more quotes, quotations and passages on life

life - life 3 - life 4 - life 5 - life 6

Be not afraid of life. Believe that
life is worth living and your
belief will help create the fact.

William James

No one has success until he or she has the abounding life. This is made up of the many-fold activity of energy, enthusiasm and gladness. It is to spring to meet the day with a thrill at being alive. It is to go forth to meet the morning in an ecstasy of joy. It is to realize the oneness of humanity in true spiritual sympathy. Lillian Whiting

When your life is filled with the desire to see the holiness in everyday life, something magical happens: ordinary life becomes extraordinary, and the very process of life begins to nourish your soul! With each new circumstance that comes your way, another opportunity presents itself to nourish your soul. Rabbi Harold Kushner Prepare to live by all means, but for Heaven's sake do not forget to live. Arnold Bennett

A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent doing nothing. George Bernard Shaw

The value of life lies not in the length of days, but in the use we make of them; a person may live long yet live very little. Michel de Montaigne

As a doctor, I studied survivors--people who got sick but exceeded expectations.
Many of those exceptional patients had been given little time to live, yet they
were some of the happiest people I'd ever met. They knew, or they discovered
through their illness, which became their teacher, that if you want to be happy,
you must answer some key questions. What are you here for? And how do you
want to spend your limited time? If your answer is that you are here to love, to
serve others and not to be served, then you already have everything you need
to be happy. If you wake up in the morning, that's enough; you are grateful for
life and the opportunity to contribute in your way.

Bernie Siegel

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Bill developed cancer while still a young man, in his forties; he had a wife,
a flourishing career, and children whom he loved a lot. When he knew his
death was approaching, he wrote a letter to all of his friends to be sent
after his death. In it, he said about his life, “I would have wanted more,
but I never wanted other!” I thought it would be marvelous to live my life
that way, wanting more as a response to appreciating life,
but never wanting "other."

Sylvia Boorstein
It's Easier Than You Think

Life is a school. There is something new to learn wherever
we may be, wherever we go, wherever we turn.

Walter A. Witt

Some days, doing "the best we can" may still fall short of what
we would like to be able to do, but life isn't perfect--on any
front--and doing what we can with what we have is the
most we should expect of ourselves or anyone else.

Fred Rogers
The World According to Mr. Rogers

A Psalm of Life
WHAT THE HEART OF THE YOUNG
MAN SAID TO THE PSALMIST

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!--
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us farther than to-day.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world's broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no future, howe'er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act,--act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o'erhead!

Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;

Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Your life has been designed to work, and your hidden potential
contains what you seek and all that you need in your life. It is OK
to be who you are and to choose what you have. The Quakers
call it the "still, small voice within," that place of full awareness
within that is in touch with the entire universe and is the source
of wisdom. In effect, you don't have to keep searching for
confirmation by focusing on being someone else or being
somewhere else. There is no place else to be and nothing
else to get. You will be able to grasp the levers of change in
your life when you can allow yourself to be present in the
moment, accept the world as it is, and trust that
everything is as it was intended to be.

Ari Kiev

At end of Love, at end of Life,
At end of Hope, at end of Strife'
At end of all we cling to so--
The sun is setting--we must go.
At dawn of Love, at dawn of Life,
At dawn of Peace that follows Strife,
At dawn of all we long for so--
The sun is rising--let us go.

Louise Chandler Moulton

It is a glorious privilege to live, to know, to act, to listen, to behold,
to love. To look up at the blue summer sky; to see the sun sink slowly
beyond the line of the horizon; to watch the worlds come twinkling into
view, first one by one, and the myriads that no man can count, and lo!
the universe is white with them; and you and I are here.

Marco Morrow

I wish there were a book I could read each day to tell me exactly what to do
to live consciously from my heart and soul. But part of the mystery and magic,
part of the reason I'm here, is to try to stumble through and hear what the soul
has to say about what it needs at each moment--whether it is to work through
an emotional block, discover what the next lesson is, meet the next soul mate
(my children are soul mates; my best friends are soul mates), or finish my business
with the one I'm with now. Ultimately, for most of us, the journey comes down
to the same issue: learning to love freely. First ourselves, then other people.

Melody Beattie

What is this thing called life, and why do we have so many problems trying to get through it? Why do so many people hate it so much, while others love it and live it fully until they die? Part of the goal of this series of pages is to examine life from different perspectives, looking at different aspects of who we are. Maybe we're feeling badly about ourselves because of how we're treating one particular aspect of ourselves, and if we can focus on that, we can start living more. I know that I want to reach my death and look back and say that even though I didn't do everything right, even though I ended up hurting people, even though I made many mistakes, I still did the best that I could, and I still got the most I could out of each moment.

I try to do so, for I know I could die tomorrow. So could you--sorry, but it's true. And even if I live to be eighty, eighty years isn't enough to experience everything that's available to us in this world. Live life, don't just walk through it. This isn't a dress rehearsal--this is the real thing. Take advantage of it. As Maude says, "Get hurt even." You belong here just as much as any other one of God's creations, and God wants you to thrive, to live. He's not going to hand life to you on a platter, though--you've got to go out and get it.

Sometimes I think we make it more difficult on ourselves by viewing life in very general terms. We look at "life"--this vast, all-encompassing term--rather than at "my life," a much more specific term that we actually can get a grip on if we try hard enough. My life is made up of my experiences and how I react to the experiences of others, and my life is quite a fascinating thing. My life is lovable and livable, and I can live it only in the way that I choose to live it.

We also tend to see life in the way that others see it for us. Other people seem to think that they know better how we should live our lives, and we cave in and obey them far too often. There's a huge difference between doing what others tell us to do and learning from others and putting the lessons into practice. If we do the former, we lose our sense of self, our sense of who we are, and it's difficult to be satisfied with ourselves. If we do the latter, we keep our integrity (what an important word!), and our lives truly are our lives.

Life is a beautiful experience. Accept that reality, and live as if it were true, and you'll be amazed at how beautiful life actually is. We're not here to fight, but to cooperate, and when we put that principle into practice, we start to find the peace our hearts yearn for.

tom walsh

The people whom I have seen succeed best in life have always been cheerful
and hopeful, who went about their business with a smile on their faces,
and took the changes and chances of this mortal life with
strength, facing rough and smooth alike as it came.

Charles Kingsley

Look at an animal, a cat, a dog, or a bird, or one of those beautiful
great beasts in the zoo, a puma or a giraffe. You can't help seeing
that all of them are right. They're never in any embarrassment. They
always know what to do and how to behave themselves. They don't
flatter and they don't intrude. They don't pretend. They are as they
are, like stones or flowers or stars in the sky.

Herman Hesse

We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths;
In feelings, not in figures on a dial.
We should count time by heart-throbs.
They most live
Who think most, feel the noblest, act the best.

Philip James Bailey

life - life 3 - life 4 - life 5 - life 6

The world is a looking-glass, and gives back to everyone the reflection
of our own faces. Frown at it, and it in turn will look sourly on you;
laugh at it and with it, and it is a jolly, kind companion.

William Makepeace Thackery

I am in love with this world. . .
I have climbed its mountains, roamed its forests,
sailed its waters, crossed its deserts, felt the sting of its frosts,
the oppression of its heats, the drench of its rains, the fury of its winds,
and always have beauty and joy waited upon my goings and comings.

John Burroughs

You were born with the right to be happy. You were born with the
right to love, to enjoy and to share your love. You are alive, so take
your life and enjoy it. Don't resist life passing through you, because
that is God passing through you. Just your existence proves the
existence of God. Your existence proves the existence of life and energy.
We don't need to know or prove anything. Just to be, to take a risk
and enjoy your life, is all that matters. Say no when you want to say no,
and yes when you want to say yes. You have the right to be you. That's
a seed that you really should nurture in your mind. You don't need
knowledge or great philosophical concepts. You don't need the
acceptance of others. You express your own divinity by being alive
and by loving yourself and others. It is an expression
of God to say, "Hey, I love you."

Don Miguel Ruiz
The Four Agreements

Is life so wretched? Isn't it rather your hands are too small, your
vision which is muddled? You are the one who must grow up.

Dag Hammarskjold

Nobody has things just as they would like them. The thing to do
is to make a success with what material I have. It is a sheer
waste of time and soul-power to imagine what I would
do if things were different. They are not different.

Frank Crane

The secret of success is to be in harmony with existence,
to be always calm. . . to let each wave of life
wash us a little farther up the shore.

Cyril Connolly

The things that are most worthwhile in life are really
those within the reach of almost every normal
human being who cares to seek them out.

Charles B. Forbes

You come into the world with nothing, and the purpose
of your life is to make something out of nothing.

Henry Louis Mencken

Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood.

Marie Curie

Life's under no obligation to give us what we expect.
We take what we get and are thankful it's no worse than it is.

Margaret Mitchell

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People say that what we're all seeking is a meaning for life. I don't think that's
what we're really seeking. I think that what we're seeking is an experience
of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane
will have resonances within our own innermost being and reality,
so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.

Joseph Campbell

To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury;
and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable;
and wealthy, not rich; to study hard, think quietly, talk gently, act frankly;
to listen to stars and birds, to babes and sages, with open heart;
to bear all cheerfully, do all bravely, await occasion, hurry never;
in a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden, and unconscious to grow up
through the common. This is to be my symphony.

William Henry Channing

You must understand the whole of life, not just one little part of it.
That is why you must read, that is why you must look at the skies,
that is why you must sing, and dance, and write poems,
and suffer, and understand, for all that is life.

J. Krishnamurti

It began in mystery, and it will end in mystery, but what
a savage and beautiful country lies in between.

Diane Ackerman

None but a good person is really a living one, and the more
good any person does, the more he or she really lives.
All the rest is death, or belongs with it.

Cotton Mather

Many people ask me what I have learned from all of the
experiences in my life, and I say unhesitatingly: People
are wonderful. It is true. People really are wonderful.

Desmond Tutu
Believe

life - life 3 - life 4 - life 5 - life 6

I like living. I have sometimes been wildly despairing, acutely miserable,
racked with sorrow, but through it all I still know quite certainly
that just to be alive is a grand thing.

Agatha Christie

Once out of all the gray days of my life I have looked into the heart of reality;
I have witnessed the truth; I have seen life as it really is--ravishingly, ecstatically,
madly beautiful, and filled to overflowing with a wild joy, and a value unspeakable.

Margaret Prescott Montague

Life is too wonderful,
too full, too short
and strength too limited
to contain its wonder.

Ruth Draper

He had learned that it was the smallness of people that filled
him with wonder and tenderness, and the loneliness of that too.
The world was made up of people putting one foot in front of the
other; and a life might appear ordinary simply because the person
living it had been doing so for a long time. Harold could no longer
pass a stranger without acknowledging the truth that everyone was
the same, and also unique; and that this was the dilemma of being human.

Rachel Joyce
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace.
Where there is hatred let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.
O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

St. Francis of Assissi
(attributed)

Focused on life as we yearn for it, we neglect to live the life that we have.
"This shouldn't be happening," we tell ourselves in difficult seasons. Meaning,
"Once this is over, I'll get on with my life." Craving the comfort of desired
events and outcomes, we ignore the uncomfortable but exhilarating gifts of
living life as a continually unfolding process in which all moments are valuable.
Absorbed in our "inner movie," we miss the many minute
transformations that enrich and ennoble our lives.

Julia Cameron
Transitions: Prayers and
Declarations for a Changing Life