-blood of all economic work.”
106. “The unexamined life is not worth living.”
107. “True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, and the world around us.”
108. “True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, and the world around us.”
109. “Beware the barrenness of a busy life.”
110. “No evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death. He and his are not neglected by the gods.”
111. “Not life, but good life, is to be chiefly valued.”
112. “The end of life is to be like God, and the soul following God will be like Him.”
113. “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
114. “For God so loved the World that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”
115. “Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.”
116. “Just as a candle cannot burn without fire, men cannot live without a spiritual life.”
117. “Just as treasures are uncovered from the earth, so virtue appears from good deeds, and wisdom appears from a pure and peaceful mind. To walk safely through the maze of human life, one needs the light of wisdom and the guidance of virtue.”
118. “The only real failure in life is not to be true to the best one knows.”
119. “Without health life is not life; it is only a state of langour and suffering – an image of death.”
120. “To live a pure unselfish life, one must count nothing as one’s own in the midst of abundance.”
121. “To be idle is a short road to death and to be diligent is a way of life; foolish people are idle, wise people are diligent.”
122. “We are such stuff as dreams are made on; and our little life is rounded with a sleep.”
123. “Life every man holds dear; but the dear man holds honor far more precious dear than life.”
124. “Life is as tedious as twice-told tale, vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man.”
125. “I bear a charmed life.”
126. “And this, our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything.”
127. “This life, which had been the tomb of his virtue and of his honour, is 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.”
128. “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. On such a full sea are we now afloat. And we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures.”
129. “Without knowing what I am and why I am here, life is impossible.”
130. “Joy can only be real if people look upon their life as a service and have a definite object in life outside themselves and their personal happiness.”
131. “Our body is a machine for living. It is organized for that, it is its nature. Let life go on in it unhindered and let it defend itself.”
132. “The changes in our life must come from the impossibility to live otherwise than according to the demands of our conscience not from our mental resolution to try a new form of life.”
133. “The sole meaning of life is to serve humanity.”
134. “True life is lived when tiny changes occur.”
135. “An arrogant person considers himself perfect. This is the chief harm of arrogance. It interferes with a person’s main task in life – becoming a better person.”
136. “Faith is the sense of life, that sense by virtue of which man does not destroy himself, but continues to live on. It is the force whereby we live.”
137. “A man can live and be healthy without killing animals for food; therefore, if he eats meat, he participates in taking animal life merely for the sake of his appetite.”
138. “Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones; and when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace.”
139. “He, who every morning plans the transactions of the day, and follows that plan, carries a thread that will guide him through a labyrinth of the most busy life.”
140. “Death has its revelations: the great sorrows which open the heart open the mind as well; light comes to us with our grief. As for me, I have faith; I believe in a future life. How could I do otherwise? My daughter was a soul; I saw this soul. I touched it, so to speak.”
141. “The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves, or rather in spite of ourselves.”
142. “Our life dreams the Utopia. Our death achieves the Ideal.”
143. “One sometimes says: ‘He killed himself because he was bored with life.’ One ought rather to say: ‘He killed himself because he was bored by lack of life.'”
144. “Life’s greatest happiness is to be convinced we are loved.”
145. “Life is the flower for which love is the honey.”
146. “You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.”
147. “Short as life is, we make it still shorter by the careless waste of time.”
148. “It is from books that wise people derive consolation in the troubles of life.”
149. “The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves.”
150. “Each man should frame life so that at some future hour fact and his dreaming meet.”
151. “Concision in style, precision in thought, decision in life.”
152. “Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life.”
153. “One’s real life is so often the life that one does not lead.”
154. “The one charm about marriage is that it makes a life of deception absolutely necessary for both parties.”
155. “Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead.”
156. “‘The Lady’s World’ should be made the recognized organ for the expression of women’s opinions on all subjects of literature, art and modern life, and yet it should be a magazine that men could read with pleasure.”
157. “In modern life nothing produces such an effect as a good platitude. It makes the whole world kin.”
158. “Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about.”
159. “When I was young I thought that money was the most important thing in life; now that I am old I know that it is.”
160. “I put all my genius into my life; I put only my talent into my works.”
161. “There is something terribly morbid in the modern sympathy with pain. One should sympathise with the colour, the beauty, the joy of life. The less said about life’s sores the better.”
162. “It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.”
163. “To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.”
164. “There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.”
165. “If you are not too long, I will wait here for you all my life.”
166. “In married life three is company and two none.”
167. “All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril. Those who read the symbol do so at their peril. It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors. Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex and vital.”
168. “Fathers should be neither seen nor heard. That is the only proper basis for family life.”
169. “There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.”
170. “Perhaps one of the most difficult things for us to do is to choose a notable and joyous dress for men. There would be more joy in life if we were to accustom ourselves to use all the beautiful colours we can in fashioning our own clothes.”
171. “The world has grown suspicious of anything that looks like a happily married life.”
172. “I think it is perfectly natural for any artist to admire intensely and love a young man. It is an incident in the life of almost every artist.”
173. “Life is never fair, and perhaps it is a good thing for most of us that it is not.”
174. “Life is thickly sown with thorns, and I know no other remedy than to pass quickly through them. The longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater is their power to harm us.”
175. “Woe to the makers of literal translations, who by rendering every word weaken the meaning! It is indeed by so doing that we can say the letter kills and the spirit gives life.”
176. “Let us work without theorizing, ’tis the only way to make life endurable.”
177. “My life is a struggle.”
178. “The safest course is to do nothing against one’s conscience. With this secret, we can enjoy life and have no fear from death.”
179. “I have lived eighty years of life and know nothing for it, but to be resigned and tell myself that flies are born to be eaten by spiders and man to be devoured by sorrow.”
180. “God gave us the gift of life; it is up to us to give ourselves the gift of living well.”
181. “Each player must accept the cards life deals him or her: but once they are in hand, he or she alone must decide how to play the cards in order to win the game.”
182. “Religion was instituted to make us happy in this life and in the other. What must we do to be happy in the life to come? Be just.”
183. “My rule of life prescribed as an absolutely sacred rite smoking cigars and also the drinking of alcohol before, after and if need be during all meals and in the intervals between them.”
184. “We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.”
185. “Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result.”
186. “In war as in life, it is often necessary when some cherished scheme has failed, to take up the best alternative open, and if so, it is folly not to work for it with all your might.”
187. “In the course of my life, I have often had to eat my words, and I must confess that I have always found it a wholesome diet.”
188. “We have always held to the hope, the belief, the conviction that there is a better life, a better world, beyond the horizon.”
189. “Art is not a treasure in the past or an importation from another land, but part of the present life of all living and creating peoples.”
190. “There has never yet been a man in our history who led a life of ease whose name is worth remembering.”
191. “Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.”
192. “I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life.”
193. “Character, in the long run, is the decisive factor in the life of an individual and of nations alike.”
194. “Never throughout history has a man who lived a life of ease left a name worth remembering.”
195. “The things that will destroy America are prosperity-at-any-price, peace-at-any-price, safety-first instead of duty-first, the love of soft living, and the get-rich-quick theory of life.”
196. “No man is worth his salt who is not ready at all times to risk his well-being, to risk his body, to risk his life, in a great cause.”
197. “Men can only be happy when they do not assume that the object of life is happiness.”
198. “Most people get a fair amount of fun out of their lives, but on balance life is suffering, and only the very young or the very foolish imagine otherwise.”
199. “Early in life I had noticed that no event is ever correctly reported in a newspaper.”
200. “A bachelor’s life is a fine breakfast, a flat lunch, and a miserable dinner.”
201. “Life, an age to the miserable, and a moment to the happy.”
202. “But men must know, that in this theatre of man’s life it is reserved only for God and angels to be lookers on.”
203. “Choose the life that is most useful, and habit will make it the most agreeable.”
204. “It is in life as it is in ways, the shortest way is commonly the foulest, and surely the fairer way is not much about.”
205. “The great end of life is not knowledge but action.”
206. “The momentous thing in human life is the art of winning the soul to good or evil.”
207. “In dwelling, live close to the ground. In thinking, keep to the simple. In conflict, be fair and generous. In governing, don’t try to control. In work, do what you enjoy. In family life, be completely present.”
208. “Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them – that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.”
209. “Life and death are one thread, the same line viewed from different sides.”
210. “The poor don’t know that their function in life is to exercise our generosity.”
211. “Life has no meaning the moment you lose the illusion of being eternal.”
212. “All that I know about my life, it seems, I have learned in books.”
213. “One is still what one is going to cease to be and already what one is going to become. One lives one’s death, one dies one’s life.”
214. “Life begins on the other side of despair.”
215. “One always dies too soon or too late. And yet, life is there, finished: the line is drawn, and it must all be added up. You are nothing other than your life.”
216. “We are born, so to speak, twice over; born into existence, and born into life; born a human being, and born a man.”
217. “Reading, solitude, idleness, a soft and sedentary life, intercourse with women and young people, these are perilous paths for a young man, and these lead him constantly into danger.”
218. “Every man has a right to risk his own life for the preservation of it.”
219. “Every man has the right to risk his own life in order to preserve it. Has it ever been said that a man who throws himself out the window to escape from a fire is guilty of suicide?”
220. “All variety of created objects which represent order and life in the universe could happen only by the willful reasoning of its original Creator, whom I call the ‘Lord God.'”
221. “The highest manifestation of life consists in this: that a being governs its own actions. A thing which is always subject to the direction of another is somewhat of a dead thing.”
222. “The popular idea that a child forgets easily is not an accurate one. Many people go right through life in the grip of an idea which has been impressed on them in very tender years.”
223. “One doesn’t recognize the really important moments in one’s life until it’s too late.”
224. “One of the luckiest things that can happen to you in life is, I think, to have a happy childhood.”
225. “Capital is reckless of the health or length of life of the laborer, unless under compulsion from society.”
226. “Faith is a living, daring confidence in God’s grace, so sure and certain that a man could stake his life on it a thousand times.”
227. “If he have faith, the believer cannot be restrained. He betrays himself. He breaks out. He confesses and teaches this gospel to the people at the risk of life itself.”
228. “To gather with God’s people in united adoration of the Father is as necessary to the Christian life as prayer.”
229. “It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.”
230. “Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.”
231. “One must act in painting as in life, directly.”
232. “It is your work in life that is the ultimate seduction.”
233. “Love is the greatest refreshment in life.”
234. “Never permit a dichotomy to rule your life, a dichotomy in which you hate what you do so you can have pleasure in your spare time. Look for a situation in which your work will give you as much happiness as your spare time.”
235. “The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls.”
236. “I do not recognize the right of the public to break in the front door of a man’s private life in order to satisfy the gaze of the curious… I do not think it right to dissect living men even for the advancement of science. So far as I am concerned, I prefer a post mortem examination to vivisection without anaesthetics.”
237. “A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life.”
238. “The boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins?”
239. “Man’s real life is happy, chiefly because he is ever expecting that it soon will be so.”
240. “Life is either a great adventure or nothing.”
241. “Life is an exciting business, and most exciting when it is lived for others.”
242. “Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.”
243. “Once I knew only darkness and stillness… my life was without past or future… but a little word from the fingers of another fell into my hand that clutched at emptiness, and my heart leaped to the rapture of living.”
244. “So long as the memory of certain beloved friends lives in my heart, I shall say that life is good.”
245. “When we do the best that we can, we never know what miracle is wrought in our life, or in the life of another.”
246. “Live your life as though your every act were to become a universal law.”
247. “May you live your life as if the maxim of your actions were to become universal law.”
248. “Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.”
249. “All mankind… being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty or possessions.”
250. “I have spent more than half a lifetime trying to express the tragic moment.”
251. “O, you men who think or say that I am malevolent, stubborn or misanthropic, how greatly do you wrong me. You do not know the secret cause which makes me seem that way to you, and I would have ended my life – it was only my art that held me back. Ah, it seemed impossible to leave the world until I had brought forth all that I felt was within me.”
252. “I must confess that I lead a miserable life. For almost two years, I have ceased to attend any social functions, just because I find it impossible to say to people, ‘I am deaf.’ If I had any other profession, I might be able to cope with my infirmity; but in my profession, it is a terrible handicap.”
253. “Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life.”
254. “An unmarried man, in my opinion, enjoys only half a life.”
255. “Part of the secret of a success in life is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside.”
256. “All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure.”
257. “When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.”
258. “Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen.”
259. “The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”
260. “What a wee little part of a person’s life are his acts and his words! His real life is led in his head, and is known to none but himself.”
261. “Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.”
262. “It put our energies to sleep and made visionaries of us – dreamers and indolent… It is good to begin life poor; it is good to begin life rich – these are wholesome; but to begin it prospectively rich! The man who has not experienced it cannot imagine the curse of it.”
263. “I came in with Halley’s Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don’t go out with Halley’s Comet. The Almighty has said, no doubt: ‘Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together.'”
264. “You see, I am trying in all my stories to get the feeling of the actual life across – not to just depict life – or criticize it – but to actually make it alive. So that when you have read something by me, you actually experience the thing. You can’t do this without putting in the bad and the ugly as well as what is beautiful.”
265. “All my life I’ve looked at words as though I were seeing them for the first time.”
266. “The good parts of a book may be only something a writer is lucky enough to overhear or it may be the wreck of his whole damn life and one is as good as the other.”
267. “If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.”
268. “I love sleep. My life has the tendency to fall apart when I’m awake, you know?”
269. “Every man’s life ends the same way. It is only the details of how he lived and how he died that distinguish one man from another.”
270. “Literature adds to reality, it does not simply describe it. It enriches the necessary competencies that daily life requires and provides; and in this respect, it irrigates the deserts that our lives have already become.”
271. “Everyone has noticed how hard it is to turn our thoughts to God when everything is going well with us… While what we call ‘our own life’ remains agreeable, we will not surrender it to Him. What, then, can God do in our interests but make ‘our own life’ less agreeable to us, and take away the plausible sources of false happiness?”
272. “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.”
273. “Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.”
274. “He had read much, if one considers his long life; but his contemplation was much more than his reading. He was wont to say that if he had read as much as other men he should have known no more than other men.”
275. “There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”
276. “And above all things, never think that you’re not good enough yourself. A man should never think that. My belief is that in life people will take you at your own reckoning.”
277. “Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It’s the transition that’s troublesome.”
278. “The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.”
279. “The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts: therefore, guard accordingly, and take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue and reasonable nature.”
280. “Execute every act of thy life as though it were thy last.”
281. “Life is neither good or evil, but only a place for good and evil.”
282. “The act of dying is one of the acts of life.”
283. “When thou art above measure angry, bethink thee how momentary is man’s life.”
284. “The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it.”
285. “Nothing has such power to broaden the mind as the ability to investigate systematically and truly all that comes under thy observation in life.”
286. “The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.”
287. “And thou wilt give thyself relief, if thou doest every act of thy life as if it were the last.”
288. “To the wise, life is a problem; to the fool, a solution.”
289. “The universe is transformation: life is opinion.”
290. “Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.”
291. “Do every act of your life as if it were your last.”
292. “Our life is what our thoughts make it.”
293. “I feel more and more, every day of my life, how much my dear mamma has done for my establishment. I was the youngest of all her daughters, and she has treated me as if I were the eldest, so that my whole soul is filled with the most tender gratitude.”
294. “It would be doing me great injustice to think that I have any feeling of indifference to my country; I have more reason than anyone to feel, every day of my life, the value of the blood which flows in my veins, and it is only from prudence that at times I abstain from showing how proud I am of it.”
295. “Courage is the price that life exacts for granting peace.”
296. “The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure, the process is its own reward.”
297. “We are separated from God on two sides; the Fall separates us from Him, the Tree of Life separates Him from us.”
298. “Hesitation before birth. If there is a transmigration of souls then I am not yet on the bottom rung. My life is a hesitation before birth.”
299. “If there is a transmigration of souls then I am not yet on the bottom rung. My life is a hesitation before birth.”
300. “Anyone who cannot come to terms with his life while he is alive needs one hand to ward off a little his despair over his fate… but with his other hand he can note down what he sees among the ruins.”
301. “The fact that our task is exactly commensurate with our life gives it the appearance of being infinite.”
302. “The experience of life consists of the experience which the spirit has of itself in matter and as matter, in mind and as mind, in emotion, as emotion, etc.”
303. “Woman, or more precisely put, perhaps, marriage, is the representative of life with which you are meant to come to terms.”
304. “We are sinful not only because we have eaten of the Tree of Knowledge, but also because we have not yet eaten of the Tree of Life. The state in which we are is sinful, irrespective of guilt.”
305. “A nation which has forgotten the quality of courage which in the past has been brought to public life is not as likely to insist upon or regard that quality in its chosen leaders today – and in fact we have forgotten.”
306. “For time and the world do not stand still. Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or the present are certain to miss the future.”
307. “There is always inequality in life. Some men are killed in a war and some men are wounded and some men never leave the country. Life is unfair.”
308. “The world is very different now. For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty, and all forms of human life.”
309. “Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.”
310. “The courage of life is often a less dramatic spectacle than the courage of a final moment; but it is no less a magnificent mixture of triumph and tragedy.”
311. “If anyone is crazy enough to want to kill a president of the United States, he can do it. All he must be prepared to do is give his life for the president’s.”
312. “I am sorry to say that there is too much point to the wisecrack that life is extinct on other planets because their scientists were more advanced than ours.”
313. “Once you say you’re going to settle for second, that’s what happens to you in life.”
314. “I invented my life by taking for granted that everything I did not like would have an opposite, which I would like.”
315. “I had a project for my life which involved 10 years of wandering, then some years of medical studies and, if any time was left, the great adventure of physics.”
316. “It seems, in fact, as though the second half of a man’s life is made up of nothing, but the habits he has accumulated during the first half.”
317. “If you were to destroy the belief in immortality in mankind, not only love but every living force on which the continuation of all life in the world depended, would dry up at once.”
318. “What do you want a meaning for? Life is a desire, not a meaning.”
319. “I suppose that’s one of the ironies of life doing the wrong thing at the right moment.”
320. “Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot.”
321. “Life could be wonderful if people would leave you alone.”
322. “Live your life while you have it. Life is a splendid gift. There is nothing small in it. Far the greatest things grow by God’s law out of the smallest. But to live your life, you must discipline it.”
323. “If I could give you information of my life, it would be to show how a woman of very ordinary ability has been led by God in strange and unaccustomed paths to do In His service what He has done in her. And if I could tell you all, you would see how God has done all, and I nothing.”
324. “There are too many accidents that can befall life on a single planet.”
325. “I have wondered about time all my life.”
326. “All my adult life people have been helping me.”
327. “Life would be tragic if it weren’t funny.”
328. “Life on Earth is at the ever-increasing risk of being wiped out by a disaster, such as sudden global nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus or other dangers we have not yet thought of.”
329. “I think computer viruses should count as life. I think it says something about human nature that the only form of life we have created so far is purely destructive. We’ve created life in our own image.”
330. “We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn’t want to meet.”
331. “However difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at.”
332. “The media need superheroes in science just as in every sphere of life, but there is really a continuous range of abilities with no clear dividing line.”
333. “I believe alien life is quite common in the universe, although intelligent life is less so. Some say it has yet to appear on planet Earth.”
334. “Work gives you meaning and purpose and life is empty without it.”
335. “It’s time to commit to finding the answer, to search for life beyond Earth. Mankind has a deep need to explore, to learn, to know. We also happen to be sociable creatures. It is important for us to know if we are alone in the dark.”
336. “We think that life develops spontaneously on Earth, so it must be possible for life to develop on suitable planets elsewhere in the universe. But we don’t know the probability that a planet develops life.”
337. “I think those who have a terminal illness and are in great pain should have the right to choose to end their own life, and those that help them should be free from prosecution.”
338. “Obviously, because of my disability, I need assistance. But I have always tried to overcome the limitations of my condition and lead as full a life as possible. I have traveled the world, from the Antarctic to zero gravity.”
339. “I have a full and satisfying life. My work and my family are very important to me.”
340. “A return to first principles in a republic is sometimes caused by the simple virtues of one man. His good example has such an influence that the good men strive to imitate him, and the wicked are ashamed to lead a life so contrary to his example.”
341. “The more sand has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it.”
342. “If we have been pleased with life, we should not be displeased with death, since it comes from the hand of the same master.”
343. “I am a poor man and of little worth, who is laboring in that art that God has given me in order to extend my life as long as possible.”
344. “Sabotage did not involve loss of life, and it offered the best hope for future race relations. Bitterness would be kept to a minimum and, if the policy bore fruit, democratic government could become a reality.”
345. “I was first imprisoned in Pretoria, and then, thereafter, I was taken to Robben Island. I stayed there for a couple of weeks. I was taken back to Pretoria when I was charged in the Rivonia trial, when I was then sent to Robben Island for life.”
346. “I will not leave South Africa, nor will I surrender. Only through hardship, sacrifice and militant action can freedom be won. The struggle is my life. I will continue fighting for freedom until the end of my days.”
347. “Even if you have a terminal disease, you don’t have to sit down and mope. Enjoy life and challenge the illness that you have.”
348. “Our daily deeds as ordinary South Africans must produce an actual South African reality that will reinforce humanity’s belief in justice, strengthen its confidence in the nobility of the human soul, and sustain all our hopes for a glorious life for all.”
349. “The names of Dingane and Bambata, Hintsa and Makana, Squngthi and Dalasile, Moshoeshoe and Sekhukhuni, were praised as the glory of the entire African nation. I hoped then that life might offer me the opportunity to serve my people and make my own humble contribution to their freedom struggle.”
350. “There is no passion to be found playing small – in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.”
351. “Prison life, fortunately, I spent a lot of years, about 18 years with other prisoners, and, as I say, they enriched your soul.”
352. “Sometimes, I feel like one who is on the sidelines, who has missed life itself.”
353. “We deem those happy who from the experience of life have learnt to bear its ills without being overcome by them.”
354. “A human being would certainly not grow to be seventy or eighty years old if this longevity had no meaning for the species. The afternoon of human life must also have a significance of its own and cannot be merely a pitiful appendage to life’s morning.”
355. “I have treated many hundreds of patients. Among those in the second half of life – that is to say, over 35 – there has not been one whose problem in the last resort was not that of finding a religious outlook on life.”
356. “Nobody, as long as he moves about among the chaotic currents of life, is without trouble.”
357. “Shrinking away from death is something unhealthy and abnormal which robs the second half of life of its purpose.”
358. “Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness. It is far better take things as they come along with patience and equanimity.”
359. “In the child, consciousness rises out of the depths of unconscious psychic life, at first like separate islands, which gradually unite to form a ‘continent,’ a continuous landmass of consciousness. Progressive mental development means, in effect, extension of consciousness.”
360. “The least of things with a meaning is worth more in life than the greatest of things without it.”
361. “Our heart glows, and secret unrest gnaws at the root of our being. Dealing with the unconscious has become a question of life for us.”
362. “The greatest and most important problems of life are all fundamentally insoluble. They can never be solved but only outgrown.”
363. “I remember my mother’s prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life.”
364. “It is not my nature, when I see a people borne down by the weight of their shackles – the oppression of tyranny – to make their life more bitter by heaping upon them greater burdens; but rather would I do all in my power to raise the yoke than to add anything that would tend to crush them.”
365. “I was born and have ever remained in the most humble walks of life.”
366. “I pass my life in preventing the storm from blowing down the tent, and I drive in the pegs as fast as they are pulled up.”
367. “I never went to school more than six months in my life, but I can say this: that among my earliest recollections, I remember how, when a mere child, I used to get irritated when anybody talked to me in a way I could not understand.”
368. “It is a great piece of folly to attempt to make anything out of my early life.”
369. “You may think it was a very little thing, and in these days it seems to me like a trifle, but it was a most important incident in my life. I could scarcely credit that I, the poor boy, had earned a dollar in less than a day; that by honest work, I had earned a dollar. I was a more hopeful and thoughtful boy from that time.”
370. “If a man had more than one life, I think a little hanging would not hurt this one; but after he is once dead, we cannot bring him back, no matter how sorry we may be; so the boy shall be pardoned.”
371. “The art of war is of vital importance to the state. It is a matter of life and death, a road either to safety or to ruin. Hence it is a subject of inquiry which can on no account be neglected.”
372. “Let everyone try and find that as a result of daily prayer he adds something new to his life, something with which nothing can be compared.”
373. “To deprive a man of his natural liberty and to deny to him the ordinary amenities of life is worse than starving the body; it is starvation of the soul, the dweller in the body.”
374. “Constant development is the law of life, and a man who always tries to maintain his dogmas in order to appear consistent drives himself into a false position.”
375. “Where there is love there is life.”
376. “Purity of personal life is the one indispensable condition for building up a sound education.”
377. “My life is my message.”
378. “There is more to life than increasing its speed.”
379. “The main purpose of life is to live rightly, think rightly, act rightly. The soul must languish when we give all our thought to the body.”
380. “Religion is more than life. Remember that his own religion is the truest to every man even if it stands low in the scales of philosophical comparison.”
381. “Freedom is never dear at any price. It is the breath of life. What would a man not pay for living?”
382. “Ours is one continued struggle against degradation sought to be inflicted upon us by the European, who desire to degrade us to the level of the raw Kaffir, whose occupation is hunting and whose sole ambition is to collect a certain number of cattle to buy a wife with, and then pass his life in indolence and nakedness.”