Quotes About Life

I remember my youth and the feeling that will never come back any more—the feeling that I could last for ever, outlast the sea, the earth, and all men; the deceitful feeling that lures us on to joys, to perils, to love, to vain effort—to death; the triumphant conviction of strength, the heat of life in the handful of dust, the glow in the heart that with every year grows dim, grows cold, grows small, and expires—and expires, too soon, too soon—before life itself.

He was ruined in every way, but a man possessed of passion is not a bankrupt in life.

I thought his memory was like the other memories of the dead that accumulate in every man's life,—a vague impress on the brain of shadows that had fallen on it in their swift and final passage. . .

Every age is fed on illusions, lest men should renounce life early and the human race come to an end.

She was engaged in the task of defending her position in life, said Heyst. It's a very respectable task.

And suddenly I rejoiced in the great security of the sea as compared with the unrest of the land, in my choice of that untempted life presenting no disquieting problems, invested with an elementary moral beauty by the absolute straightforwardness of its appeal and by the singleness of its purpose.

I have been very happy—very fortunate—very proud,' she went on. 'Too fortunate. Too happy for a little while. And now I am unhappy for—for life.

We live in the flicker - may it last as long as the old earth keeps rolling!

I must live until I die, mustn't I?

Each blade of grass has its spot on earth whence it draws its life, its strength; and so is man rooted to the land from which he draws his faith together with his life.

The wicked people were gone, but fear remained.Fear always remains. A man may destroy everything within himself, love and hate and belief, and even doubt; but as long as he clings to life the cannot destroy fear: the fear, subtle, indestructible, and terrible, that pervades his being; that tinges his thoughts; that lurks in his heart; what watches on his lips the struggle of his last breath.

Are not our lives too short for that full utterance which through all our stammerings is of course our only and abiding intention?

It is very difficult to be wholly joyous or wholly sad on this earth.

Are not our lives too short for that full utterance which through all our stammerings is of course our only and abiding intention? I have given up expecting those last words, whose ring, if they could only be pronounced, would shake both heaven and earth. There is never time to say our last word - the last word of our love, of our desire, faith, remorse, submission, revolt. The heaven and earth must not be shaken. I suppose - at least, not by us who know so many truths about either.

We wander in our thousands over the face of the earth, the illustrious and the obscure, earning beyond the seas our fame, our money, or only a crust of bread; but it seems to me that for each of us going home must be like going to render an account.

the old with the young, the decrepit with the lusty—all equal before sleep, death's brother.

It was the very essence of his life to be a solitary achievement, accomplished not by hermit-like withdrawal with it's silence and immobility but by a system of restless wandering, by the detachment of an impermanent dweller amongst changing scenes. In this scheme he had perceived the means of passing through life without suffering and almost without a single care in the world- invulnerable because elusive.

but I remember I preferred the soldier to the philosopher at the time; a preference which life has only confirmed. One was a man, and the other was either more – or less. However, they are both dead, and Mrs Beard is dead, and youth, strength, genius, thoughts, achievements, simple hearts – all dies… No matter.

Joseph Conrad once said that a man who is born falls into a dream like a man who falls into the sea

What is a novel if not a conviction of our fellow-men's existence strong enough to take upon itself a form of imagined life clearer than reality and whose accumulated verisimilitude of selected episodes puts to shame the pride of documentary history.

it may be that it is this very dulness that makes life to the incalculable majority so supportable and welcome. Nevertheless, there can be but few of us who had never known one of these rare moments of awakening when we see, hear, understand so much--everything--in a flash--before we fall back again into our agreeable somnolence.

In life, you see, there is not much choice. You have either to rot or to burn. And there is not one of us, painted or unpainted, that would not rather burn than rot.

all this life, must be life, since it is so much like a dream.

Ah! These commercial interests -- spoiling the finest life under the sun. Why must the sea be used for trade -- and for war as well?...It would have been so much nicer just to sail about, with here and there a port and a bit of land to stretch one's legs on, buy a few books and get a change of cooking for a while.