LIFE QUOTES XXXVII

quotations about life

In a life without obstacles he would doubtless have abandoned himself to chance and to the voluptuous sauntering of adolescence. As he could be free only for an hour or two a day, his strength flowed into that space of time like a river between walls of rock. It is a good discipline for art for a man to confine his efforts between unshakable bounds. In that sense it may be said that misery is a master, not only of thought, but of style; it teaches sobriety to the mind as to the body. When time is doled out and thoughts measured, a man says no word too much, and grows accustomed to thinking only what is essential; so he lives at double pressure, having less time for living.

ROMAIN ROLLAND

Jean-Christophe

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Life consists in molting our illusions. We form creeds today only to throw them away tomorrow. The eagle molts a feather because he is growing a better one.

ELBERT HUBBARD

The American Bible


Everything happens as though I were only one of the particular existences of some great incomprehensible and central being.... Sometimes this great totality of life appears to me so dramatically beautiful that it plunges me into ecstasy. But more often it seems like a monstrous beast that penetrates and surpasses me and which is everywhere, within me and outside me.... And terror grips and envelops me more powerfully from moment to moment.... My only way out is to write, to make others aware of it, so as not to have to feel all of it alone, to get rid of however small a portion of it.

ARTHUR ADAMOV

The Confession

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Life? Bah! It has no value. Of cheap things it is the cheapest. Everywhere it goes begging. Nature spills it out with a lavish hand. Where there is room for one life, she sows a thousand lives, and it's life eats life till the strongest and most piggish life is left.

JACK LONDON

The Sea-Wolf


Weakest and strongest of the things that God has made, Life is the heir of Death, and yet his conqueror--victim at once and victor. All living things succumb to Death's cradle; Life smiles at his impotence, and makes the grave her cradle.

JAMES HINTON

Life in Nature


As for life, it is a battle and a sojourning in a strange land; but the fame that comes after is oblivion.

MARCUS AURELIUS

Meditations

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Life is magical. There is something wonderful in being alive, in having within one's self all sorts of possibilities.

ARTHUR LYNCH

Moods of Life


Life's generally artless ... but it does get these occasional hard-ons for plot. It connects things, nefariously, behind your back, and before you know it you're in the final act of a lousy movie.

GLEN DUNCAN

Talulla Rising


A human life the treasure of the world cannot buy; nor can it redeem one which is misspent; nor can it make full and complete and beautiful a life which is dwarfed and warped and ugly.

JACK LONDON

The Cruise of the Dazzler


The purpose of life is a life of purpose.

BONG R. OSORIO

"The purpose of life is a life of purpose", The Philippine Star, June 20, 2016


All of life is a foreign country.

JACK KEROUAC

letter, June 24, 1949

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Let me leap naked through life's testing flame,
And bear to lose, and yet endure to win.

KENNETH RAND

"The World-Slave"

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Tell someone you love them because life is short, but shout it in Klingon because life is also terrifying and confusing.

ANONYMOUS


For life, with all it yields of joy and woe,
And hope and fear (believe the aged friend),
Is just our chance o' the prize of learning love--
How love might be, hath been indeed, and is.

ROBERT BROWNING

A Death in the Desert


I must not fall asleep in the middle of my life. Out of the blankness that surrounds me I must pluck the incident after incident after incident whose little explosions keep me going.

J. M. COETZEE

In the Heart of the Country

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He lived the life he lived, like anybody, I guess, and he paid his dues, like everybody. Maybe what I mean when I say he made his life so hard was that he always tried to pay his dues in front.

JAMES BALDWIN

Just Above My Head

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Life is a sculpture, chip, chip, chip. In good time, with good patience, even the most formidable rock can be shaped.

BERNARD BECKETT

Malcolm & Juliet

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Life ... is not about how fast you run or even with what degree of grace. It's about perseverance, about staying on your feet and slogging forward no matter what.

DEAN KOONTZ

Odd Thomas


Life is a horizontal fall.

JEAN COCTEAU

Opium

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Life is never a thing of continuous bliss. There is no paradise. Fight and laugh and feel bitter and feel bliss: and fight again. Fight, fight. That is life.

D. H. LAWRENCE

Studies in Classic American Literature

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