Desire to live

“ You can incite in the minds of those around you a desire to live a pure, straightforward life. You can bid those who are almost overwhelmed by the billows and waves of sorrow, to look up and see the sun shining through the rifts in the dark clouds passing o'er them. ”

“ But I might not have succeeded. For I have tasted life and found it good and the desire to live, the will to live, is so strong within me that it might have been stronger than the sense of my duty, of your right, or anything else. ”

“ In you the vile desire to live for living's sake will soon be dead, if it is not dead already. Your soul, drawn strongly upward to other spheres, is well nigh loosed from love of life and fear of death. ”

“ Whatever state this world could have reached must ere now have been attained, and not only once but an incalculable number of times. 249
My doctrine is: Live so that thou mayest desire to live again,—that is thy duty,—for in any case thou wilt live again! He unto whom striving is the greatest happiness, let him strive; he unto whom peace is the greatest happiness, let him rest; he unto whom subordination, following, obedience, is the greatest happiness, let him obey. ”

“ None with whom to speak,
Not even desire for life.
Yet thou must live!
I must! I must!
But for what?
That I may not lose my soul?
My soul is not worth
such suffering!
Then why must I live on
in the world. ”

“ If he shall day by day dwell merciful, Holy and just and kind and true; and rend Desire from where it clings with bleeding roots, Till love of life have end: He—dying—leaveth as the sum of him A life-count closed, whose ills are dead and quit, Whose good is quick and mighty, far and near, So that fruits follow it. No need hath such to live as ye name life ”

“ Understand me, please, this desire is not a restless longing, an aching void, as is found in an unregenerate heart or in a soul in spiritual decline; but it is the delightful struggling of a soul bearing the likeness of God, to conform to the natural law of development pent up within its bosom. ”

“ But here is the secret: it is man ceasing to live the self-life and Christ living in him.
Imagine a hollow brass figure in the exact image of a man. Suppose you fill this hollow figure with a kind of life which we shall call self-life. This life goes to using the hands and feet, and eyes, ears, tongue, in short, all the members of this brass figure, but using them in the interest of itself. Now you desire to make a change; you want that image to speak, act, and think only for you. ”

“ This purpose must carry with it the assent of the reason, the approval of the conscience, the sober judgment of the intellect. It should thus embody within itself whatever is vehement in desire, inspiring in hope, thrilling in enthusiasm, and intense in desperate resolve. To live a life with such a purpose is a peerless privilege, no matter at what cost of transient pain or unremitting toil. ”

“ When I no more can stir my soul to move, And life is but the ashes of a fire; When I can but remember that my heart Once used to live and love, long and aspire,— Oh, be thou then the first, the one thou art; Be thou the calling, before all answering love, And in me wake hope, fear, boundless desire. ”

“ It is not understood by all how and why we should have a desire to possess more of that of which we are already full. It is the desire for development; it is an innate desire; it is a principle planted in our constitution under grace. Let me repeat what I have said elsewhere: Every living thing consciously or unconsciously struggles to conform to type. When the little plant bursts through the ground, it enters the race in conforming to the type that it carries in its bosom. ”

“ “To be rid of our individuality, which is our will, which is our effort—to live effortless, a kind of curious sleep—that is very beautiful, I think; that is our after-life—our immortality.” ”

“ Are you content just to live and flourish and die? Are there no compelling obligations with which one is born? Do you never feel cramped—in your mind, I mean?—feel that you want to push your way through the clouds into some other life? ”

“ Who can tell ... what does it matter ... what is life after all? But the all-pervading ardour of youth's "Will of Life" whispers with a bitter realisation of what death really means that you WANT to live. ”

“ All great desires have left you; the passions that are born of Life, yet wear their mother to the grave, have fled from a house which holds now but the desire of existence, the passion of self-preservation. ”

“ Thrill at the return of many-blossomed spring, at the strength of men, at the grace of women, and your joy shall be his joy. In every visitation to you of the truth that not by hate, not by blows, but only by the love of the human heart can the world be won from its evil, he shall live, he shall live again. And the color and rhythm of life, the joy of begetting which he never knew, the joy of creating which he knew so abundantly, when it is yours shall be his also. ”

“ To will, not from self, but with the Eternal, is to live. ”

“ What should I do with life and living more?
⁠No, thou art come too late, Empedocles!
And the world hath the day, and must break thee,
Not thou the world. With men thou canst not live:
Their thoughts, their ways, their wishes, are not thine. ”

“ A vision of the highest duty and reality overshines all that is trivial and passing. And this is life—the fulness, the charm, the infinite variety and strength of being. "How can he that is dead to the world live any longer therein?" ”

“ Have done then with this illusion that thy Self is all in all. Intuition tells thee no more about thy future Self than it tells thee about thy neighbors. Desire, bred in thee by generations of struggle for existence, emphasizes the expectation of thy own bodily future, the love for thy own bodily welfare, and makes thy body’s life seem alone real. ”

“ Then 'twixt lips of loved and lover
solemn thoughts of us shall rise;
We who once were fools defeated,
then shall be the brave and wise.
There amidst the world new-builded
shall our earthly deeds abide,
Though our names be all forgotten,
and the tale of how we died.
Life or death then, who shall heed it,
what we gain or what we lose?
Fair flies life amid the struggle,
and the Cause for each shall choose.
Hear a word, a word in season,
for the day is drawing nigh,
When the Cause shall call upon us,
some to live, and some to die! ”

“ Vigor of body, of mind, passions, desires, reason, all that goes to make up a human soul, were in the full tide of existence; and I was here surely not to contemplate death, but to fulfil the functions of life—of a new life. ”

“ His happiness was imaginary. I admit it; health, wealth, a contented spirit, are mere dreams. We no longer live in our own place, we live outside it. What does it profit us to live in such fear of death, when all that makes life worth living is our own? ”

“ This is a premium most of us would be willing to work for, did we but see it. And we may see it if we will. If we ask of life that we get into harmony with its purposes; if we seek diligently even into our own hearts for those purposes; if we knock at the door of man’s full life, we shall find our asking answered, our search rewarded, and the door wide open. What a man desireth most, that, somehow, somewhere, shall be gain. Desire creates function. ”

“ And by choosing life, you will express the true desire and thought, and I say, "To love the Lord your God, to listen to His voice, and to cleave to Him, for He is your life and the length of your days." To dwell upon the land, but as a stranger in their eyes, you will be considered a resident and the essence will be seen in your completion of what leads to perfection. ”

“ Thus to be is not to live, if life be what I sometimes dream, and dare to think it might be. To breathe, to feed, to sleep, to wake and breathe again, again to feel existence without hope; if this be life, why then these brooding thoughts that whisper death were better? ”

“ Is sleeping, living? Or absorption in a dull dream of existence, such as the beetle has when it climbs up the blade of grass to reach a dew-drop--is that leading a worthy life? My dear fellow, if you drive necessity out of the world, how unnecessary it would be to live! ”

“ Be satisfied, then, with that glory; we only ask to live! Shame on me for that “only”! As if there could be anything more delightful than life. Life, with all its capacities for love and friendship and heroism and self-devotion, for generous actions and noble aspirations! Life to feel life, to know that we are in a sphere specially constructed for the exercise of our senses and the play of our faculties, free to choose the road we would take, and with a glorious reward if our choice be the right one! ”

“ And what do men whose destiny is to live for ever want but something that shall go with them through all changes of condition, and, like a light in the midst of the darkest tunnel, shall burn in the passage between this and the other world, and shall never be taken away from them? We want a Person to be everything to us. ”

“ And make me more than conqueror in the strife.
Teach me to live thy purpose to fulfill;
Bright for thy glory let my taper shine;
Each day renew, remold this stubborn will;
Closer round thee my heart's affections twine.
Teach me to live for self and sin no more;
But use the time remaining to me yet;
Not mine own pleasure seeking as before,
Wasting no precious hours in vain regret.
Teach me to live; no idler let me be,
But in thy service hand and heart employ. ”

“ And through it all the soul's and body's needs, The pleasures, interests, passions of our life, The cry that comes from somewhere: "Live, O Soul, The time is passing," move and claim your strength. Till you forget yourself, forget the boy And man you were, forget the dreams you had, The creed you wished to live by—yes, what's worse, See dreams you had, grown tawdry, see your creed Cracked through and crumbled like a falling house. And then you say: What is the difference? As you might ask what virtue is and why Should woman keep it. ”

“ If you will but live, it cries, that grave but yet passionate voice—if you will but live! Were there a heaven, and you reached it, you could do no more than live. The true heaven is here where you live, where you strive and lose, and weep and laugh. ”

“ "Nor love thy life, nor hate; but what thou livest
Live well; how long or short, permit to Heaven. ”

“ Thy Life, as alone the finite mind can conceive it, is self-forming, self-manifesting Will:—this Life, clothed to the eye of the mortal with manifold sensuous forms, flows forth through me, and throughout the immeasurable universe of Nature. ”

“ Thou art the main-spring, the vital secret, the fountain-source, of our existence. What is life but a genial current of joy and grace that wells up incessantly from Thy centred self? Thou art the life, the inner vitality, of our senses. ”

“ But aspiring souls, as evidenced by the æsthetic man and woman of culture, presently perceived the error. They recognized that aspiration, to be vital, must start with a conception of the world as it was, and seek a realization of the world as it might be, and that in this seeking lay service to God and preparation for heaven. Proceeding they fixed on unselfish human love and on beauty as the motive of their creed, and endeavored to live lives animated by these principles. ”

“ What is life to you and me? It is the utmost extent of our desires. Do you wish to increase, to continue? Do you wish to possess kingdoms and, thrones, principalities and powers; to exist, and continue to exist; to grow in understanding, in wisdom, in knowledge, in power, and in glory throughout an endless duration? Why, yes, is the reply natural to every heart that has been warmed with the life-giving influences of the Holy Ghost. ”

“ But,—and there it is,—we want to live and move, though we have no reason to, because it happens that it is the nature of life to live and move, to want to live and move. If it were not for this, life would be dead. ”

“ We seek goodness, virtue, enthusiasm, the passion that will fill our soul, the faith that will calm our inquietudes, the inspiration that will give us courage, the work to which we consecrate ourselves, the cause for which we will joyfully die. And the result of so many efforts is an empty lassitude, the sensation of strength spent in pure loss, and of the flight of time." At that moment, life appeared to me like a distant vision, confused, strange, monstrous. ”

“ We might ask what it is human beings want to live for. If there is an after-life, it is certainly not that that we live for. I am sure no man wants to die. Yet what aim have we? What function must we perform? Why should we wish to live? ”

“ To live in the remembrance of those we loved “when we go hence, and are no more seen,” is a natural wish; a wish implanted in our souls by that Being, who willed that we should be social creatures, and gave us all the kind affections of our nature. ”

“ The Will to live, and the Will to love God and to find Him. The first will we see being used continually and without ceasing, not only by every man, woman, and child, but by every beast of the field and the whole of creation. ”

“ There is, I repeat, great responsibility on man. But unless he feels it, he will never fill to the full the measure of life. Oh, how delighted is the loving heart of God to find in this world a being in whom he can dwell and through whom he can reveal his own beautiful life! ”