An aphorism is nothing else but the slightest
form of writing raised to the highest level of expressive communication. Carl William Brown



60,000 QUOTES SPIDER
 


QUOTES AND APHORISMS ON LIFE 1

 

 

I don't want to get to the end of my life and find that I have just lived the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as well.

Diane Ackerman (1948-, American poet, writer, naturalist)

 

Life is a school of probability.
Walter Bagehot

 

Life is nothing but a cock and bull story, and one of the best of its kind.
Carl William Brown (1960 - , Italian writer, aphorist, teacher and trader)

 

The less routine the more life.

Amos Bronson Alcott (1799-1888, American educator, social reformer)

 

Make each day useful and cheerful and prove that you know the worth of time by employing it well. Then youth will be happy, old age without regret and life a beautiful success.

Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888, American author)

 

Life is a dream for the wise, a game for the fool, a comedy for the rich, a tragedy for the poor.

Sholom Aleichem (1859-1916, Ukraine-born American writer)

 

If I had been present at creation, I would have given some useful hints.

Alfonso X (1221-1284, Spanish King of Leon and Castile)

 

Life, in my estimation, is a biological misadventure that we terminate on the shoulders of six strange men whose only objective is to make a hole in one with you.

Fred A. Allen (1894-1957, American radio comic)

 

The first thing that strikes a visitor to Paris is a taxi.

Fred A. Allen (1894-1957, American radio comic)

 

If you love life, don'ět waste time, for time is what life is made up of!
Bruce Lee

 

Washington is no place for a good actor. The competition from bad actors is too great.

Fred A. Allen (1894-1957, American radio comic)

 

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-born American essayist, author, "As A Man Thinketh")

 

Life is divided up into the horrible and the miserable.

Woody Allen (1935-, American director, screenwriter, actor, comedian)

 

Life is full of misery, loneliness, and suffering; and it's all over much too soon.

Woody Allen (1935-, American director, screenwriter, actor, comedian)

 

Youth is too tumultuous for felicity; old age too insecure for happiness. The period most favorable to enjoyment, in a vigorous, fortunate, and generous life, is that between forty and sixty.

John Christian Bovee (1820-1904, American author, lawyer)

 

Life is short and we have never too much time for gladdening the hearts of those who are travelling the dark journey with us. Oh be swift to love, make haste to be kind.

Henri Frederic Amiel (1821-1881, Swiss philosopher, poet, critic)

 

Every man's life is a fairy tale written by God's finger.

Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875, Danish children stories writer)

 

Life loves the liver of it.

Maya Angelou (1928-, African-American poet, writer, performer)

Author's website: www.mayaangelou.com

 

Life loves to be taken by the lapel and told: "I'm with you kid. Let's go."

Maya Angelou (1928-, African-American poet, writer, performer)

Author's website: www.mayaangelou.com

 

There is a very fine line between loving life and being greedy for it.

Maya Angelou (1928-, African-American poet, writer, performer)

Author's website: www.mayaangelou.com

 

The drama of life begins with a wail and ends with a sigh.

Minna Antrim (1861-1950, American epigrammist)

 

Luck serves ... as rationalization for every people that is not master of its own destiny.

Hannah Arendt (1906-1975, German-born American political philosopher)

 

A great city is not to be confounded with a populous one.

Aristotle (BC 384-322, Greek philosopher)

 

The energy of the mind is the essence of life.

Aristotle (BC 384-322, Greek philosopher)

 

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 theater producer, actor, theorist)

 

A filly who wants to run will always find a rider.

Jacques Audiberti

 

I found Rome brick; I left it marble.

Caesar Augustus (63 BC-14 AD, Founder of the Roman Empire)

 

Let men see, let them know, a real man, who lives as he was meant to live.

Marcus Aurelius (121-12180, Roman emperor, philosopher)

 

The art of living is more like that of wrestling than of dancing; the main thing is to stand firm and be ready for an unseen attack.

Marcus Aurelius (121-12180, Roman emperor, philosopher)

 

Your life is what your thoughts make it.

Marcus Aurelius (121-12180, Roman emperor, philosopher)

 

One has not great hopes from Birmingham. I always say there is something direful in the sound.

Jane Austen (1775-1817, British novelist)

 

We do not look in our great cities for our best morality.

Jane Austen (1775-1817, British novelist)

 

Remember that you have only one soul; that you have only one death to die; that you have only one life, which is short and has to be lived by you alone; and there is only one glory, which is eternal. If you do this, there will be many things about which you care nothing.

St. Teresa of Avila

 

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 scientist, philosopher, literary theorist)

 

Life, an age to the miserable, and a moment to the happy.

Francis Bacon (1561-1626, British philosopher, essayist, statesman)

 

Things alter for the worse spontaneously, if they be not altered for the better designedly.

Francis Bacon (1561-1626, British philosopher, essayist, statesman)

 

What I like about cities is that everything is king size, the beauty and the ugliness.

Joseph Brodsky (1940-, Russian-born American poet, critic)

 

You don't get to choose how you're going to die, or when. You can decide how you're going to live now.

Joan Baez (1941-, American singer, songwriter)

 

Life is always walking up to us and saying, "Come on in, the living's find," and what do we do? Back off and take its picture.

Russell Wayne Baker (1925-, American journalist)

 

Voyagers discover that the world can never be larger than the person that is in the world; but it is impossible to foresee this, it is impossible to be warned.

James Baldwin (1924-1987, American author)

 

They have rights who dare defend them.

Roger Baldwin

 

Life marches by, I suggest you get on with it.

Joy Baluch

 

If someone is wiser, if someone is happier by my having lived, my life will not have been in vain.

Roger Barnes

 

Life is a long lesson in humility.

James M. Barrie (1860-1937, British playwright)

 

The life of every person is like a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another.

James M. Barrie (1860-1937, British playwright)

 

The trouble with life is that there are so many beautiful women and so little time.

John Barrymore (1882-1942, American actor)

 

The art of living lies not in eliminating but in growing with troubles.

Bernard M. Baruch (1870-1965, American financier)

 

You have to do what you love to do, not get stuck in that comfort zone of a regular job. Life is not a dress rehearsal. This is it.

Lucinda Basset

 

The life of our city is rich in poetic and marvelous subjects. We are enveloped and steeped as though in an atmosphere of the marvelous; but we do not notice it.

Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867, French poet)

 

Cities are distinguished by the catastrophic forms they presuppose and which are a vital part of their essential charm. New York is King Kong, or the blackout, or vertical bombardment: towering Inferno. Los Angeles is the horizontal fault, California breaking off and sliding into the Pacific: earthquake.

Jean Baudrillard (French postmodern philosopher, writer)

 

Deep down, no one really believes they have a right to live. But this death sentence generally stays tucked away, hidden beneath the difficulty of living. If that difficulty is removed from time to time, death is suddenly there, unintelligibly.

Jean Baudrillard (French postmodern philosopher, writer)

 

Everywhere one seeks to produce meaning, to make the world signify, to render it visible. We are not, however, in danger of lacking meaning; quite the contrary, we are gorged with meaning and it is killing us.

Jean Baudrillard (French postmodern philosopher, writer)

 

The cities of the world are concentric, isomorphic, synchronic. Only one exists and you are always in the same one. It's the effect of their permanent revolution, their intense circulation, is their instantaneous magnetism.

Jean Baudrillard (French postmodern philosopher, writer)

  

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.

Bill Baughan

  

Life is made up of time, so don't waste both, if you are able to care!
Carl William Brown

 

Life is a sexually transmitted disease.

Guy Bellamy

 

Life is not lost by dying; life is lost minute by minute, day by dragging day, in all the thousand small uncaring ways.

Stephen Vincent Benet (1989-1943, American novelist, poet)

 

Not to find one's way in a city may well be uninteresting and banal. It requires ignorance -- nothing more. But to lose oneself in a city -- as one loses oneself in a forest -- that calls for a quite different schooling. Then, signboard and street names, passers-by, roofs, kiosks, or bars must speak to the wanderer like a cracking twig under his feet in the forest.

Walter Benjamin (1982-1940, German critic, philosopher)

 

We have long forgotten the ritual by which the house of our life was erected. But when it is under assault and enemy bombs are already taking their toll, what enervated, perverse antiquities do they not lay bare in the foundations.

Walter Benjamin (1982-1940, German critic, philosopher)

 

Life has taught me that it is not for our faults that we are disliked and even hated, but for our qualities.

Bernard Berenson (1865-1959, Lithuanian-born American artist)

 

Every city has a sex and an age which have nothing to do with demography. Rome is feminine. So is Odessa. London is a teenager, an urchin, and, in this, hasn't changed since the time of Dickens. Paris, I believe, is a man in his twenties in love with an older woman.

John Berger (1926-, British actor, critic)

 

Life is raw material. We are artisans. We can sculpt our existence into something beautiful, or debase it into ugliness. It's in our hands.

Cathy Better

 

Life. A spiritual pickle preserving the body from decay.

Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914, American author, editor, journalist, "The Devil's Dictionary")

 

When in Rome, do as Rome does.

Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914, American author, editor, journalist, "The Devil's Dictionary")

 

Life consists not in holding good cards but in playing those you hold well.

Josh Billings (1815-1885, American humorist, lecturer)

 

Life is short, but it's long enough to ruin any man who wants to be ruined.

Josh Billings (1815-1885, American humorist, lecturer)

 

Threescore years and ten is enough; if a man can't suffer all the misery he wants in that time, he must be numb.

Josh Billings (1815-1885, American humorist, lecturer)

 

Life is an earnest business, and no one ever became good or great on a diet of broad grins.

Professor Blackie

 

For everything that lives is holy, life delights in life.

William Blake (1757-1827, British poet, painter)

 

We come into this world head first and go out feet first; in between, it is all a matter of balance.

Paul Boese

 

Man that is born of woman hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery. He cometh up, and is cut down, like a flower; he fleeth as it were a shadow, and never continueth in one stay.

Book of Common Prayer (Liturgy of the Anglican Church)

 

The measure of a life, after all, is not its duration, but its donation.

Corrie Ten Boom (1892-1983, Dutch evangelist)

 

It is only a short step from exaggerating what we can find in the world to exaggerating our power to remake the world. Expecting more novelty than there is, more greatness than there is, and more strangeness than there is, we imagine ourselves masters of a plastic universe. But a world we can shape to our will is a shapeless world.

Daniel J. Boorstin (1914-2004, American historian)

 

It is not how many years we live, but rather what we do with them.

Evangeline Cory Booth

 

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 (1803-1881, British author)

 

The question is not whether we will die, but how we will live.

Joan Borysenko (American clinical psychologist, author)

 

The essential conditions of everything you do must be choice, love, passion.

Nadia Boulanger (1887-1979, Conductor, composer, teacher)

 

The essential conditions of everything you do must be choice, love, passion.

Nadia Boulanger (1887-1979, Conductor, composer, teacher)

 

Playing it safe is the riskiest choice we can ever make.

Sarah Ban Breathnach (American author)

 

I am not just here to make a living; I am here to make a life.

Helice Bridges

 

Life may have no meaning. Or even worse, it may have a meaning of which I disapprove™.

Ashleigh Brilliant (1933-, British-American humorist)

Author's website: www.ashleighbrilliant.com

 

Why does life keep teaching me lessons I have no desire to learn™?

Ashleigh Brilliant (1933-, British-American humorist)

Author's website: www.ashleighbrilliant.com

 

What should I say about life? That it's long and abhors transparence.

Joseph Brodsky (1940-, Russian-born American poet, critic)

 

Life is so constructed, that the event does not, cannot, will not, match the expectation.

Charlotte Bronte (1816-1855, British novelist)

 

Cities, like cats, will reveal themselves at night.

Rupert Brooke (1887-1915, British poet)

 

Be such a man, and live such a life, that if every man were such as you, and every life a life like yours, this earth would be God's Paradise.

Phillips Brooks (1835-1893, American minister, poet)

 

The tragedy of life is not that a man loses, but that he almost wins.

Heywood Broun (1888-1939, American journalist, novelist)

 

I believe that life is a journey, often difficult and sometimes incredibly cruel, but we are well equipped for it if only we tap into our talents and gifts and allow them to blossom.

Les Brown (1945-, American speaker, author, trainer, motivator,)

 

Life is a glass given to us to fill; a busy life is filling it with as much as it can hold; a hurried life has had more poured into it than it can contain.

William Adams Brown

 

The sweetest lives are those to duty wed, whose deeds both great and small are close-knit strands of an unbroken thread, where love enables all.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861, British poet)

 

I count life just a stuff to try the soul's strength on.

Robert Browning (1812-1889, British poet)

 

The secret of joy is contained in one word -- excellence. To know how to do something well is to enjoy it.

Pearl S. Buck (1892-1973, American novelist)

 

Let yourself be open and life will be easier. A spoon of salt in a glass of water makes the water undrinkable. A spoon of salt in a lake is almost unnoticed.

Buddha (568-488 BC, Indian born, founder of Buddhism)

 

Live everyday fully as if it were your last.

Buddha (568-488 BC, Indian born, founder of Buddhism)

 

On life's journey faith is nourishment, virtuous deeds are a shelter, wisdom is the light by day and right mindfulness is the protection by night. If a man lives a pure life, nothing can destroy him.

Buddha (568-488 BC, Indian born, founder of Buddhism)

 

This life of separateness may be compared to a dream, a phantasm, a bubble, a shadow, a drop of dew, a flash of lightning.

Buddha (568-488 BC, Indian born, founder of Buddhism)

 

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

 

Nobody makes a greater mistake than he who does nothing because he could only do a little.

Edmund Burke (1729-1797, British political writer, statesman)

 

I think we're here for each other.

Carol Burnett (1933-, American television comedian)

 

Nature has made you for a giver: Your hands are born open, and so is your heart.

Frances Hodgson Burnett

 

Real life seems to have no plots.

Ivy Compton Burnett

 

Everyday happiness means getting up in the morning, and you can't wait to finish your breakfast. You can't wait to do your exercises. You can't wait to put on your clothes. You can't wait to get out. And you can't wait to come home, because the soup is hot.

George Burns (1896-1996, American comedy actor)

 

Life's but a day at most.

George Burns (1896-1996, American comedy actor)

 

Look to the future, because that is where you'll spend the rest of your life.

George Burns (1896-1996, American comedy actor)

 

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