Life and Living

Thoughtful quotes about life and living.

Words of Wisdom

"Life is a dynamic process. It welcomes anyone who takes up the invitation to be an active part of it. What we call the secret of happiness is no more a secret than our willingness to choose life." (Leo Buscaglia)

"This is your life, and nobody is going to teach you - no book, no guru. You have to learn from yourself, not from books. It is an endless thing, it is a fascinating thing, and when you learn about yourself from yourself, out of that learning wisdom comes. Then you can live a most extraordinary, happy, beautiful life." (J. Krishnamutri).

"The fundamental fact of human awareness is this: I am life that wants to live in the midst of other life that wants to live." (Albert Schweitzer)

"I don't want to get to the end of my life and find that I lived just the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as well." (Diane Ackerman)

"It is said that there is a grave high in the mountains of Switzerland with the simple inscription 'He died climbing.' This is a metaphor for life. At least, it is a metaphor for the fulfilling life, which is an ongoing struggle to reach new heights." (Robert and Jeannette Lauer)

"You get what you settle for." (from Thelma and Louise)

"You know, life is short, but it's also very wide." (Naomi Judd)

"Here is the test to find whether your mission on earth is finished: If you're alive, it isn't." (Richard Bach)

"Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived in order to be understood." (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

"Live your own life, for you will die your own death." (old proverb)

"You should live so that when you die, God is in your debt." (Bernard Shaw)

"If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it; blame yourself, tell yourself that you are not poet enough to call forth its riches." (Rainer Maria Rilke)

"There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval." (George Santayana)

"Life is a great big canvass, and you should throw all the paint on it you can." (Danny Kaye)

"Your life feels different on you, once you greet death and understand your heart's position. You wear your life like a garment from the mission bundle sale ever after-lightly because you realize you paid nothing for it, cherishing because you know you won't ever come by such a bargain again." (Louise Erdrich)

"There are years that ask questions and years that answer." (Zora Neale Hurston)

"You can always live on less when you have more to live for." (author unknown)

"You only live once - but if you work it right, once is enough." (Joe E Lewis)

"Life moves on whether we act as cowards or heroes. Life has no other discipline to impose, if we could but realize it, than to accept life unquestionably. Everything we shut our eyes to, everything we run away from, everything we deny, denigrate or despise serves to defeat us in the end. What seems nasty, painful, evil, can become a source of beauty, joy, and strength, if faced with an open mind. Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize it as such." (Henry Miller)

"Live your life in one day packages." (Criswell Freeman)

"The value of a thing sometimes lies not in what one attains with it, but in what one pays for it, - what did it cost us." (Nietzsche)

"People who live in a Golden Age usually go around complaining how yellow everything looks." (Randall Jarrell)

"Life is an infant that must be rocked in its cradle before it falls to sleep." (Voltaire)

"We are always getting ready to live, but never living." (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

"Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards." (Soren Kierkegaard)

"If I should begin life again, I should want it just as it was; only I would open my eyes a little more." (Jules Renard)

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