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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

“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

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

“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

“I'd want it real. I'd take no pride in any hopeless longing. I wouldn't hold a stillborn aspiration. I'd want to have it, to make it, to live it.” Ayn Rand, “Atlas Shrugged” - 1957

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

“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

“All this he saw, for one moment breathless and intense, vivid on the morning sky; and still, as he looked, he lived; and still, as he lived, he wondered.” Kenneth Grahame, “The Wind in the Willows” - 1908

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

“the reason for living was to get ready to stay dead a long time” William Faulkner, “As I Lay Dying” - 1930

“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

“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

“Eat, sleep, sleep, eat. Exist slowly, softly, like these trees, like a puddle of water, like the red bench in the streetcar.” Jean-Paul Sartre, “Nausea” - 1938

“As if by running we won't have to get on with our lives.” Chuck Palahniuk, “Invisible Monsters” - 1999

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

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

“Each person who ever was or is or will be has a song. It isn’t a song that anybody else wrote. It has its own melody, it has its own words. Very few people get to sing their own song. Most of us fear that we cannot do it justice with our...” Neil Gaiman, “Anansi Boys” - 2005

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

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

“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

“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

“As long as we don’t die, this is gonna be one hell of a story.” John Green, “Paper Towns” - 2008

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

“Before I was shot, I always thought that I was more half-there than all-there—I always suspected that I was watching TV instead of living life.” Andy Warhol, “The Philosophy of Andy Warhol” - 1975

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

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

“I felt like I might as well have been living in another part of the solar system.” Bob Dylan, “Chronicles, Volume One” - 2004

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I want to feel all there is to feel, he thought. Let me feel tired, now, let me feel tired. I mustn't forget, I'm alive, I know I'm alive, I mustn't forget it tonight or tomorrow or the day after that.” Ray Bradbury, “Dandelion Wine” - 1957

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

“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

“Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live. And unselfishness is letting other people’s lives alone, not interfering with them.” Oscar Wilde, “The Soul of Man under Socialism” - 1891

“A person who longs to leave the place where he lives is an unhappy person.” Milan Kundera, “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” - 1984

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

“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

“Since people are going to be living longer and getting older, they'll just have to learn how to be babies longer.” Andy Warhol, “The Philosophy of Andy Warhol” - 1975

“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

“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

“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

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

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

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

Related topics

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

Related authors

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

Related sources

The Alchemist (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)
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)
The Wind in the Willows (1)
Fahrenheit 451 (1)
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1)