LIFE QUOTES XXVI

quotations about life

Life itself was only futility, vain words, a squabble of cap and bells.

MICHEL FOUCAULT

Madness & Civilization

Tags: Michel Foucault


Wrong life cannot be lived rightly.

THEODOR W. ADORNO

Minima Moralia

Tags: Theodor W. Adorno


If we could live for a million years, then maybe it would be worthwhile to create some problems. But our life is short. Now you see, we are guests here on this planet, visitors who have come for a short time, so we need to use our days wisely, to make our world a little better for everyone.

DOUGLAS CARLTON ABRAMS

The Book of Joy

Tags: Douglas Carlton Abrams


There is an ecstasy that marks the summit of life, and beyond which life cannot rise. And such is the paradox of living, this ecstasy comes when one is most alive, and it comes as a complete forgetfulness that one is alive.

JACK LONDON

The Call of the Wild

Tags: Jack London


Life is a string of uncooked macaroni on a double strand of sewing thread. Not even spray painted gold. Some people have strings of expensive pearls for lives, but not me ... I have macaroni and sewing thread.

ANN WUEHLER

The Care and Feeding of Baby Birds

Tags: Ann Wuehler


Man reaches each stage in his life as a novice.

CHAMFORT

The Cynic's Breviary


Thus will we deal with life, my little help-meet. Will we not, eh? What though it blink at us like an owl that is blinded by the sun, we will yet force it to smile.

LEONID ANDREYEV

The Life of Man

Tags: Leonid Andreyev


Life is a pilgrimage and if you don't play by the rules you don't find the Road to Damascus, you find the Crown of Thorns.

ANITA BROOKNER

The Paris Review, fall 1987

Tags: Anita Brookner


Life was not fair. If you wanted something you had to take it. Before someone else took it from you. Neatly dissected down to its essence, life was one long series of lily pad hoppings. The quick and the resourceful were able to adapt and survive; all others were simply crushed as a more nimble creature landed on the lily pad they had occupied for too long.

DAVID BALDACCI

The Winner

Tags: David Baldacci


Mortal! that cull'st the flowers of life,
Think not to escape the thorn.

WILLIAM B. TAPPAN

"The Thorn of Life"

Tags: William B. Tappan


Life is the lust of a lamp for the light that is dark till the dawn of the day that we die.

ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE

"Nephelidia"

Tags: Algernon Charles Swinburne


All life is only a set of pictures in the brain, among which there is no difference betwixt those born of real things and those born of inward dreamings, and no cause to value the one above the other.

H. P. LOVECRAFT

"The Silver Key"

Tags: H. P. Lovecraft


Life is hard. Then you die. Then they throw dirt in your face. Then the worms eat you. Be grateful it happens in that order.

DAVID GERROLD

Alternate Gerrolds

Tags: David Gerrold


Life is one long struggle in the dark.

LUCRETIUS

De Rerum Natura

Tags: Lucretius


Life is like a moustache. It can be wonderful or terrible. But it always tickles.

NORA ROBERTS

From the Heart

Tags: Nora Roberts


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

Tags: Michael J. Fox


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


Every person, all the events of your life are there because you have drawn them there. What you choose to do with them is up to you.

RICHARD BACH

Illusions

Tags: Richard Bach


The bright side of life's unpredictability is that it's not over until it's over. As dark as the passages and confusing as the cul-de-sacs that you find yourself in are, progress is nevertheless being made. Something is unfolding. You are becoming.

MARION WINIK

Ladies Home Journal, Dec. 2008


I was thinking how amazing it was that the world contained so many lives. Out in these streets people were embroiled in a thousand different matters, money problems, love problems, school problems. People were falling in love, getting married, going to drug rehab, learning how to ice-skate, getting bifocals, studying for exams, trying on clothes, getting their hair-cut and getting born. And in some houses people were getting old and sick and were dying, leaving others to grieve. It was happening all the time, unnoticed, and it was the thing that really mattered.

JEFFREY EUGENIDES

Middlesex