Quotes
Quotes about Life
"Let thine occupations be few," saith the sage, "if thou wouldst lead a tranquil life."
Remember this,--that there is a proper dignity and proportion to be observed in the performance of every act of life.
Mark how fleeting and paltry is the estate of man,--yesterday in embryo, to-morrow a mummy or ashes. So for the hair's-breadth of time assigned to thee live rationally, and part with life cheerfully, as drops the ripe olive, extolling the season that bore it and the tree that matured it.
Deem not life a thing of consequence. For look at the yawning void of the future, and at that other limitless space, the past.
Just as the sand-dunes, heaped one upon another, hide each the first, so in life the former deeds are quickly hidden by those that follow after.
Remember this,--that very little is needed to make a happy life.
Remember that what pulls the strings is the force hidden within; there lies the power to persuade, there the life,--there, if one must speak out, the real man.
Thales said there was no difference between life and death. "Why, then," said some one to him, "do not you die?" "Because," said he, "it does make no difference."
Bias used to say that men ought to calculate life both as if they were fated to live a long and a short time, and that they ought to love one another as if at a future time they would come to hate one another; for that most men were bad.
Very late in life, when he was studying geometry, some one said to Lacydes, "Is it then a time for you to be learning now?" "If it is not," he replied, "when will it be?"
The chief good he has defined to be the exercise of virtue in a perfect life.
In the time of Pythagoras that proverbial phrase "Ipse dixit" was introduced into ordinary life.
Euripides says,--
Who knows but that this life is really death,
And whether death is not what men call life?
Even opinion is of force enough to make itself to be espoused at the expense of life.
There is, nevertheless, a certain respect and a general duty of humanity that ties us, not only to beasts that have life and sense, but even to trees and plants.
There is no man so good, who, were he to submit all his thoughts and actions to the laws, would not deserve hanging ten times in his life.
My lovely living boy,
My hope, my hap, my love, my life, my joy.
The ease of my burdens, the staff of my life.
For as old age is that period of life most remote from infancy, who does not see that old age in this universal man ought not to be sought in the times nearest his birth, but in those most remote from it?
Art is long, life short; judgment difficult, opportunity transient.
Who in life's battle firm doth stand
Shall bear hope's tender blossoms
Into the silent land!
Life let us cherish, while yet the taper glows,
And the fresh flow'ret pluck ere it close;
Why are we fond of toil and care?
Why choose the rankling thorn to wear?
I 'm growing old, I'm sixty years;
I 've labored all my life in vain.
In all that time of hopes and fears,
I 've failed my dearest wish to gain.
I see full well that here below
Bliss unalloyed there is for none
My prayer would else fulfilment know--
Never have I seen Carcassonne!
Truth is the secret of eloquence and of virtue, the basis of moral authority; it is the highest summit of art and of life.
Life is the apprenticeship to progressive renunciation, to the steady diminution of our claims, of our hopes, of our powers, of our liberty.
