LIFE QUOTES XXV

quotations about life

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


Behold the life at ease; it drifts,
The sharpened life commands its course.

GEORGE MEREDITH

"Hard Weather"

Tags: George Meredith


Life ... is only heavy and none else; there is only the one trip, all heavy. Heavy that leads to the grave. For everyone and everything.

PHILIP K. DICK

A Scanner Darkly

Tags: Philip K. Dick


Though I be shut in darkness, and become insentient dust blown idly here and there, I count oblivion a scant price to pay for having once had held against my lip life's brimming cup of hydromel and rue--for having once known woman's holy love and a child's kiss, and for a little space been boon companion to the Day and Night, Fed on the odors of the summer dawn, and folded in the beauty of the stars. Dear Lord, though I be changed to senseless clay, and serve the potter as he turns his wheel, I thank Thee for the gracious gift of tears!

THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH

"Two Moods"

Tags: Thomas Bailey Aldrich


We are buried when we're born. The world is a place of graves occupied and graves potential. Life is what happens while we wait for our appointment with the mortician.

DEAN KOONTZ

Odd Apocalypse


Life is a song, rhythmic and sweet,
Love is its tune;
Treble and base blended in one,
Perfect as June.

ELIZA H. MORTON

"The Song of Life"


What is terrible is that after every one of the phases of my life is finished, I am left with no more than some banal commonplace that everyone knows.

DORIS LESSING

The Golden Notebook

Tags: Doris Lessing


Behind every man's external life, which he leads in company, there is another which he leads alone, and which he carries with him apart. We see but one aspect of our neighbor, as we see but one side of the moon; in either case there is also a dark half, which is unknown to us.

WALTER BAGEHOT

Literary Studies

Tags: Walter Bagehot


As long as you were prepared to stay in it life found room for you. Life was like that, helplessly promiscuous, a doorman who let everyone in.

GLEN DUNCAN

Talulla Rising

Tags: Glen Duncan


Real life seldom structures a decent denouement.

DAN SIMMONS

Hyperion

Tags: Dan Simmons


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.

STEPHEN HAWKING

The Daily News

Tags: Stephen Hawking


Life cannot find reasons to sustain it, cannot be a source of decent mutual regard, unless each of us resolves to breathe such qualities into it.

FRANK HERBERT

Heretics of Dune


We will never recognize the true value of our own lives until we affirm the value in the life of others.

RONALD REAGAN

"Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation"

Tags: Ronald Reagan


Life is futile unless it be directed towards a definite goal.

STEFAN ZWEIG

Twenty-Four Hours in the Life of a Woman

Tags: Stefan Zweig


That's one of the many things I hate about life, that it's a hideously cliched business.

JOHN BANVILLE

The Paris Review, spring 2009

Tags: John Banville


There is more to life than not dying.

CASSANDRA CLARE

Clockwork Angel

Tags: Cassandra Clare


Life is an arrow, therefore you must know
What mark to aim at, how to use the bow--
Then draw it to the head and let it go!

HENRY VAN DYKE

"Epigrams and Greetings"

Tags: Henry Van Dyke


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


Try not to turn your life into a race, least of all an obstacle race.

JOSÉ BERGAMÍN

Head in the Clouds

Tags: José Bergamín


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

ROBERT BROWNING

In a Balcony

Tags: Robert Browning