quotations about life
And life itself spoke this secret to me. "Behold," it said, "I am that which must ever overcome itself."
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Life is not like water. Things in life don't necessarily flow over the shortest possible route.
HARUKI MURAKAMI
1Q84
Life is good, be it stubbornly long or suddenly
A mortal splendor: meteors are not needed less than mountains.
ROBINSON JEFFERS
"Shine, Perishing Republic"
The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began,
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.
J. R. R. TOLKIEN
The Fellowship of the Ring
Life is what you do while you're waiting to die.
DONALD TRUMP
interview, Playboy, Mar. 1990
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"
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
Life is exponential. Two becomes four, becomes ten thousand, becomes a plague.
PAOLO BACIGALUPI
The Windup Girl
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
You know your life needs more excitement when your greatest challenge all week is removing the lint from your dryer's lint-screen all in one piece!
TOM WILSON
Ziggy, Jan. 16, 1998
For some reason or the other man looks for the miracle, and to accomplish it he will wade through blood. He will debauch himself with ideas, he will reduce himself to a shadow if for only one second of his life he can close his eyes to the hideousness of reality. Everything is endured--disgrace, humiliation, poverty, war, crime, ennui--in the belief that overnight something will occur, a miracle, which will render life tolerable.
HENRY MILLER
Tropic of Cancer
Life is a movement outward, an unfolding.
ELBERT HUBBARD
The American Bible
Life divine! O life eternal!
Man cannot translate the thought.
Strong the chain that God hath welded;
Link on link hath chain been wrought.
Fabric new each day is woven,
Woven it on God's own loom.
We the threads can ne'er unravel,
Hidden they in Nature's womb.
ARDELIA COTTON BARTON
"Dost Thou Know?"
Life is dangerous. That's what makes it interesting.
JOHN TWELVE HAWKS
The Traveler
Maybe a long life does have to be filled with many unpleasant conditions if it's to seem long. But in that event, who wants one?
JOSEPH HELLER
Catch-22
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
Try not to turn your life into a race, least of all an obstacle race.
JOSÉ BERGAMÍN
Head in the Clouds
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
The understanding of human existence that sees life as having death as its inevitable end presumes that life is lived only in opposition to dying and seeks the conquest of death; that is, immortality, or eternal life. Here, death is always seen as alien to life, something to be overcome. In contrast to this, the understanding of human existence as a continuous living-and-dying does not view life and death as objects in mutual opposition but as two aspects of indivisible reality. Present life is understood as something that undergoes continuous living-and-dying.
MASAO ABE
Zen and the Modern World
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