Quotes About Life

The time therefore that any man doth live, is but a little, and the place where he liveth, is but a very little corner of the earth, and the greatest fame that can remain of a man after his death, even that is but little, and that too, such as it is whilst it is, is by the succession of silly mortal men preserved, who likewise shall shortly die, and even whiles they live know not what in very deed they themselves are: and much less can know one, who long before is dead and gone.

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

The serenity of truth and the peace of death can be only secured through a largeness of contempt embracing all the profitable servitudes of life. He

the gift of heaven is in the hands of every man. But

There can be no life without faith and love—faith in a human heart, love of a human being! That

Midway upon the journey of our life I found myself within a forest dark, For the straight-forward pathway had been lost

he knew very well we were all mortal

it is impossible to convey the life-sensation of any given epoch of one's existence — that which makes its truth, its meaning — its subtle and penetrating essence. It is impossible. We live, as we dream — alone...

Hitler would later claim that his evacuation from the front had ended the happiest chapter of his life. In the trenches he had escaped from an aimless existence.

As medical care has improved, life expectancy has increased—on average, in the United States, by some two years between 1990 and 2000. But for the poorest group of Americans there has been no progress, and for poor women life expectancy has actually been declining.

One of the reasons that most literary artists are contemptuous of Sigmund Freud—whose thought Vladimir Nabokov once characterized as no more than private parts covered up by Greek myths—is that his extreme determinism is felt to be immensely untrue to the rich complexity of life, with its twists and turns and manifold surprises.

In one of the papers he wrote for the All Souls fellowship, he referred to Rousseau's Confessions as "a lucid journal of a life so utterly degraded that it has been a bestseller in France ever since.

We are reminded of the court-parasites of the Roman Empire, of whom Juvenal wrote: the bad jokes of Fortune—village pierrots yesterday, arbiters of life and death today

modern analogy, the events of the life as described in the Gospels would have been understood by some Doketists as being a kind of holographic movie or feature film.

We often mistakenly assume that because someone has genuine understanding in one particular area, this mastery necessarily extends to all other areas of life. That may or may not be true.

When we are with people and feeling bored, can we listen a little more carefully, stepping off the train of our own inner commenting? If we are sitting in meditation and feeling uninterested, can we come in closer to the object, not with force but with gentleness and care? What is this experience we call the breath? If someone were holding your head under water, would the breath be boring? Each breath is actually sustaining our life. Can we be with it fully, just once?

Merit" is the usual translation of the Pali word punna, which more literally means "virtue" or that which purifies and cleanses the life stream, bringing good results.

If I were to say, 'God, why me?' about the bad things, then I should have said, 'God, why me?' about the good things that happened in my life.

Georgia O'Keeffe, the famous artist from the American Southwest, expressed this same courageous attitude toward fear in another way: "I've been absolutely terrified every moment of my life, and I've never let it keep me from doing a single thing I wanted to do.

THE FOUR REFLECTIONS Precious Human Birth The first of the mind-changing reflections contemplates the preciousness of our human birth.

Nothing at all can prevent the universal process of birth, growth, decay, and death.

Buddhism is a clever way to enjoy life. Happiness is available. Please help yourselves to it.

Ask yourself how many of the billions of inhabitants of this planet have any idea of how rare it is to have been born as a human being.

Look at all the things we become attached to, whether they are people or possessions or feelings or conditions of the body. Nothing we have, no one in our lives, no state of mind is exempt from change. Nothing at all can prevent the universal process of birth, growth, decay, and death.