LIFE QUOTES XV

quotations about life

Life is short and tedious, and is wholly spent in wishing; we trust to find rest and enjoyment at some future time, often at an age when our best blessings, youth and health, have already left us. When at last I that time has arrived, it surprises us in the midst of fresh desires; we have got no farther when we are attacked by a fever which kills us; if we had been cured, it would only have been to give us more time for other desires.

JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE

"Of Mankind", Les Caractères


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


I wear the chain I forged in life....I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it.

CHARLES DICKENS

A Christmas Carol

Tags: Charles Dickens


Whoever has lived long enough to find out what life is, knows how deep a debt of gratitude we owe to Adam, the first great benefactor of our race. He brought death into the world.

MARK TWAIN

The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson

Tags: Mark Twain


In a dream thou mayst live a lifetime, and all be forgotten in the morning:
Even such is life, and so soon perisheth its memory.

MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER

Proverbial Philosophy


Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that's the stuff life is made of.

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

Poor Richard's Almanac

Tags: Benjamin Franklin


As you speed along the highway of life ... you might pause and consider. When everything's coming your way, maybe you're driving in the wrong lane.

JOSEPH FINDER

Paranoia

Tags: Joseph Finder


There is one purpose to life and one only: to bear witness to and understand as much as possible of the complexity of the world -- its beauty, its mysteries, its riddles.

ANNE RICE

Servant of the Bones

Tags: Anne Rice


The life so short, the craft so long to learn.

GEOFFREY CHAUCER

"Parliament of Fowls"

Tags: Geoffrey Chaucer


Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing,
Only a signal shown and a distant voice in the darkness;
So on the ocean of life we pass and speak one another,
Only a look and a voice, then darkness again and a silence.

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

"The Theologian's Tale", Tales of a Wayside Inn

Tags: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow


Life should be touched, not strangled.

RAY BRADBURY

Farewell Summer

Tags: Ray Bradbury


Life seems to me a preparation for something that never happens.

WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

Reveries over Childhood and Youth

Tags: William Butler Yeats


Life isn't what you think it is. It's like water, and the young let it trickle away between their fingers without even noticing. Cup your hands, keep it safe. Life eventually becomes something else, something hard, something simple, something you can hold in your hand and nibble on contentedly as you sit in the sun.

JEAN ANOUILH

Antigone

Tags: Jean Anouilh


Life is nothing but a statement of what happens to be.

GLEN DUNCAN

The Last Werewolf

Tags: Glen Duncan


Life is indeed either a rich possession or a poor, according as it is made subservient to noble aims or ignoble pleasures.

CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE

Intuitions and Summaries of Thought

Tags: Christian Nestell Bovee


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?"

Tags: Ardelia Cotton Barton


Brief and powerless is man's life; on him and all his race the slow, sure doom falls pitiless and dark.

BERTRAND RUSSELL

Philosophical Essays

Tags: Bertrand Russell


A nation of unimpressible philosophers would not care at all how the externals of life were managed. Who is the showman is not material unless you care about the show.

WALTER BAGEHOT

The English Constitution

Tags: Walter Bagehot


What is our life? A play of passion.
Our mirth the music of division.
Our mother's wombs the tyring houses be,
Where we are drest for this short Comedy.

SIR WALTER RALEIGH

"On the Life of Man"

Tags: Sir Walter Raleigh


This life ought to be used as a thing lent.

SPANISH PROVERB