Motivational Quotes

Life

It is quite true what Philosophy says: that Life must be understood backwards. But that makes one forget the other saying: that it must be lived --forwards. The more one ponders this, the more it comes to mean that life in the temporal existence never becomes quite intelligible, precisely because at no moment can I find complete quiet to take the backward-looking position.

- Kierkegaard, S°ren

Best Quotes about Life

The purpose of life, after all, is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experiences.

Roosevelt, Eleanor

Only to the extent that someone is living out this self transcendence of human existence, is he truly human or does he become his true self. He becomes so, not by concerning himself with his self's actualization, but by forgetting himself and giving himself, overlooking himself and focusing outward.

Frankl, Viktor E.

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

The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labor and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away. [Psalms 90:10]

Bible

We have committed the Golden Rule to memory; let us now commit it to life.

Markham, Edwin

Even when I'm sick and depressed, I love life.

Rubinstein, Arthur

Life moves on, whether we act as cowards or heroes. Life has no other discipline to impose, if we would but realize it, than to accept life unquestioningly. 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.

Miller, Henry

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

Maclaren, Alexander

Man values life as a sacred jewel in such a way that he reveres him most who haughtily scorns it.

Platen

10.

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

11.

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

Stevenson, Adlai E.

12.

Eternal truths will be neither true nor eternal unless they have fresh meaning for every new social situation.

Roosevelt, Franklin D.

13.

Life is indeed difficult, partly because of the real difficulties we must overcome in order to survive, and partly because of our own innate desire to always do better, to overcome new challenges, to self-actualize. Happiness is experienced largely in striving towards a goal, not in having attained things, because our nature is always to want to go on to the next endeavor.

Albert Ellis, Michael Abrams, Lidia Dengelegi

14.

People creep into childhood, bound into youth, sober in adulthood, and soften into old age.

Giles, Henry

15.

Where there is life there is wishful thinking.

Lieberman, Gerald F.

16.

The crime problem in New York is getting really serious. The other day the Statue of Liberty had both hands up.

Leno, Jay

17.

Life is not so much a matter of position as of disposition

18.

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

Seneca

19.

The purpose of life is to fight maturity.

Dick Werthimer

20.

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

21.

Taken in any context, except seriously, life on earth is palatable and positively enjoyable.

22.

Life is a long lesson in humility.

James M. Barrie

23.

Life's splendor forever lies in wait about each one of us in all its fullness, but veiled from view, deep down, invisible, far off. It is there, though, not hostile, not reluctant, not deaf. If you summon it by the right word, by its right name, it will come.

Kafka, Franz

24.

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

25.

You can have peace of mind, improved health and an ever-increasing flow of energy. Life can be full of joy and satisfaction.

Peale, Norman Vincent

26.

Life is an onion and one cries while peeling it.

Proverb, French

27.

Living the truth in your heart without compromise brings kindness into the world. Attempts at kindness that compromise your heart cause only sadness.

28.

The real being, with no status, is always going in and out through the doors of your face.

Lin-Chi

29.

Living Life Tomorrow's fate, though thou be wise, Thou canst not tell nor yet surmise; Pass, therefore, not today in vain, For it will never come again.

Khayyam, Omar

30.

Men must live and create. Live to the point of tears.

Camus, Albert

31.

Life is divided up into the horrible and the miserable.

Allen, Woody

32.

Life can be pulled by goals just as surely as it can be pushed by drives.

Frankl, Viktor E.

33.

Life is like eating artichokes, you have got to go through so much to get so little.

Dorgan, Thomas A.

34.

When we speak the word life, it must be understood we are not referring to life as we know it from its surface of fact, but to that fragile, fluctuating center which forms never reach.

Artaud, Antonin

35.

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

Ward, William A.

36.

Life is an earnest business, and no one every became good or great on a diet of broad grins.

Blackie, Professor

37.

You live in a deranged age, more deranged that usual, because in spite of great scientific and technological advances, man has not the faintest idea of who he is or what he is doing.

Percy, Walker

38.

Man alone is born crying, lives complaining, and dies disappointed.

Temple, Sir William

39.

In real life, however, you don't react to what someone did; you react only to what you think she did, and the gap between action and perception is bridged by the art of impression management. If life itself is but what you deem it, then why not focus your efforts on persuading others to believe that you are a virtuous and trustworthy cooperator?

Jonathan Haidt

40.

The purpose of life is to be defeated by greater and greater things

Rilke, Rainer Maria

41.

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

Smith, Logan Pearsall

42.

Life is an end in itself, and the only question as to whether it is worth living is whether you have had enough of it.

Holmes Jr., Oliver Wendell

43.

For everything that lives is holy, life delights in life.

Blake, William

44.

If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a movable feast.

Hemingway, Ernest

45.

Live as if everything you do will eventually be known.

Prather, Hugh

46.

Living is like working out a long addition sum, and if you make a mistake in the first two totals you will never find the right answer. It means involving oneself in a complicated chain of circumstances.

Pavese, Cesare

47.

Every true man, sir, who is a little above the level of the beasts and plants does not live for the sake of living, without knowing how to live; but he lives so as to give a meaning and a value of his own to life.

Pirandello, Luigi

48.

The essence of life is finding something you really love and then making the daily experience worthwhile.

Waitley, Denis

49.

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

50.

Life is a continual process of remaking ourselves.