Quotes About Life

Wander a whole summer if you can...time will not be taken from the sum of your life. Instead of shortening, it will definitely lengthen it and make you truly immortal.

Anyhow we never know where we must go, nor what guides we are to get---people,storms, guardian angels, or sheep....

Every morning, arising from the death of sleep, the happy plants and all our fellow animal creatures great and small, and even the rocks, seemed to be shouting, Awake, awake, rejoice, rejoice, come love us and join in our song. Come! Come!

It was the afternoon of the day and the afternoon of his life, and his course was now westward down all the mountains into the sunset. [speaking about Ralph Waldo Emerson]

But think of the hearts of these whales, beating warm against the sea, day and night, through dark and light, on and on for centuries; how the red blood must rush and gurgle in and out, bucketfuls, barrelfuls at a beat!

Our flesh-and-bone tabernacle seems transparent as glass to the beauty about us, as if truly an inseparable part of it, thrilling with the air and trees, streams and rocks, in the waves of the sun,—part of all nature, neither old nor young, sick nor well, but immortal.

Oh, these vast, calm, measureless mountain days, inciting at once to work and rest! Days in whose light everything seems equally divine, opening a thousand windows to show us God. Nevermore, however weary, should one faint by the way who gains the blessings of one mountain day; whatever his fate, long life, short life, stormy or calm, he is rich forever.

As if nothing that does not obviously make for the benefit of man had any right to exist; as if our ways were God's ways

An eagle soaring above a sheer cliff, where I suppose its nest is, makes another striking show of life, and helps to bring to mind the other people of the so-called solitude—deer in the forest caring for their young; the strong, well-clad, well-fed bears; the lively throng of squirrels; the blessed birds, great and small, stirring and sweetening the groves; and the clouds of happy insects filling the sky with joyous hum as part and parcel of the down-pouring sunshine.

Though it is 2500 feet high, the glacier flowed over its ground as a river flows over a boulder; and since it emerged from the icy sea as from a sepulcher it has been sorely beaten with storms; but from all those deadly, crushing, bitter experiences comes this delicate life and beauty, to teach us that what we in our faithless ignorance and fear call destruction is creation.

Here are the roots of all the life of the valleys, and here more simply than elsewhere is the eternal flux of nature manifested.

Another glorious day, the air as delicious to the lungs as nectar to the tongue; indeed the body seems one palate, and tingles equally throughout.

Like most other things not apparently useful to man, it has few friends, and the blind question, Why was it made? goes on and on with never a guess that first of all it might have been made for itself.

For many in towns it is a consuming, lifelong struggle; for others, the danger of coming to want is so great, the deadly habit of endless hoarding for the future is formed, which smothers all real life, and is continued long after every reasonable need has been over-supplied.

Our good ship also seemed like a thing of life, its great iron heart beating on through calm and storm, a truly noble spectacle. But think of the hearts of these whales, beating warm against the sea, day and night, through dark and light, on and on for centuries; how the red blood must rush and gurgle in and out, bucketfuls, barrelfuls at a beat!

Anche oggi tempo splendido, una di quelle gloriose giornate della Sierra in cui ci si sente come dissolti, assorbiti, spinti innanzi pulsanti, non si sa dove. La vita non pare né lunga né breve, non ci si preoccupa di risparmiare tempo o di affrettarsi più di quanto facciano alberi e stelle. Questa è la vera libertà, un buon surrogato mortale dell'immortalità.

But no temple made with hands can compare with Yosemite. Every rock in its walls seems to glow with life. Some lean back in majestic repose; others, absolutely sheer or nearly so for thousands of feet, advance beyond their companions in thoughtful attitudes, giving welcome to storms and calms alike, seemingly aware, yet heedless, of everything going on about them.

Everybody needs beauty as well as bread.

Another wonderful Sierra day wherein one appears to be dissolved and absorbed and sent pulsing onward we know not wherein. Life seems neither long nor quick, and we take no extra heed to keep time or make haste than do the trees and stars. This is actual freedom, a good practical sort of immortality.

Every man knows that he will die: and nobody believes it. On that paradox stand not only a host of religions but the entity of a sane being.

Every man knows he will die; and nobody believes it. On that paradox stand not only a host of religions but the entity of sane being.

I am still in the land of the dying; I shall be in the land of the living soon. (his last words)

So much depends not on how awkward destiny is, but rather on how openly it is embraced.

The call to the creative life is a call to dignity, to a life of vulnerability and adventure and the call to a life that exquisite excitement and indeed ecstasy will often visit.