Nature

"Life is an urge of the Universe to understand itself."

"[T]he only meaning of life worth caring about is one that can withstand our best efforts to examine it."

"Every living movement is a sliding toward death. But if they are willing to look it in the face they also discover that every movement toward death is life."

"In life, if not in literature, there is always anticlimax."

"One is born, one runs up bills, one dies."

"Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something, and that this thing, at whatever cost, must be attained."

"What is it but a map of busy life, Its fluctuations, and its vast concerns?"

"Still ending, and beginning still."

"Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away."

"Life is but a flicker shouting into the jaws of eternity. But it seems so damned unfair!"

"You try your damnedest, but something always goes wrong. That’s life. If you’re smart, you plan for it."

"To live is to experience things, not sit around pondering the meaning of life."

"We think a happy life consists in tranquility of mind."

"How few philosophers are to be found who are such in character, so ordered in soul and in life, as reason demands; who regard their teaching not as a display of knowledge, but as the rule of life; who obey themselves, and submit to their own decrees!"

"Undoubtedly, as it seems to me at least, satiety of all pursuits causes satiety of life. Boyhood has certain pursuits: does youth yearn for them? Early youth has its pursuits: does the matured or so-called middle stage of life need them? Maturity, too, has such as are not even sought in old age, and finally, there are those suitable to old age. Therefore as the pleasures and pursuits of the earlier periods of life fall away, so also do those of old age; and when that happens man has his fill of life and the time is ripe for him to go."

"Life's race-course is fixed; Nature has only a single path and that path is run but once, and to each stage of existence has been allotted its own appropriate quality; so that the weakness of childhood, the impetuosity of youth, the seriousness of middle life, the maturity of old age—each bears some of Nature's fruit, which must be garnered in its own season."

"O philosophy, life’s guide! O searcher-out of virtue and expeller of vices! What could we and every age of men have been without thee? Thou hast produced cities; thou hast called men scattered about into the social enjoyment of life."

"Since life is but a continuous series of experiences, everything ultimately helps me towards my final enlightenment."

"In our lives there is a simple colour, as on an artist's palette, which provides the meaning of life and art. It is the colour of love."

"Forget the financial angle and consider rather which is the best outlet for the greatest contribution you can make towards making the world a better place in which to live. Efforts should never be expended purely for mercenary reasons. Pecuniary gains should come as a result of the entity's using his abilities in the direction of being helpful."

"Woman: What is my true life work? Cayce: Encouraging the weak and the faint; giving strength and courage to those who have faltered."

"They cut me down And I leapt up high; I am the life That'll never, never die; I'll live in you If you'll live in me — I am the Lord Of the Dance, said he."

"Well, as you know, there are many things in life that are not fair, that wealthy people can afford and poor people can't. But I don't believe that the Federal Government should take action to try to make these opportunities exactly equal, particularly when there is a moral factor involved."

"The history of life on earth has been a history of interaction between living things and their surroundings. To a large extent, the physical form and the habits of the earth's vegetation and its animal life have been molded by the environment. Considering the whole span of earthly time, the opposite effect, in which life actually modifies its surroundings, has been relatively slight. Only within the moment of time represented by the present century has one species-man-acquired significant power to alter the nature of his world."

"As human beings, we are part of the whole stream of life."

"It is a curious situation that the sea, from which life first arose, should now be threatened by the activities of one form of that life. But the sea, though changed in a sinister way, will continue to exist; the threat is rather to life itself."

"People who see life as anything more than pure entertainment are missing the point."

"The realization that life is absurd and cannot be an end, but only a beginning. This is a truth nearly all great minds have taken as their starting point. It is not this discovery that is interesting, but the consequences and rules of action drawn from it."

"Life is very marvelous … and to the wonders of the earth there is no end appointed."

"Life is a pageant that passes very quickly, going hastily from one darkness to another darkness with only ignes fatui to guide; and there is no sense in it. I learned that, Kerin, without moiling over books. But life is a fine ardent spectacle; and I have loved the actors in it: and I have loved their youth and high-heartedness, and their ungrounded faiths, and their queer dreams, my Kerin, about their own importance and about the greatness of the destiny that awaited them, — while you were piddling after, of all things, the truth!"

"Everything in life is miraculous. For the sigil taught me that it rests within the power of each of us to awaken at will from a dragging nightmare of life made up of unimportant tasks and tedious useless little habits, to see life as it really is, and to rejoice in its exquisite wonderfulness. If the sigil were proved to be the top of a tomato-can, it would not alter that big fact, nor my fixed faith."

"Down sank the great red sun, and in golden, glimmering vapors Veiled the light of his face, like the Prophet descending from Sinai."

"There was strong music in the sky: the music of sunset. In the west, a wall of clear red amber through which the sun went blazing down. The remainder of the sky was smoky rose, a color like a perfume—musk. The earth had given up its tinctures. Heights and depths and long dunes were melting into the air."

"The sacred lamp of day Now dipt in western clouds his parting ray."

"It was the cooling hour, just when the rounded Red sun sinks down behind the azure hill, Which then seems as if the whole earth is bounded, Circling all nature, hush'd, and dim, and still, With the far mountain-crescent half surrounded On one side, and the deep sea calm and chill Upon the other, and the rosy sky With one star sparkling through it like an eye."

"Sunsets are loved because they vanish."

"When the sun sinks in the west Die a million people of the Bangladesh."

"The death-bed of a day, how beautiful!"

"The rising sun complies with our weak sight, First gilds the clouds, then shows his globe of light At such a distance from our eyes, as though He knew what harm his hasty beams would do."

"East, oh, east of Himalay Dwell the nations underground, Hiding from the shock of day, For the sun's uprising sound… So fearfully the sun doth sound, Clanging up beyond Cathay; For the great earthquaking sunrise Rolling up beyond Cathay."

"See how there The cowlèd night Kneels on the Eastern sanctuary-stair."

"See! led by Morn, with dewy feet, Apollo mounts his golden seat, Replete with seven-fold fire; While, dazzled by his conquering light, Heaven's glittering host and awful night Submissively retire."

"And yonder fly his scattered golden arrows, And smite the hills with day."

"As the sun rises, decisions are made."

"The whole east was flecked With flashing streaks and shafts of amethyst, While a light crimson mist Went up before the mounting luminary, And all the strips of cloud began to vary Their hues, and all the zenith seemed to ope As if to show a cope beyond the cope!"

"Methought little space 'tween those hills intervened, But nearer,—more lofty,—more shaggy they seemed. The clouds o'er their summits they calmly did rest, And hung on the ether's invisible breast; Than the vapours of earth they seemed purer, more bright,— Oh! could they be clouds? 'Twas the necklace of night."

"Long on the wave reflected lustres play."

"Now in his Palace of the West, Sinking to slumber, the bright Day, Like a tired monarch fann'd to rest, 'Mid the cool airs of Evening lay; While round his couch's golden rim The gaudy clouds, like courtiers, crept— Struggling each other's light to dim, And catch his last smile e'er he slept."

"After a day of cloud and wind and rain Sometimes the setting sun breaks out again, And, touching all the darksome woods with light, Smiles on the fields until they laugh and sing, Then like a ruby from the horizon's ring, Drops down into the night."

"Forming and breaking in the sky, I fancy all shapes are there; Temple, mountain, monument, spire; Ships rigged out with sails of fire, And blown by the evening air."