Motivational Quotes

Life

To live lightheartedly but not recklessly; to be gay without being boisterous; to be courageous without being bold; to show trust and cheerful resignation without fatalism -- this is the art of living.

- La Fontaine, Jean De

Best Quotes about Life

Life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent. We would not dare to conceive the things which are really merely commonplaces of existence. If we could fly out of that window hand in hand, hover over this great city, gently remove the roofs and peep in at the queer things which are going on, the strange coincidences, the planning, the cross-purposes, the wonderful chain of events, working through generations and leading to the most outer results, it would make all fiction with its conventionalities and foreseen conclusions most stale and unprofitable.

Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan

The art of mastering life is the prerequisite for all further forms of expression, whether they are paintings, sculptures, tragedies, or musical compositions.

Klee, Paul

Life is a series of steps. Things are done gradually. Once in a while there is a giant step, but most of the time we are taking small, seemingly insignificant steps on the stairway of life.

Ransom, Ralph

Life is a petty thing unless it is moved by the indomitable urge to extend its boundaries. Only in proportion as we are desirous of living more do we really live.

Gasset, Jose Ortega Y

The average person living to age 70 has 613, 000 hours of life. This is too long a period not to have fun.

There is no solitude in the world like that of the big city.

Norris, Kathleen

Well, take your time and don't live too fast. Troubles will come and they will pass. Find a woman and you'll find love. Don't forget, son, there is someone up above.

Skynard, Lynard

What should I say about life? That it's long and abhors transparence.

Brodsky, Joseph

All that man has will he give for his life.

Bible

10.

Life was a funny thing that happened to me on the way to the grave.

Crisp, Quentin

11.

If I shall sell both my forenoons and afternoons to society, as most appear to do, I'm sure that, for me, there would be nothing left worth living for.

Thoreau, Henry David

12.

The life of man is a journey; a journey that must be traveled, however bad the roads or the accommodation.

Goldsmith, Oliver

13.

Youth is too tumultuous for felicity; old age too insecure for happiness. The period most favorable to enjoyment, in a vigorous, fortunate, and generous life, is that between forty and sixty.

Bovee, Christian Nevell

14.

The joy of life consists in the exercise of one's energies, continual growth, constant change, the enjoyment of every new experience. To stop means simply to die. The eternal mistake of mankind is to set up an attainable ideal.

Crowley, Aleister

15.

Life flows on within you and without you.

Harrison, George

16.

In the early days all I hoped was to make a living out of what I did best. But, since there's no real market for masturbation I had to fall back on my bass playing abilities.

Claypool, Les

17.

Man's course begins in a garden, but it ends in a city.

Maclaren, Alexander

18.

People say that what we're all seeking is a meaning for life. I think that what we're really seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonance within our innermost being and reality, so that we can actually feel the rapture of being alive.

Campbell, Joseph

19.

The Metropolis should have been aborted long before it became New York, London or Tokyo.

Galbraith, John Kenneth

20.

Not how long, but how well you have lived is the main thing.

Seneca

21.

Your life is what your thoughts make it.

Aurelius, Marcus

22.

Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood.

Curie, Madame Marie

23.

Life has taught me that it is not for our faults that we are disliked and even hated, but for our qualities.

Berenson, Bernard

24.

This life of separateness may be compared to a dream, a phantasm, a bubble, a shadow, a drop of dew, a flash of lightning.

Buddha

25.

A great city, whose image dwells in the memory of man, is the type of some great idea. Rome represents conquest; Faith hovers over the towers of Jerusalem; and Athens embodies the pre-eminent quality of the antique world, Art.

Disraeli, Benjamin

26.

Life is a great surprise. I don't see why death should not be an even greater one.

Nabokov, Vladimir

27.

Life is very interesting if you make mistakes.

Carpentier, Georges

28.

Every time I look into the eyes of an animal I see life; the force of life and the beauty of creation

O'Reilly, Radar

29.

The goal of life is living in agreement with nature.

Zeno

30.

So in all these little ways we spin a web, a cocoon, around ourselves. The cocoon becomes nice and snug and comfortable because it is very familiar. We know every little corner of our life; we can even write poetry about it. We may also have ideas about the great mystery which religions speak of, which gives our cocoon an especial sense of security: we can worship the great mystery outside of it and feel good about that. The cocoon is safe, bounded, claustrophobic, and a little stale. We settle into it and live our lives.

Hayward, Jeremy W.

31.

The drama of life begins with a wail and ends with a sigh.

Antrim, Minna

32.

Life is a rollercoaster. Try to eat a light lunch.

Schmaltz, David A.

33.

One belongs to New York instantly. One belongs to it as much in five minutes as in five years.

Wolfe, Thomas

34.

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet, death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it, and that is how it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It's life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new.

Steve Jobs

35.

A neighborhood is a residential area that is changing for the worse.

Ciardi, John

36.

The interest in life does not lie in what people do, nor even in their relations to each other, but largely in the power to communicate with a third party, antagonistic, enigmatic, yet perhaps persuadable, which one may call life in general.

Woolf, Virginia

37.

The supreme irony of life is that hardly anyone gets out of it alive.

Robert Heinlein

38.

What I like about cities is that everything is king size, the beauty and the ugliness.

Brodsky, Joseph

39.

Three keys to more abundant living: caring about others, daring for others, sharing with others.

Ward, William A.

40.

Be a life long or short, its completeness depends on what it was lived for.

Jordan, David Starr

41.

The aim of life is some way of living, as flexible and gentle as human nature; so that ambition may stoop to kindness, and philosophy to condor and humor. Neither prosperity nor empire nor heaven can be worth winning at the price of a virulent temper, bloody hands, an anguished spirit, and a vain hatred of the rest of the world.

Santayana, George

42.

The lessons this life has planted in my heart pertain more to caring than crops, more to Golden Rule than gold, more to the proper choice than to the popular choice.

Kirby Larson

43.

It is very certain that the desire of life prolongs it.

Byron, Lord

44.

Life is like wine, the longer you take to enjoy it the more chance you've got of tasting vinegar.

45.

To find the point where hypothesis and fact meet; the delicate equilibrium between dream and reality; the place where fantasy and earthly things are metamorphosed into a work of art; the hour when faith in the future becomes knowledge of the past; to lay down one's power for others in need; to shake off the old ordeal and get ready for the new; to question, knowing that never can the full answer be found; to accept uncertainties quietly, even our incomplete knowledge of God; this is what man's journey is about, I think.

Smith, Lillian

46.

The purpose of life is the expansion of happiness.

Yogi, Maharishi Mahesh

47.

This is what you shall do: love the earth and sun, and animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence towards the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown, or to any man or number of men; go freely with the powerful uneducated persons, and with the young, and mothers, of families: read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life: re-examine all you have been told at school or church, or in any books, and dismiss whatever insults your soul.

Whitman, Walt

48.

It is advisable that a person know at least three things, where they are, where they are going, and what they had best do under the circumstances.

Ruskin, John

49.

If I had been present at creation, I would have given some useful hints.

Wise, Alfonso The

50.

We quaff the cup of life with eager haste without draining it, instead of which it only overflows the brim -- objects press around us, filling the mind with the throng of desires that wait upon them, so that we have no room for the thoughts of death.

Wilde, Oscar