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Life quotes

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“To be, or not to be, that is the Question” William Shakespeare, “Hamlet” - 1623

“It would seem, Adeimantus, that the direction in which education starts a man, will determine his future life.” Plato, “The Republic”

“People don't realize how a man's whole life can be changed by one book.” Malcolm X, “The Autobiography of Malcolm X” - 1965

“Have regular hours for work and play, make each day both useful and pleasant, and prove that you understand the worth of time by employing it well. Then youth will be delightful, old age will bring few regrets, and life become a beautiful...” Louisa May Alcott, “Little Women” - 1868

“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.” Oscar Wilde, “The Soul of Man under Socialism” - 1891

“If you are not too long, I will wait here for you all my life.” Oscar Wilde, “The Importance of Being Earnest” - 1895

“Life was meant to be lived, and curiosity must be kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.” Eleanor Roosevelt, “The Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt” - 1961

“How good life is when one does something good and just!” Fyodor Dostoyevsky, “The Brothers Karamazov” - 1880

“A happy life must be to a great extent a quiet life, for it is only in an atmosphere of quiet that true joy can live.” Bertrand Russell, “The Conquest of Happiness” - 1930

“We are such stuff as dreams are made on; and our little life is rounded with a sleep.” William Shakespeare, “The Tempest” - 1623

“It is not life that's complicated, it's the struggle to guide and control life.” F. Scott Fitzgerald, “This Side of Paradise” - 1920

“Her blood is settled, and her joints are stiff; Life and these lips have long been separated: Death lies on her like an untimely frost Upon the sweetest flower of all the field.” William Shakespeare, “Romeo and Juliet” - 1597

“A light heart lives long.” William Shakespeare, “Love's Labour's Lost” - 1598

“We live, as we dream—alone...” Joseph Conrad, “Heart of Darkness” - 1899

“Droll thing life is—that mysterious arrangement of merciless logic for a futile purpose. The most you can hope from it is some knowledge of yourself—that comes too late—a crop of unextinguishable regrets.” Joseph Conrad, “Heart of Darkness” - 1899

“While you do not know life, how can you know about death?” Confucius, “Analects”

“Do not stop thinking of life as an adventure. You have no security unless you can live bravely, excitingly, imaginatively; unless you can choose a challenge instead of a competence.” Eleanor Roosevelt, “The Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt” - 1961

“All God does is watch us and kill us when we get boring. We must never, ever be boring.” Chuck Palahniuk, “Invisible Monsters” - 1999

“Life lived on life. There were the eaters and the eaten. The law was: EAT OR BE EATEN.” Jack London, “White Fang” - 1906

“Our life is made by the death of others.” Leonardo da Vinci, “The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci” - 1478 – 1519

“All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life is made up of light and shadow.” Leo Tolstoy, “Anna Karenina” - 1877

“Chaos often breeds life, when order breeds habit.” Henry Adams, “The Education of Henry Adams” - 1906

“Death is so terribly final, while life is full of possibilities.” George R. R. Martin, “A Game of Thrones” - 1996

“Absorbing, mysterious, of infinite richness, this life.” Virginia Woolf, “Mrs Dalloway” - 1925

“Make a decision and watch your life move forward.” Oprah Winfrey, “What I Know For Sure” - 2014

“There are darknesses in life, and there are lights. You are one of the lights.” Bram Stoker, “Dracula” - 1897

“The value of money is in proportion to the quantity of the necessaries of life which it will purchase.” Adam Smith, “The Wealth of Nations” - 1776

“But dost thou love Life, then do not squander Time, for that's the stuff Life is made of, as Poor Richard says.” Benjamin Franklin, “The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin” - 1791

“If life must not be taken too seriously—then so neither must death.” Samuel Butler, “The Note-Books of Samuel Butler” - 1912

“But the joy of life is a very good thing, and while work is the essential in it, play also has its place.” Theodore Roosevelt, “Theodore Roosevelt; an Autobiography” - 1913

“This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of...” George Bernard Shaw, “Man and Superman” - 1903

“I love acting. It is so much more real than life.” Oscar Wilde, “The Picture of Dorian Gray” - 1890

“What was the future? The future was a solid wall, not promising, not threatening — all bunk. No guarantees of anything, not even the guarantee that life isn’t one big joke.” Bob Dylan, “Chronicles, Volume One” - 2004

“It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.” Oscar Wilde, “The Picture of Dorian Gray” - 1890

“He drew the dagger and laid it on the table between them; a length of dragonbone and Valyrian steel, as sharp as the difference between right and wrong, between true and false, between life and death.” George R. R. Martin, “A Game of Thrones” - 1996

“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.” Jack London, “The Sea-Wolf” - 1904

“How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book!” Henry David Thoreau, “Walden” - 1854

“It's this: that at a certain point in our lives, we lose control of what's happening to us, and our lives become controlled by fate. That's the world's greatest lie.” Paulo Coelho, “The Alchemist” - 1988

“The shape does not change: there was a human being who was born, lived, and then, by some means or another, died. There. You may fill in the details from your own experience.” Neil Gaiman, “American Gods” - 2001

“History is as light as individual human life, unbearably light, light as a feather, as dust swirling into the air, as whatever will no longer exist tomorrow.” Milan Kundera, “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” - 1984

“And her life will perhaps be the richer, for holding now within it the memory of what came, but could not stay.” George MacDonald, “Phantastes” - 1858

“One should absorb the colour of life, but one should never remember its details. Details are always vulgar.” Oscar Wilde, “The Picture of Dorian Gray” - 1890

“They show the pores in the face of life. The comfortable people want only wax moon faces, poreless, hairless, expressionless. We are living in a time when flowers are trying to live on flowers, instead of growing on good rain and black loam.” Ray Bradbury, “Fahrenheit 451” - 1953

“The highest use of capital is not to make more money, but to make money do more service for the betterment of life.” Henry Ford, “My Life and Work” - 1922

“For there is no such thing as perpetual Tranquillity of mind, while we live here; because Life itself is but Motion, and can never be without Desire, nor without Feare, no more than without Sense.” Thomas Hobbes, “Leviathan” - 1651

“But where there's hope, there's life. It fills us with fresh courage and makes us strong again.” Anne Frank, “The Diary of a Young Girl” - 1947

“This discourse gave rise to new reflections, and Martin especially concluded that man was born to live either in a state of distracting inquietude or of lethargic disgust.” Voltaire, “Candide” - 1759

“One must know oneself. If this does not serve to discover truth, it at least serves as a rule of life, and there is nothing better.” Blaise Pascal, “Pensées” - 1670

“You spend your whole life stuck in the labyrinth, thinking about how you'll escape it one day, and how awesome it will be, and imagining that future keeps you going, but you never do it. You just use the future to escape the present.” John Green, “Looking for Alaska” - 2005

“All I kept thinking about, over and over, was 'You can't live forever, you can't live forever.'” F. Scott Fitzgerald, “The Great Gatsby” - 1925

Related topics

death love time happiness meaning pain dream art suicide experience change work choice men music truth future reality joy risk

Related authors

William Shakespeare (21)
Oscar Wilde (19)
Chuck Palahniuk (15)
Virginia Woolf (8)
Haruki Murakami (8)
Jack London (7)
Paulo Coelho (7)
F. Scott Fitzgerald (6)
James Joyce (6)
George R. R. Martin (6)
George Orwell (6)
John Green (6)
Bertrand Russell (6)
Leo Tolstoy (6)
Samuel Butler (6)
Milan Kundera (6)
Charlotte Brontë (5)
Henry David Thoreau (5)
Fyodor Dostoyevsky (5)
George MacDonald (5)

Related sources

The Alchemist (7)
The Picture of Dorian Gray (6)
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (6)
Jane Eyre (5)
Mrs Dalloway (5)
White Fang (5)
The Conquest of Happiness (5)
Anna Karenina (5)
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (5)
Fight Club (5)
What I Know For Sure (5)
Lady Windermere's Fan (4)
Theodore Roosevelt; an Autobiography (4)
The Brothers Karamazov (4)
The Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt (4)
Invisible Monsters (4)
Walden (4)
The Importance of Being Earnest (3)
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (3)
1984 (3)

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