An aphorism is nothing else but the slightest
QUOTES AND APHORISMS ON LIFE 2
I think we too often make choices based on the safety of cynicism, and what we're lead to is a life not fully lived. Cynicism is fear, and it's worse than fear -- it's active disengagement.
Ken Burns
Life is a struggle, but not a warfare.
John Burroughs (1837-1921, American naturalist, author)
A life lived in love will never be dull.
Leo Buscaglia (1924-1998, American expert on love, lecturer, author)
Life is uncharted territory. It reveals its story one moment at a time.
Leo Buscaglia (1924-1998, American expert on love, lecturer, author)
People can be divided into three groups: those who make things happen, those who watch things happen, and those who wonder what happened.
Nicholas Murray Butler (1862-1947, American educationist)
Optimism and humor are the grease and glue of life. Without both of them we would never have survived our captivity.
Philip Butler
Is life worth living? This is a question for an embryo not for a man.
Samuel Butler (1612-1680, British poet, satirist)
Life is like playing the violin solo in public and learning the instrument as one goes on.
Samuel Butler (1612-1680, British poet, satirist)
Life is one long process of getting tired.
Samuel Butler (1612-1680, British poet, satirist)
Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises.
Samuel Butler (1612-1680, British poet, satirist)
To live is like to love -- all reason is against it, and all healthy instinct for it.
Samuel Butler (1612-1680, British poet, satirist)
Between two worlds life hovers like a star, twixt night and morn, upon the horizon's verge.
Lord Byron (1788-1824, British poet)
It is very certain that the desire of life prolongs it.
Lord Byron (1788-1824, British poet)
Life's enchanted cup sparkles near the brim.
Lord Byron (1788-1824, British poet)
When one subtracts from life infancy (which is vegetation), sleep, eating and swilling, buttoning and unbuttoning -- how much remains of downright existence? The summer of a dormouse.
Lord Byron (1788-1824, British poet)
The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds, and the pessimist fears this is true.
James Branch Cabell (1879-1958, American writer, critic)
What a wonderful life I've had! I only wish I'd realized it sooner.
Sidonie Gabrielle Colette (1873-1954, French author)
Life is full and overflowing with the new. But it is necessary to empty out the old to make room for the new to enter.
Eileen Caddy (American spiritual writer)
In between goals is a thing called life, that has to be lived and enjoyed.
Sid Caesar
What is life? A frenzy. What is life? An illusion, a shadow, a fiction. And the greatest good is trivial; for all life is a dream and all dreams are dreams.
Pedro Calderon de la Barca (1600-1681, Spanish playwright)
The surrender of life is nothing to sinking down into acknowledgment of inferiority.
John C. Calhoun (1782-1850, American statesman)
The catalogue of forms is endless: until every shape has found its city, new cities will continue to be born. When the forms exhaust their variety and come apart, the end of cities begins.
Italo Calvino (1923-1985, Cuban writer, essayist, journalist)
People say that what we're all seeking is a meaning for life. I think that what we're really seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonance within our innermost being and reality, so that we can actually feel the rapture of being alive.
Joseph Campbell (1904-1987, American scholar, writer, teacher)
Accept life, take it as it is? Stupid. The means of doing otherwise? Far from our having to take it, it is life that possesses us and on occasion shuts our mouths.
Albert Camus (1913-1960, French existential writer)
As a remedy to life in society I would suggest the big city. Nowadays, it is the only desert within our means.
Albert Camus (1913-1960, French existential writer)
If, after all, men cannot always make history have meaning, they can always act so that their own lives have one.
Albert Camus (1913-1960, French existential writer)
It's extraordinary how we go through life with eyes half shut, with dull ears, with dormant thoughts. Perhaps it's just as well; and it may be that it is this very dullness that makes life to the incalculable majority so supportable and so welcome.
Joseph Conrad (1857-1924, Polish-born British novelist)
Perhaps life is just that... a dream and a fear.
Joseph Conrad (1857-1924, Polish-born British novelist)
Just as all thought, and primarily that of non-signification, signifies something, so there is no art that has no signification.
Albert Camus (1913-1960, French existential writer)
Man wants to live, but it is useless to hope that this desire will dictate all his actions.
Albert Camus (1913-1960, French existential writer)
Men must live and create. Live to the point of tears.
Albert Camus (1913-1960, French existential writer)
Real generosity toward the future lies in giving all to the present.
Albert Camus (1913-1960, French existential writer)
We get into the habit of living before acquiring the habit of thinking. In that race which daily hastens us towards death, the body maintains its irreparable lead.
Albert Camus (1913-1960, French existential writer)
One should not confuse the craving for life with endorsement of it.
Elias Canetti (1905-1994, Austrian novelist, philosopher)
In private life I never knew anyone who would interfere with other people's disputes but he heartily repented of it.
Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881, Scottish philosopher, author)
Life is a little gleam of time between two eternities.
Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881, Scottish philosopher, author)
The tragedy of life is not so much what men suffer, but rather what they miss.
Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881, Scottish philosopher, author)
life are yours, if you can appreciate yourself.
Dale Carnegie (1888-1955, American trainer, author, "How to Win Friends and Influence People")
One of the most appalling comments on our present way of life is that half of all the beds in our hospitals are reserved for patients with nervous and mental troubles, patients who have collapsed under the crushing burden of accumulated yesterdays and fearful tomorrows. Yet a vast majority of those people would be walking the streets today, leading happy, useful lives, if they had only heeded the words of Jesus: Have no anxiety about the morrow; or the words of Sir William Osler; Live in day-tight compartments.
Dale Carnegie (1888-1955, American trainer, author, "How to Win Friends and Influence People")
One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon -- instead of enjoying the roses that are blooming outside our windows today.
Dale Carnegie (1888-1955, American trainer, author, "How to Win Friends and Influence People")
Life is very interesting if you make mistakes.
Georges Carpentier
If life was fair, Elvis would be alive and all the impersonators would be dead.
Johnny Carson (1925-, American TV personality, businessman)
New York is an exciting town where something is happening all the time, most unsolved.
Johnny Carson (1925-, American TV personality, businessman)
Those who dwell among the beauties and mysteries of the Earth are never alone or weary of life.
Rachel Carson (1907-1964, American marine biologist, author)
We should live our lives as though Christ were coming this afternoon.
Jimmy Carter (1924-, American President (39th))
Outer space is no place for a person of breeding.
Violet Bonham Carter
Life is filigree work. What is written clearly is not worth much, it's the transparency that counts.
Louis-Ferdinand Celine (1894-1961, French author)
Living, just by itself -- what a dirge that is! Life is a classroom and Boredom's the usher, there all the time to spy on you; whatever happens, you've got to look as if you were awfully busy all the time doing something that's terribly exciting -- or he'll come along and nibble your brain.
Louis-Ferdinand Celine (1894-1961, French author)
She fights and vanquishes in me, and I live and breathe in her, and I have life and being.
Miguel De Cervantes (1547-1616, Spanish novelist, dramatist, poet)
With life, many things are remedied.
Miguel De Cervantes (1547-1616, Spanish novelist, dramatist, poet)
Living is a sickness to which sleep provides relief every sixteen hours. It's a palliative. The remedy is death.
Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De Chamfort (1741-1794, French writer, journalist, playwright)
Paris, a city of gaieties and pleasures, where four-fifths of the inhabitants die of grief.
Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De Chamfort (1741-1794, French writer, journalist, playwright)
But there is good news yet to hear and fine things to be seen before we go to Paradise by way of Kensal Green.
Gilbert K. Chesterton (1874-1936, British author)
When it comes to life the critical thing is whether you take things for granted or take them with gratitude.
Gilbert K. Chesterton (1874-1936, British author)
Life itself is the proper binge.
Julia Child (1912-2004, American gourmet cook, author, and television personality)
Life is not always not always what one wants it to be., but to make the best of it as it is the only way of being happy.
Jennie Jerome Churchill (1854-1921, Mother of British prime Minster, Winston Churchill)
The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes.
Winston Churchill (1874-1965, British statesman, Prime Minister)
A neighborhood is a residential area that is changing for the worse.
John Ciardi (1916-1986, American teacher, poet, writer)
While there's life, there's hope.
Marcus T. Cicero (c. 106-43 BC, Roman orator, politician)
The fact that life has no meaning is a reason to live -- moreover, the only one.
E. M. Cioran (1911-1995, Rumanian-born French philosopher)
Everyone is trying to accomplish something big, not realizing that life is made up of little things.
Frank A. Clark
In the early days all I hoped was to make a living out of what I did best. But, since there's no real market for masturbation I had to fall back on my bass playing abilities.
Les Claypool
Our lives are a mixture of different roles. Most of us are doing the best we can to find whatever the right balance is... For me, that balance is family, work, and service.
Hillary Rodham Clinton (1947-, American First Lady, senator, wife of Bill Clinton)
Attack life, it's going to kill you anyway.
Steven Coallier
Life is a horizontal fall.
Jean Cocteau (1889-1963, French author, filmmaker)
Nothing ever gets anywhere. The earth keeps turning round and gets nowhere. The moment is the only thing that counts.
Jean Cocteau (1889-1963, French author, filmmaker)
It is the briefest yet wisest maxim which tells us to "meddle not".
Charles Caleb Colton (1780-1832, British sportsman writer)
Life isn't like a book. Life isn't logical or sensible or orderly. Life is a mess most of the time. And theology must be lived in the midst of that mess.
Charles Caleb Colton (1780-1832, British sportsman writer)
Life is simple, but some people insist on complicating it.
Confucius (BC 551-479, Chinese ethical teacher, philosopher)
I have found that most of the things I want from living I must get from people.
Robert Conklin (American teacher, author, speaker)
No city should be too large for a man to walk out of in a morning.
Cyril Connolly (1903-1974, British critic)
All that a city will ever allow you is an angle on it -- an oblique, indirect sample of what it contains, or what passes through it; a point of view.
Peter Conrad (1948-, Australian critic, author)
Life is too short to stuff a mushroom.
Shirley Conran (1932-, British designer, journalist)
Life is too short to stuff a mushroom.
Shirley Conran (1932-, British designer, journalist)
We dribble away our life, little by little, in small packages -- we don't throw it away all at once.
Robert A. Cook
It is the link from the present to the past that gives us a spirit to address the future.
Midge Costanza
Every morning I wake up saying, I'm still alive; a miracle. And so I keep on pushing.
Jacques Cousteau (1910-1997, French naval officer, underwater explorer)
A life of ease is a difficult pursuit.
William Cowper (1731-1800, British poet)
Life was a funny thing that happened to me on the way to the grave.
Quentin Crisp (1908-1999, British author)
The joy of life consists in the exercise of one's energies, continual growth, constant change, the enjoyment of every new experience.
Aleister Crowley (1875-1947, British occultist)
Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood.
Madame Marie Curie (1867-1934, Polish-born French physicist)
Our life is made by the death of others.
Leonardo Da Vinci (1452-1519, Italian inventor, architect, painter, scientist, sculptor)
Where the criminals cover their crimes by making them legal. [On Washington D. C.]
Frank Dane
If life doesn't offer a game worth playing, then invent a new one.
Anthony J. D'Angelo
The sad souls of those who lived without blame and without praise.
Alighieri, Dante (1265-1321, Italian philosopher, poet)
Life is made up, not of great sacrifices or duties, but of little things, in which smiles and kindness, and small obligations given habitually, are what preserve the heart and secure comfort.
Sir Humphrey Davy (1778-1829, British chemist)
It's not how long life is but the quality of our life that is important.
Roger Dawson (British-born American negotiation expert, speaker, author)
Life begins when you get out of the grandstand into the game.
P. L. Debevoise
If one considered life as a simple loan, one would perhaps be less exacting. We possess actually nothing; everything goes through us.
Eugene Delacroix (1798-1863, French artist)
If you're not in New York, you're camping out.
Thomas E. Dewey (1902-1971, American politician)
Anything for the quick life, as the man said when he took the situation at the lighthouse.
Charles Dickens (1812-1870, British novelist)
Life is made of ever so many partings welded together.
Charles Dickens (1812-1870, British novelist)
This is a world of action, and not for moping and droning in.
Charles Dickens (1812-1870, British novelist)
Life is a succession of lessons enforced by immediate reward, or, oftener, by immediate chastisement.
Ernest Dimnet (1866-1954, French clergyman)
A great city, whose image dwells in the memory of man, is the type of some great idea. Rome represents conquest; Faith hovers over the towers of Jerusalem; and Athens embodies the pre-eminent quality of the antique world, Art.
Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881, British statesman, Prime Minister)
Life is too short to be little.
Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881, British statesman, Prime Minister)
Life is like eating artichokes, you have got to go through so much to get so little.
Thomas A. Dorgan
I'm impressed with the people from Chicago. Hollywood is hype, New York is talk, Chicago is work.
Michael Douglas (1944-, American actor, director, producer)
Life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent. We would not dare to conceive the things which are really merely commonplaces of existence. If we could fly out of that window hand in hand, hover over this great city, gently remove the roofs and peep in at the queer things which are going on, the strange coincidences, the planning, the cross-purposes, the wonderful chain of events, working through generations and leading to the most outer results, it would make all fiction with its conventionalities and foreseen conclusions most stale and unprofitable.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930, British author, "Sherlock Holmes")
The world is a great mirror. It reflects back to you what you are. If you are loving, if you are friendly, if you are helpful, the world will prove loving and friendly and helpful to you. The world is what you are.
Thomas Dreier
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