Every man’s life is a fairy tale, written by God’s fingers.
—Hans Christian Andersen (1805–75) Danish Author, Poet, Short Story Writer
If our life is unhappy it is painful to bear; if it is happy it is horrible to lose. So the one is pretty equal to the other.
—Jean de La Bruyere (1645–96) French Satiric Moralist, Author
Every true man, sir, who is a little above the level of the beasts and plants does not live for the sake of living, without knowing how to live; but he lives so as to give a meaning and a value of his own to life.
—Luigi Pirandello (1867–1936) Italian Dramatist, Novelist, Short Story Writer, Author
You only live once; but if you live it right, once is enough.
—Unknown
Live as if everything you do will eventually be known.
—Hugh Prather (b.1938) American Christian Author, Minister, Counselor
Life is the farce which everyone has to perform.
—Arthur Rimbaud (1854–91) French Poet, Adventurer
Life is a solitary cell whose walls are mirrors.
—Eugene O’Neill (1888–1953) American Playwright
A man sooner or later discovers that he is the master-gardener of his soul, the director of his life.
—James Allen (1864–1912) British Philosophical Writer
A free life cannot acquire many possessions, because this is not easy to do without servility to mobs or monarchs…
—Epicurus (c.341–270 BCE) Greek Philosopher
The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another; and his humblest hour is when he compares the volume as it is with what he vowed to make it.
—J. M. Barrie (1860–1937) Scottish Novelist, Dramatist
To live fully is to let go and die with each passing moment, and to be reborn in each new one.
—Jack Kornfield (b.1945) American Buddhist Teacher
The hardest years in life are those between ten and seventy.
—Helen Hayes (1900–93) American Actor, Philanthropist
Life is the continuous adjustment of internal relations to external relations.
—Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) English Polymath, Philosopher, Sociologist, Political Theorist
Life loves to be taken by the lapel and told: “I’m with you kid. Let’s go.”
—Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American Poet
It is really true what philosophy tells us, that life must be understood backwards. But with this, one forgets the second proposition, that it must be lived forwards.
—Soren Kierkegaard (1813–55) Danish Philosopher, Theologian
Life is not having been told that the man has just waxed the floor.
—Ogden Nash (1902–71) American Writer of Sophisticated Light Verse
Life is just a journey.
—Diana, Princess of Wales (1961–97) English Royal, Humanitarian, Peace Activist
Life flows on within you and without you.
—George Harrison (1943–2001) English Singer
Life is a comedy for those who think… and a tragedy for those who feel.
—Horace Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford (1717–97) English Art Historian, Man of Letters, Politician
Life is not so bad if you have plenty of luck, a good physique, and not too much imagination.
—Christopher Isherwood (1904–86) Anglo-American Novelist, Playwright
Living Life Tomorrow’s fate, though thou be wise, Thou canst not tell nor yet surmise; Pass, therefore, not today in vain, For it will never come again.
—Omar Khayyam (1048–1123) Persian Mathematician
Best to live lightly, unthinkingly.
—Sophocles (495–405 BCE) Ancient Greek Dramatist
Life is to be lived. If you have to support yourself, you had bloody well better find some way that is going to be interesting. And you don’t do that by sitting around wondering about yourself.
—Katharine Hepburn (1907–2003) American Actor, TV Personality
The tragedy of life is not that man loses,
but that he almost wins.
—Heywood Hale Broun (1918–2001) American Journalist, Commentator, Actor
In the game of life it’s a good idea to have a few early losses, which relieves you of the pressure of trying to maintain an undefeated season.
—Burton Hillis (William E. Vaughan) (1915–77) American Columnist, Author
I would rather think of life as a good book. The further you get into it, the more it begins to come together and make sense.
—Harold Kushner (b.1935) American Jewish Religious Leader, Priest
Everything has been figured out, except how to live.
—Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–80) French Philosopher, Playwright, Novelist, Screenwriter, Political Activist
Life is short; live it up.
—Nikita Khrushchev (1894–1971) Russian Head of State, Political leader
Be glad of life because it gives you to chance to love and to work and to play and to look up at the stars.
—Henry van Dyke Jr. (1852–1933) American Author, Educator, Clergyman
Let us live while we live.
—Philip Doddridge (1702–51) English Nonconformist Religious Leader, Educator, Hymn writer
Life finds its purpose and fulfillment in the expansion of happiness.
—Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (1914–2008) Indian Hindu Religious Leader
The art of living lies not in eliminating but in growing with troubles.
—Bernard M. Baruch (1870–1965) American Financier, Economic Consultant
Life is a grindstone. But whether it grinds us down or polishes us up depends on us.
—Thomas L. Holdcroft
Why does life keep teaching me lessons I have no desire to learn?
—Ashleigh Brilliant (b.1933) British Cartoonist, Author
Those who dwell among the beauties and mysteries of the Earth are never alone or weary of life.
—Rachel Carson (1907–64) American Naturalist, Science Writer
Your life and my life flow into each other as wave flows into wave, and unless there is peace and joy and freedom for you, there can be no real peace or joy or freedom for me. To see reality–not as we expect it to be but as it is–is to see that unless we live for each other and in and through each other, we do not really live very satisfactorily; that there can really be life only where there really is, in just this sense, love.
—Frederick Buechner (b.1926) American Presbyterian Clergyman, Novelist, Short Story Writer, Essayist, Theologian
Life may have no meaning. Or even worse, it may have a meaning of which I disapprove.
—Ashleigh Brilliant (b.1933) British Cartoonist, Author
I have an existential map; it has you are here written all over it.
—Steven Wright (b.1955) American Comedian, Actor, Writer
Life is obstinate and clings closest where it is most hated.
—Mary Shelley (1797–1851) English Novelist
Life is always walking up to us and saying, “Come on in, the living’s fine,” and what do we do? Back off and take its picture.
—Russell Baker (1925–2019) American Journalist, Humorist, Television Host
He who is not busy being born is busy dying.
—Bob Dylan (b.1941) American Singer-songwriter
What a life! True life is elsewhere. We are not in the world.
—Arthur Rimbaud (1854–91) French Poet, Adventurer
Life is like a cash register, in that every account, every thought, every deed, like every sale, is registered and recorded.
—Fulton J. Sheen (1895–1979) American Catholic Religious Leader, Theologian
It is not the years in your life but the life in your years that counts!
—Adlai Stevenson (1900–65) American Diplomat, Politician, Orator
Some people go through life trying to find out what the world holds for them only to find out too late that it’s what they bring to the world that really counts.
—Lucy Maud Montgomery (1874–1942) Canadian Novelist
We take these risks, not to escape life, but to prevent life from escaping us.
—Anonymous
Living is like working out a long addition sum, and if you make a mistake in the first two totals you will never find the right answer. It means involving oneself in a complicated chain of circumstances.
—Cesare Pavese (1908–50) Italian Novelist, Poet, Critic, Translator
Just as treasures are uncovered from the earth, so virtue appears from good deeds, and wisdom appears from a pure and peaceful mind. To walk safely through the maze of human life, one needs the light of wisdom and the guidance of virtue.
—Buddhist Teaching
Life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent. We would not dare to conceive the things which are really merely commonplaces of existence. If we could fly out of that window hand in hand, hover over this great city, gently remove the roofs and peep in at the queer things which are going on, the strange coincidences, the planning, the cross-purposes, the wonderful chain of events, working through generations and leading to the most outer results, it would make all fiction with its conventionalities and foreseen conclusions most stale and unprofitable.
—Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930) Scottish Writer
Life — how curious is that habit that makes us think it is not here, but elsewhere.
—V. S. Pritchett (1900–97) British Short Story Writer, Biographer, Memoirist, Literary Critic
Do not take life too seriously—you will never get out of it alive.
—Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) American Writer, Publisher, Artist, Philosopher
Remember, a dead fish can float downstream, but it takes a live one to swim upstream.
—W. C. Fields (1880–1946) American Actor, Comedian, Writer
All of life is a foreign country.
—Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) American Novelist, Poet
Life has a practice of living you, if you don’t live it.
—Philip Larkin (1922–85) English Poet, Librarian, Novelist
There’s night and day, brother, both sweet things; sun, moon, and stars, brother, all sweet things; there’s likewise a wind on the heath. Life is very sweet, brother; who would wish to die?
—George Borrow (1803–81) English Writer, Traveler
People find life entirely too time-consuming.
—Stanislaw Jerzy Lec (1909–1966) Polish Aphorist, Poet
The enjoyments of this life are not equal to its evils.
—Pliny the Elder (23–79 CE) Roman Scholar, Encyclopedist
Life is a great surprise. I do not see why death should not be an even greater one.
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977) Russian-born American Novelist
The purpose of life is to be defeated by greater and greater things.
—Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) Austrian Poet
I think that, as life is action and passion, it is required of a man that he should share the passion and action of his time at peril of being judged not to have lived.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841–1935) American Jurist, Author
These then are my last words to you. Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact.
—William James (1842–1910) American Philosopher, Psychologist, Physician
Life has taught me to think, but thinking has not taught me to live.
—Alexander Herzen (1812–70) Russian Revolutionary, Writer
It is vanity to desire a long life and to take no heed of a good life.
—Thomas a Kempis (1379–1471) German Religious Priest, Writer
To yackety-yak about the past is for me time lost. Every morning I wake up saying, ‘I’m still alive — a miracle.’ And so I keep on pushing.
—Jacques Cousteau (1910–97) French Oceanographer, Documentary Director
When we speak the word “life,” it must be understood we are not referring to life as we know it from its surface of fact, but to that fragile, fluctuating center which forms never reach.
—Antonin Artaud (1896–1948) French Actor, Drama Theorist
Life is a foreign language: all men mispronounce it.
—Christopher Morley (1890–1957) American Novelist, Essayist
To live life well is to express life poorly; if one expresses life too well, one is living it no longer.
—Gaston Bachelard (1884–1962) French Philosopher, Psychoanalyst, Poet
We Japanese enjoy the small pleasures, not extravagance. I believe a man should have a simple lifestyle—even if he can afford more.
—Masaru Ibuka (1908–97) Japanese Entrepreneur, Engineer
The surrender of life is nothing to sinking down into acknowledgment of inferiority.
—John C. Calhoun (1782–1850) American Head of State, Politician, Activist
It’s not true that life is one damn thing after another; it’s one damn thing over and over.
—Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950) American Poet, Playwright, Feminist
Two babies were born on the same day at the same hospital. They lay there and looked at each other. Their families came and took them away. Eighty years later, by a bizarre coincidence, they lay in the same hospital, on their deathbeds, next to each other. One of them looked at the other and said, so. What did you think?
—Steven Wright (b.1955) American Comedian, Actor, Writer
People do not live nowadays. They get about 10% out of life.
—Isadora Duncan (1877–1927) American Dancer, Choreographer
In a real sense, people who have read good literature have lived more than people who cannot or will not read. It is not true that we have only one life to live; if we can read, we can live as many more lives and as many kinds of lives as we wish.
—S. I. Hayakawa (1906–92) Canadian-born American Academic, Elected Rep, Politician