Quotes About Life

It is curious that while good people go to great lengths to spare their children from suffering, few of them seem to notice that the one (and only) guaranteed way to prevent all the suffering of their children is not to bring those children into existence in the first place

There's such a thing as chronic pain, but there's no such thing as chronic pleasure. ... For an existing person, the presence of bad things is bad and the presence of good things is good. But compare that with a scenario in which that person never existed—then, the absence of the bad would be good, but the absence of the good wouldn't be bad, because there'd be nobody to be deprived of those good things.

It is good that existers enjoy their pleasures. It is also good that pains are avoided through non-existence. However, that is only part of the picture. Because there is nothing bad about never coming into existence, but there is something bad about coming into existence, it seems that all things considered non-existence is preferable.

We are born, we live, we suffer along the way, and then we die—obliterated for the rest of eternity. Our existence is but a blip in cosmic time and space.

One has to seek out pleasurable sensations, in the absence of which blandness comes naturally. The upshot of this is that we must continually work at keeping suffering (including tedium) at bay, and we can do so only imperfectly. Dissatisfaction does and must pervade life. There are moments, perhaps even periods, of satisfaction, but they occur against a background of dissatisfied striving.

The absence of bad things, such as pain, is good even if there is nobody to enjoy that good, whereas the absence of good things, such as pleasure, is bad only if there is somebody who is deprived of these good things. The implication of this is that the avoidance of the bad by never existing is a real advantage over existence, whereas the loss of certain goods by not existing is not a real disadvantage over never existing.

Despite some limited consolations, the human condition is in fact a tragic predicament from which none of us can escape, for the predicament consists not merely in life but also in death.

In a sentence: Life is bad, but so is death.

Life is so terrible, it would have been better not to have been born. Who is so lucky? Not one in a hundred thousand! Jewish saying

coming into existence, far from ever constituting a net benefit, always constitutes a net harm.

I wonder why things have to change

There are a few moments in your life when you are truly and completely happy, and you remember to give thanks. Even as it happens you are nostalgic for the moment, you are tucking it away in your scrapbook.

Do what you will, reputation is at least as fickle as your station in life. Others decide what your reputation is.

Everything in life depends on how that life accepts its limits.

I think all theories are suspect, that the finest principles may have to be modified, or may even be pulverized by the demands of life, and that one must find, therefore, one's own moral center and move through the world hoping that this center will guide one aright.

He lived the life he lived, like anybody, I guess, and he paid his dues, like everybody. Maybe what I mean when I say he made his life so hard was that he always tried to pay his dues in front.

My life, my real life, was in danger, and not from anything other people might do but from the hatred I carried in my own heart.

People can't, unhappily, invent their mooring posts, their lovers and their friends, anymore than they can invent their parents. Life gives these and also takes them away and the great difficulty is to say Yes to life.

Am I boring you, Hirad?" "What do you think?" "Your ignorance is not my concern," said Denser. "Gods falling, Denser, I've been dead ten years. There are gaps in my knowledge." "There were plenty of those when you were alive." "It was part of my charm," said Hirad.

Hirad, are you getting this?" "Sort of." "Gods falling, a sign of life!

He wants your friendship, and for it he'll pay you in virtues you can use all your life.

Old age comes on apace to ravage all the clime.

I take life with a slice of lemon a pinch of salt and a martinie shot

In the blithe days of honeymoon, With Kate's allurements smitten, I loved her late, I loved her soon, And call'd her dearest kitten. But now my kitten's grown a cat, And cross like other wives, O! by my soul, my honest Mat, I fear she has nine lives.