Life

": May he live, fife, pipe, drink."

"What is life? For the happy a pleasure, for the poor a torture, and to all an expectation of death."

"I bargained with Life for a penny, And Life would pay no more, However I begged at evening When I counted my scanty store; For Life is a just employer, He gives you what you ask, But once you have set the wages, Why, you must bear the task. I worked for a menial's hire, Only to learn, dismayed, That any wage I had asked of Life, Life would have paid."

"Many people ask, for example: What is the purpose of my life? Meaning: What am I meant to do? but the purpose of your life, and each life, is in its being. That being may include certain actions, but the acts themselves are only important in that they spring out of the essence of your life, which simply by being is bound to fulfill its purposes."

"Life, which all creatures love and strive to keep Wonderful, dear and pleasant unto each, Even to the meanest; yea, a boon to all Where pity is, for pity makes the world Soft to the weak and noble for the strong."

"A narrow isthmus 'twixt two boundless seas, The past, the future, two eternities."

"The difficulty in life is the choice."

"Every man's life is a fairy-tale written by God's fingers."

"Life isn’t divided into genres. It’s a horrifying, romantic, tragic, comical, science-fiction cowboy detective novel. You know, with a bit of pornography if you're lucky."

"Life is a better teacher of virtue than politicians."

"I know not if the dark or bright Shall be my lot; If that wherein my hopes delight Be best or not."

"And by a prudent flight and cunning save A life which valour could not, from the grave. A better buckler I can soon regain, But who can get another life again?"

"With aching hands and bleeding feet We dig and heap, lay stone on stone; We bear the burden and the heat Of the long day, and wish 'twere done. Not till the hours of light return All we have built do we discern."

"Life is a long lesson in humility."

"I would not live over my hours past … not unto Cicero's ground because I have lived them well, but for fear I should live them worse."

": No one has lived a short life who has performed its duties with unblemished character."

"Nor love thy life, nor hate; but what thou liv'st Live well; how long or short permit to heav'n."

"For men to tell how human life began Is hard; for who himself beginning knew?"

"Life cheap and death is free"

"When life leaps in the veins, when it beats in the heart, When it thrills as it fills every animate part, Where lurks it? how works it? * * * we scarcely detect it."

"Life hath set No landmarks before us."

"Can life be counted upon to limit itself? No. It is the mindless striving of two to become infinity."

"Life is an echo. What you send out comes back. What you sow, you reap. What you give, you get. What you see in others, exists in you."

"Life comes from physical survival; but the good life comes from what we care about."

"Life ain't great now, but it's much improved."

"That life is long, which answers life's great end."

"The way to recover the meaning of life and the worthwhileness of life is to recover the power of experience, to have impulse voices from within, and to be able to hear these impulse voices from within — and make the point: This can be done."

"What counts in life is not the mere fact that we have lived. It is what difference we have made to the lives of others that will determine the significance of the life we lead."

"While man is growing, life is in decrease, And cradles rock us nearer to the tomb: Our birth is nothing but our death begun."

"Still seems it strange, that thou shouldst live forever? Is it less strange, that thou shouldst live at all? This is a miracle; and that no more."

"Life is what happens to us while we are making other plans."

"Life is a kind of flower, its blooms dying but exquisite."

"I have very strongly this feeling... that our everyday life is at one and the same time banal, overfamiliar, platitudinous and yet mysterious and extraordinary."

"When life gives you lemons, don’t make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back! Get mad! I don’t want your damn lemons, what the hell am I supposed to do with these? Demand to see life’s manager! Make life rue the day it thought it could give Cave Johnson lemons! Do you know who I am? I’m the man who’s gonna burn your house down! With the lemons! I’m gonna get my engineers to invent a combustible lemon that burns your house down!"

"Everything has contributed to your greatness; you ought to do the rest, God is not willing to do everything, and thus take away our free will and that share of glory which belongs to us."

"But growing up was just a part of the process of living, which he realized now was mostly about dying."

"To believe in a God means to understand the question about the meaning of life. To believe in a God means to see that the facts of the world are not the end of the matter. To believe in God means to see that life has a meaning."

"What is the meaning of life? That was all — a simple question; one that tended to close in on one with years. The great revelation had never come. The great revelation perhaps never did come. Instead there were little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark; here was one."

""In the midst of life we are in death," said one; it is more true that in the midst of death we are in life. Life is the only reality; what men call death is but a shadow — a word for that which cannot be — a negation, owing the very idea of itself to that which it would deny. But for life there could be no death. If God were not, there would not even be nothing. Not even nothingness preceded life. Nothingness owes its very idea to existence."

"Life is a hideous thing, and from the background behind what we know of it peer daemoniacal hints of truth which make it sometimes a thousandfold more hideous."

"You know life is cruel; life is never kind."

"My life, I live to the limit and I love it."

"This life of ours is a wild æolian harp of many a joyous strain, But under them all there runs a loud perpetual wail, as of souls in pain."

"Jigsaw: Congratulations. You are still alive. Most people are so ungrateful to be alive. But not you. Not anymore."

"The essence of life is change, he said, and the essence of eternal life is eternal change."

"For what are men who grasp at praise sublime, But bubbles on the rapid stream of time, That rise, and fall, that swell, and are no more, Born, and forgot, ten thousand in an hour?"

"Row, row, row your boat, Gently down the stream. Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, Life is but a dream."

"Life is not always a matter of holding good cards, but sometimes, playing a poor hand well."

"I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time."

"Life is a game and true love is a trophy."