quotations about life
Life is a process of modification and descent, rather than genesis. There was never a moment when an egg hatched a brand new thing called a chicken, or when a chicken produced, unexpectedly, something bizarre called an egg.
JOEL ACHENBACH
"The 4 biggest milestones in the history of life on Earth", Albuquerque Journal, September 1, 2016
The meaning of our lives is revealed through experiences that at first seem at odds with each other--moments we wish would never end and moments we wish had never begun.
JOHN ELDREDGE
Desire
Life ain't in holdin' a good hand but in playin' a poor one well.
KEN ALSTAD
Savvy Sayin's
Why, what in the world should we care for if it's not our lives, the only gift the Lord never offers us a second time?
MARCEL PROUST
Swann's Way
Life is what you put into it and how much you take out of it. You put in more than is expected, and you take out less than you want.
MICHAEL J. FOX
Good Housekeeping, June 2011
Life itself was only futility, vain words, a squabble of cap and bells.
MICHEL FOUCAULT
Madness & Civilization
Life figures itself to me as a festal or funereal procession.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
"The Procession of Life"
He had learned the worst lesson that life can teach -- that it makes no sense.
PHILIP ROTH
American Pastoral
I count life just a stuff
To try the soul's strength on.
ROBERT BROWNING
In a Balcony
Life is, alas, one eternal combat.
SARAH BERNHARDT
The Idol of Paris
Life doesn't have a neat beginning and a tidy end; life is always going on. You should begin in the middle and end in the middle, and it should be all there.
V. S. NAIPAUL
Half a Life
You can swim in life and seawater, but both are hard to swallow.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
Life unshared has scarce a charm.
C. B. LANGSTON
"Solitude"
If people knew the story of their lives how many would then elect to live them? People speak about what is in store. But there is nothing in store. The day is made of what has come before. The world itself must be surprised at the shape of that which appears. Perhaps even God.
CORMAC MCCARTHY
The Crossing
Life is short, if we are only said to live when we enjoy ourselves; and if we were merely to count up the hours we spent agreeably, a great number of years would hardly make up a life of a few months.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of the Affections", Les Caractères
If you can spend a perfectly useless afternoon in a perfectly useless manner, you have learned how to live.
LIN YUTANG
The Literary Digest, 1938
Life is short, but its ills make it seem long.
PUBLILIUS SYRUS
The Moral Sayings of Publilius Syrus
Life is an incurable disease.
ABRAHAM COWLEY
To Dr. Scarborough
Life is a Shylock; always it demands
The fullest userer's interest for each pleasure.
Gifts are not freely scattered by its hands;
We make returns for every borrowed treasure.
ELLA WHEELER WILCOX
"The Law"
Sometimes I believe that this less material life is our truer life, and that our vain presence on the terraqueous globe is itself the secondary or merely virtual phenomenon.
H. P. LOVECRAFT
"Beyond the Wall of Sleep"