Quotes About Life

Man's immortality is not to live for ever; for that wish is born of fear. Each moment free from fear makes a man immortal.

Laurie stood casting his long shadow on the room behind him, silent in a grief and wonder too deep for tears, that life was so divided and irreconcilable, and the good so implacably the enemy of the best.

Man born of woman cannot outrun his fate. Better then not to question the Immortals, nor when they have spoken to grieve one's heart in vain. A bound is set to our knowing, and wisdom is not to search beyond it. Men are only men.

That," I said, "is the business of the gods, who made us." "Yes, but for what? We ought to be good for it, whatever it is. How can we live, until we know?" I gazed at him; such desperate words, yet he looked all lit from within. He saw I was paying attention; that was enough to draw him on.

There is only one journey, she said, that all men make. They go forth from the Mother, and do what men are born to do, till she stretches out her hand, and calls them home.

She looked up at the whirling effulgent cloud, and thought, I brought down the fire from heaven; I have lived with glory. A thunderbolt struck from the sky and all was gone.

We lived in the Bull Court; a city sealed in a palace, and a life sealed in with death. Yet it is a proud city, and a strong fierce life. A man once in it is of it till he dies. So I, who have gray beginning in my beard, still say "it is", as if the Bull Court stood and I might yet go back to it.

grief more than in joy, man longs to know that the universe turns around him.

If one sat up as long as an hour past bedtime, except on Christmas and birthdays, one would be ill. Laurie, who had had this explained to him many times and accepted it as incontrovertible fact, inferred from it that after three hours one would probably die.

where there is war there's spoil. From this it was not far to roving on adventure. Young men could set themselves up in life; kings could grow rich without hard taxes, which pleased their people;

There is no doubt that a really first-class fire, when no fear for human life intrudes, is one of the great atavistic joys still known to man. Today it is very shocking to think of archaeological treasures burning; to Macedonians and still more to Greeks, the significance of Persepolis was rather different.

One must live as if it would be forever, and as if one might die each moment. Always both at once.

I saw death come for you, and I had no philosophy.

Do not believe that others will die, not you.... I have wrestled with Thanatos knee to knee and I know how death is vanquished. Man's immortality is not to live forever; for that wish is born of fear. Each moment free from fear makes a man immortal.

Everything is change; and you cannot step twice into the same river.

He stood between death and life as between night and morning, and thought with a soaring rapture, 'I am not afraid.

Nothing will change, Alexias. No, that is false; there is change whenever there is life, and already we are not the two who met in Taureas' palaestra. But what kind of fool would plant an apple-slip, to cut it down at the season when the fruit is setting? Flowers you can get every year, but only with time the tree that shades your doorway and grows into the house with each year's sun and rain.

The school discussed friendship often. It is, they learned, one of the things man can least afford to lack; necessary to the good life, and beautiful in itself. Between friends is no need of justice, for neither wrong nor inequality can exist... Friendship is perfect when virtuous men love the good in one another; for virtue gives more delight than beauty, and is untouched by time.

If we could push ajar the gates of life, And stand within, and all God's workings see, We could interpret all this doubt and strife, And for each mystery could find a key. But not today. Then be content, poor heart! God's plans, like lilies pure and white, unfold: We must not tear the close-shut leaves apart-- Time will reveal the calyxes of gold.

Life contains these things: leakage and wickage and discharge, pus and snot and slime and gleet. We are biology. We are reminded of this at the beginning and the end, at birth and at death. In between we do what we can to forget.

We are biology. We are reminded of this at the beginning and the end, at birth and at death. In between we do what we can to forget.

You are a person and then you cease to be a person, and a cadaver takes your place.

Death. It doesn't have to be boring.

Many people will find this book disrespectful. There is nothing amusing about being dead, they will say. Ah, but there is.