Motivational Quotes

Life

Those who talk on the razor-edge of double-meanings pluck the rarest blooms from the precipice on either side.

- Smith, Logan Pearsall

Best Quotes about Life

Like bees, they must put their lives into the sting they give.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

If God exists and we are made in his image we can have real meaning, and we can have real knowledge through what he has communicated to us.

Schaeffer, Francis

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

Most people think life sucks, and then you die. Not me. I beg to differ. I think life sucks, then you get cancer, then your dog dies, your wife leaves you, the cancer goes into remission, you get a new dog, you get remarried, you owe ten million dollars in medical bills but you work hard for thirty-five years and you pay it back and then -- one day -- you have a massive stroke, your whole right side is paralyzed, you have to limp along the streets and speak out of the left side of your mouth and drool but you go into rehabilitation and regain the power to walk and the power to talk and then -- one day -- you step off a curb at Sixty-seventh Street, and BANG you get hit by a city bus and then you die. Maybe.

Leary, Denis

Not to find one's way in a city may well be uninteresting and banal. It requires ignorance -- nothing more. But to lose oneself in a city -- as one loses oneself in a forest -- that calls for a quite different schooling. Then, signboard and street names, passers-by, roofs, kiosks, or bars must speak to the wanderer like a cracking twig under his feet in the forest.

Benjamin, Walter

Life is a dream for the wise, a game for the fool, a comedy for the rich, a tragedy for the poor.

Aleichem, Sholom

No city should be too large for a man to walk out of in a morning.

Connolly, Cyril

You must understand the whole of life, not just one little part of it. That is why you must read, that is why you must look at the skies, that is why you must sing and dance, and write poems, and suffer, and understand, for all that is life.

Krishnamurti, Jiddu

There is a time of life somewhere between the sullen fugues of adolescence and the retrenchments of middle age when human nature becomes so absolutely absorbing one wants to be in the city constantly, even at the height of summer.

Hoagland, Edward

10.

The chief function of the city is to convert power into form, energy into culture, dead matter into the living symbols of art, biological reproduction into social creativity.

Mumford, Lewis

11.

Life is like a taxi. The meter just keeps a-ticking whether you are getting somewhere or just standing still.

Erickson, Lou

12.

If you believed more in life you would fling yourself less to the moment.

Nietzsche, Friedrich

13.

Everywhere one seeks to produce meaning, to make the world signify, to render it visible. We are not, however, in danger of lacking meaning; quite the contrary, we are gorged with meaning and it is killing us.

Baudrillard, Jean

14.

A life of ease is a difficult pursuit.

Cowper, William

15.

Life itself is the proper binge.

Child, Julia

16.

How could drops of water know themselves to be a river? Yet the river flows on.

Saint-Exupery, Antoine De

17.

This city now doth, like a garment, wear the beauty of the morning; silent bare, ships, towers, domes, theatres and temples lie open unto the fields and to the sky; All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.

Wordsworth, William

18.

He who allows his day to pass by without practicing generosity and enjoying life's pleasures is like a blacksmith's bellows. He breathes, but does not live.

Proverb

19.

Washington is an endless series of mock palaces clearly built for clerks.

Huxtable, Ada Louise

20.

We are here to add what we can to life, not to get what we can from it.

Osler, Sir William

21.

Washington is no place for a good actor. The competition from bad actors is too great.

Allen, Fred A.

22.

To live life well is to express life poorly; if one expresses life too well, one is living it no longer.

Bachelard, Gaston

23.

There is more sophistication and less sense in New York than anywhere else on the globe.

Herold, Don

24.

When in Rome, do as Rome does.

Bierce, Ambrose

25.

Take life as you find it, but don't leave it that way

26.

Challenging the meaning of life is the truest expression of the state of being human.

Frankl, Viktor E.

27.

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.

28.

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

Brodsky, Joseph

29.

I believe that life is a journey, often difficult and sometimes incredibly cruel, but we are well equipped for it if only we tap into our talents and gifts and allow them to blossom.

Brown, Les

30.

Darkness within darkness. The gateway to all understanding.

Lao-Tzu

31.

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

Crisp, Quentin

32.

Those who live are those who fight.

Hugo, Victor

33.

Washington is a city of people doing badly what should not be done at all.

Gurney, Robert

34.

The hardest years in life are those between ten and seventy.

Hayes, Helen

35.

Life -- No, I've nothing to teach you about it for the moment. May be writing about it another week.

Forster, Edward M.

36.

In Washington, the first thing people tell you is what their job is. In Los Angeles you learn their star sign. In Houston you're told how rich they are. And in New York they tell you what their rent is.

Hoggart, Simon

37.

Not by gain our life is measured, But by what we've lost 'Tis scored; 'Tis not how much wine is drunken But how much has been outpoured. For the strength of love never standeth In the sacrifice we bear; He who has the greatest suffering Ever has the most to share.

Nee, Watchman

38.

To live is to go on a journey; to die is to come back home.

39.

Every perfect life is a parable invented by God.

Weil, Simone

40.

Life is always walking up to us and saying, 'Come on in, the living's fine,' and what do we do? Back off and take its picture.

Baker, Russell (Wayne)

41.

The life of man is a long march through the night, surrounded by invisible foes, tortured by weariness and pain, towards a goal that few can hope to reach, and where none may tarry long.

Russell, Bertrand

42.

Boston is a moral and intellectual nursery always busy applying first principles to trifles.

Santayana, George

43.

Dance like no one is watching, Love like you'll never be hurt, Sing like no one is listening, Live like it's heaven on earth.

Purkey, William

44.

I can't be bitter. No one has a contract on life.

Heath, David M.

45.

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

46.

It is faith in something and enthusiasm for something that makes a life worth looking at.

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

47.

It is not the years in your life but the life in your years that counts!

Stevenson, Adlai E.

48.

A life is like a tree -- if you don't make it straight when its young and green, you'll never do it when it's old and dry.

49.

Life at the top is financially rewarding, spiritually draining, physically exhausting, and short.

Newman, Peter C.

50.

The cities of America are inexpressibly tedious. The Bostonians take their learning too sadly; culture with them is an accomplishment rather than an atmosphere; their Hub, as they call it, is the paradise of prigs. Chicago is a sort of monster-shop, full of bustles and bores. Political life at Washington is like political life in a suburban vestry. Baltimore is amusing for a week, but Philadelphia is dreadfully provincial; and though one can dine in New York one could not dwell there.

Wilde, Oscar