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Living quotes

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

“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies . . . The man who never reads lives only one.” George R. R. Martin, “A Dance with Dragons” - 2011

“it was easy enough to despise the world, but decidedly difficult to find any other habitable region.” Edith Wharton, “House of Mirth” - 1905

“No matter how dreary and gray our homes are, we people of flesh and blood would rather live there than in any other country, be it ever so beautiful. There is no place like home.” L. Frank Baum, “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” - 1900

“you guys are going to have to come up with a lot of wonderful new lies, or people just aren't going to want to go on living.” Kurt Vonnegut, “Slaughterhouse-Five” - 1969

“A man finds himself, to his great astonishment, suddenly existing, after thousands and thousands of years of non-existence: he lives for a little while; and then, again, comes an equally long period when he must exist no more. The heart rebels...” Arthur Schopenhauer, “Studies in Pessimism” - 1891

“I don't live in either my past or my future. I'm interested only in the present.” Paulo Coelho, “The Alchemist” - 1988

“if one has money without brains, he cannot use it to advantage; but if one has brains without money, they will enable him to live comfortably to the end of his days.” L. Frank Baum, “The Marvelous Land of Oz” - 1904

“You’re alive, Bod. That means you have infinite potential. You can do anything, make anything, dream anything.” Neil Gaiman, “The Graveyard Book” - 2008

“One can survive everything nowadays, except death, and live down anything except a good reputation.” Oscar Wilde, “A Woman of No Importance” - 1893

“Haven’t you learned anything, not even with the approach of death? Stop thinking all the time that you’re in the way, that you’re bothering the person next to you. If people don’t like it, they can complain. And if they don’t have the...” Paulo Coelho, “Veronika Decides to Die” - 1998

“While I hope that the chemical gets rid of my chronic depression, I want to continue being crazy, living my life the way I dream it, and not the way other people want it to be.” Paulo Coelho, “Veronika Decides to Die” - 1998

“To be awake is to be alive.” Henry David Thoreau, “Walden” - 1854

“There’s something to be said for hunger: at least it lets you know you’re still alive.” Margaret Atwood, “Oryx and Crake” - 2003

“The weird thing about houses is that they almost always look like nothing is happening inside of them, even though they contain most of our lives. I wondered if that was sort of the point of architecture.” John Green, “The Fault in Our Stars” - 2012

“I'm alive. . . . Thinking about it, noticing it, is new. You do things and don't watch. Then all of a sudden you look and see what you're doing and it's the first time, really.” Ray Bradbury, “Dandelion Wine” - 1957

“What is the point of being alive if you don't at least try to do something remarkable?” John Green, “An Abundance of Katherines” - 2006

“Sensible people get the greater part of their own dying done during their own lifetime.” Samuel Butler, “The Way of All Flesh” - 1903

“I'm not a starfish or a pepper tree. I'm a living, breathing human being. Of course I've been in love.” Haruki Murakami, “Kafka on the Shore” - 2002

“To teach how to live without certainty, and yet without being paralyzed by hesitation, is perhaps the chief thing that philosophy, in our age, can still do for those who study it.” Bertrand Russell, “A History of Western Philosophy” - 1945

“Any relic of the dead is precious, if they were valued living.” Emily Brontë, “Wuthering Heights” - 1847

“the question is not how to get cured, but how to live.” Joseph Conrad, “Lord Jim” - 1900

“she felt pain, a violent pain, but it made her alive, because it was worth feeling.” Ayn Rand, “Atlas Shrugged” - 1957

“sometimes I can hear my bones straining under the weight of all of the lives I'm not living.” Jonathan Safran Foer, “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” - 2005

“When you start to live outside yourself . . . it's all dangerous.” Ernest Hemingway, “The Garden of Eden” - 1986

“we can never give up longing and wishing while we are thoroughly alive.” George Eliot, “The Mill on the Floss” - 1860

“Live, then, and be happy, beloved children of my heart, and never forget that until the day when God shall deign to reveal the future to man, all human wisdom is summed up in these two words,—'Wait and hope.'” Alexandre Dumas, “The Count of Monte Cristo” - 1845

“The trouble with the theory is that government is not a machine, but a living thing.” Woodrow Wilson, “The New Freedom” - 1913

“what is called a reason for living is also an excellent reason for dying” Albert Camus, “The Myth of Sisyphus” - 1942

“The easiest way to avoid living is to just watch.” Chuck Palahniuk, “Lullaby” - 2002

“Don't ask for guarantees. And don't look to be saved in any one thing, person, machine, or library. Do your own bit of saving, and if you drown, at least die knowing you were headed for shore.” Ray Bradbury, “Fahrenheit 451” - 1953

“I'm wearying to escape into that glorious world, and to be always there: not seeing it dimly through tears, and yearning for it through the walls of an aching heart: but really with it, and in it.” Emily Brontë, “Wuthering Heights” - 1847

“We could live offa the fatta the lan’.” John Steinbeck, “Of Mice and Men” - 1937

“Stuff your eyes with wonder . . . live as if you'd drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It's more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories.” Ray Bradbury, “Fahrenheit 451” - 1953

“If you're lucky enough to find a way of life you love, you have to find the courage to live it.” John Irving, “A Prayer for Owen Meany” - 1989

“It is nothing to die; it is dreadful not to live.” Victor Hugo, “Les Misérables” - 1862

“She was very near hating him now; yet the sound of his voice, the way the light fell on his thin dark hair, the way he sat and moved and wore his clothes—she was conscious that even these trivial things were inwoven with her deepest life.” Edith Wharton, “House of Mirth” - 1905

“Live all you can; it's a mistake not to.” Henry James, “The Ambassadors” - 1903

“The most notable distinction between living and inanimate things is that the former maintain themselves by renewal.” John Dewey, “Democracy and Education” - 1916

“Happy is the man who can make a living by his hobby!” George Bernard Shaw, “Pygmalion” - 1913

“This hobble of being alive is rather serious, don't you think so?” Thomas Hardy, “Tess of the d'Urbervilles” - 1891

“How can we live without our lives? How will we know it’s us without our past?” John Steinbeck, “The Grapes of Wrath” - 1939

“'Does it hurt very much to die? ' Well, sweetheart, I tell her, yes, but it hurts a lot more to keep living.” Chuck Palahniuk, “Survivor” - 1999

“You’re mine . . . Mine, as I’m yours. And if we die, we die. All men must die, Jon Snow. But first we’ll live.” George R. R. Martin, “A Storm of Swords” - 2000

“Every day was there to be lived or to mark one's departure from this world.” Paulo Coelho, “The Alchemist” - 1988

“I lived in books more than I lived anywhere else.” Neil Gaiman, “The Ocean at the End of the Lane” - 2013

“I regret that it takes a life to learn how to live” Jonathan Safran Foer, “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” - 2005

“Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life.” Steve Jobs, “Stanford Commencement address” - 2005

“I had chosen the dead rather than the living, the thing thought rather than the thing thinking!” George MacDonald, “Lilith” - 1895

“you will admit that it's a good thing to be alive.” L. Frank Baum, “The Marvelous Land of Oz” - 1904

Related topics

death life feeling courage reason fear past time reality world nature self existence place longing love sacrifice contempt future happiness

Related authors

Paulo Coelho (4)
Ray Bradbury (4)
Oscar Wilde (3)
John Green (3)
L. Frank Baum (3)
Chuck Palahniuk (3)
Neil Gaiman (3)
George R. R. Martin (2)
Ayn Rand (2)
Edith Wharton (2)
John Steinbeck (2)
Andy Warhol (2)
Emily Brontë (2)
Jonathan Safran Foer (2)
George Bernard Shaw (1)
Ernest Hemingway (1)
William Faulkner (1)
Henry David Thoreau (1)
George Eliot (1)
Victor Hugo (1)

Related sources

The Alchemist (2)
Fahrenheit 451 (2)
The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (2)
Wuthering Heights (2)
The Soul of Man under Socialism (2)
Veronika Decides to Die (2)
Atlas Shrugged (2)
Dandelion Wine (2)
The Marvelous Land of Oz (2)
House of Mirth (2)
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2)
As I Lay Dying (1)
The Fault in Our Stars (1)
Les Misérables (1)
Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1)
Lilith (1)
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1)
Slaughterhouse-Five (1)
The Count of Monte Cristo (1)
Meditations (1)