LIFE QUOTES XX

quotations about life

When I consider Life, 'tis all a cheat;
Yet, fooled with hope, men favour the deceit;
Trust on, and think to-morrow will repay:
To-morrow's falser than the former day;
Lies worse; and while it says, we shall be blest
With some new joys, cuts off what we possessed.

JOHN DRYDEN

Aureng-Zebe

Tags: John Dryden


Once introduced into this world, life would never leave--there was no end to the explosive, consuming, voracious lust of long chain molecules to link and match and make of themselves yet more and more and again more.

GREGORY BENFORD

Against Infinity

Tags: Gregory Benford


If you always do the easy and comfortable thing, life ends up being difficult and uncomfortable. If you do the difficult and uncomfortable thing, however, life ends up being easy and comfortable.

ERNIE J. ZELINSKI

Look Ma, Life's Easy

Tags: Ernie J. Zelinski


This life is a hospital where each patient is possessed by the desire to change his bed.

CHARLES BAUDELAIRE

"Anywhere Out of the World", Le Spleen de Paris

Tags: Charles Baudelaire


That life is brief hath seemed a piteous thing
Since the first mortal watched it glide away.
And sad it is that flowers have but one day,
And sad that birds have little time to sing;
That joy is fleeting as the bloom of Spring;
That youth so soon is startled from its play,
And manhood from its labor, to essay
The old vain struggle with the shadowy King.
But sadder far it is that life is long;
Ay, long enough for bliss to turn to bale,
For innocence to lose the dread of wrong,
For hearts to harden, love itself to fail;
And faith be wearied out (O, sad and strange!)
Unless Death save us from the deathly change.

CAROLINE SPENCER

"Life"

Tags: Caroline Spencer


Life asks for a preparation as complete as we can afford; the great contest should be fought with spirit but with good temper always; we should never think the game lost while it is still going; and finally we should have the satisfaction of quitting the field able to say: I did my best.

ARTHUR LYNCH

Moods of Life

Tags: Arthur Lynch


Much too oft we make life gloomy--
When happy we might be,
If we gathered more of sunshine,
And not dark shadows see.

ARDELIA COTTON BARTON

Thoughts


Life! we have been long together,
Through pleasant and through cloudy weather;
'Tis hard to part when friends are dear;
Perhaps 'twill cost a sigh, a tear;-
Then steal away, give little warning,
Choose thine own time;
Say not Good-night, but in some brighter clime
Bid me Good-morning!

ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD

"Life! I Know Not What Thou Art"

Tags: Anna Letitia Barbauld


A life is a moment in season. A life is one snowfall. A life is one autumn day. A life is the delicate, rapid edge of a closing door's shadow. A life is a brief movement of arms and of legs.

ALAN LIGHTMAN

Einstein's Dreams

Tags: Alan Lightman


Life doesn't imitate art, it imitates bad television.

WOODY ALLEN

Husbands and Wives

Tags: Woody Allen


Life is, alas, one eternal combat.

SARAH BERNHARDT

The Idol of Paris

Tags: Sarah Bernhardt


Lives are snowflakes -- forming patterns we have seen before, as like one another as peas in a pod (and have you ever looked at peas in a pod? I mean, really looked at them? There's not a chance you'd mistake one for another, after a minute's close inspection), but still unique.

NEIL GAIMAN

American Gods


Whoever has lived long enough to find out what life is, knows how deep a debt of gratitude we owe to Adam, the first great benefactor of our race. He brought death into the world.

MARK TWAIN

The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson

Tags: Mark Twain


If life is often so hard as this, I don't see how we ever shall get through it.

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

Little Women

Tags: Louisa May Alcott


If you can spend a perfectly useless afternoon in a perfectly useless manner, you have learned how to live.

LIN YUTANG

The Literary Digest, 1938

Tags: Lin Yutang


My life is a tree,
Yoke-fellow of the earth;
Pledged,
By roots too deep for remembrance,
To stand hard against the storm,
To fill by Place.
(But high in the branches of my green tree there is a wild bird singing:
Wind-free are the wings of my bird: she hath built no mortal nest.)

KARLE WILSON BAKER

The Tree

Tags: Karle Wilson Baker


Life is nothing but a statement of what happens to be.

GLEN DUNCAN

The Last Werewolf

Tags: Glen Duncan


Life is like a cocktail, made up for the most part of sweet things, and tinged with a dash of bitters. We must drain it to the dregs to get at the cherry, just as we must live a full and rounded life to know all its pleasures.

EDGAR GUEST

Home Rhymes

Tags: Edgar Guest


You can swim in life and seawater, but both are hard to swallow.

AUSTIN O'MALLEY

Keystones of Thought


The evil fortune of the living in no way affects the dead.

ARISTOTLE

Nicomachean Ethics

Tags: Aristotle