Quotations by Theme
Life - Death
"Everything in life changes you in some way. Even the smallest things. If you do not accept these changes you do not accept yourself. For through these changes brings new and greater things to you, making you wiser, as time progresses. To avoid these changes is a loss. You only live your life once. Do not waste a minute of it avoiding things. Let them come to you, and learn from them. There is always tomorrow."
Adam R. Gwizdala,
"Every journey into the past is complicated by delusions, false memories, false namings of real events."
Adrienne Rich, 1929-
"I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing."
Agatha Christie, 1890-1976
"The reason we want to go on and on is because we live in an impoverished present."
Alan Watts, 1915-1973
"I sometimes think of what future historians will say of us. A single sentence will suffice for modern man: he fornicated and read the papers."
Albert Camus, 1913-1960
"You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life."
Albert Camus, 1913-1960
"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
"Man is the only creature that refuses to be what he is."
Albert Camus, 1913-1960
"Since the order of the world is shaped by death, mightn't it be better for God if we refuse to believe in Him, and struggle with all our might against death without raising our eyes towards the heaven where He sits in silence?"
Albert Camus, 1913-1960
"Our death is not an end if we can live on in our children and the younger generation. For they are us, our bodies are only wilted leaves on the tree of life."
Albert Einstein, 1879-1955
"Death is really a great blessing for humanity, without it there could be no real progress. People who lived for ever would not only hamper and discourage the young, but they would themselves lack sufficient stimulus to be creative."
Alfred Adler, 1870-1937
"Happiness is not a matter of events; it depends upon the tides of the mind."
Alice Meynell,
"Change is not merely necessary to life - it is life."
Alvin Toffler, 1928-
"Happiness: We rarely feel it. /I would buy it, beg it, steal it,/ Pay in coins of dripping blood/ For this one transcendent good."
Amy Lowell, 1874-1925
"Almost all the ideas we have about being a man or being a woman are so burdened with pain, anxiety, fear and self-doubt. For many of us, the confusion around this question is excruciating."
Andrew Cohen,
"Grief is a normal and natural response to loss. It is originally an unlearned feeling process. Keeping grief inside increases your pain."
Anne Grant,
"Grief is perhaps an unknown territory for you. You might feel both helpless and hopeless without a sense of a "map" for the journey. Confusion is the hallmark of a transition. To rebuild both your inner and outer world is a major project."
Anne Grant, 1755-1838
"The most powerful ties are the ones to the people who gave us birth ... it hardly seems to matter how many years have passed, how many betrayals there may have been, how much misery in the family: We remain connected, even against our wills."
Anthony Brandt,
"Infancy is what is eternal, and the rest, all the rest, is brevity, extreme brevity."
Antonio Porchia,
"There is only one thing more painful than learning from experience and that is not learning from experience."
Archibald McLeish, 1892-1982
"The more thou dost advance, the more thy feet pitfalls will meet. The Path that leadeth on is lighted by one fire- the light of daring burning in the heart. The more one dares, the more he shall obtain. The more he fears, the more that light shall pale - and that alone can guide."
Aristotle,
"Education is the best provision for the journey to old age."
Aristotle, 384-322 BCE
"To run away from trouble is a form of cowardice and, while it is true that the suicide braves death, he does it not for some noble object but to escape some ill."
Aristotle,
"Violence does, in truth, recoil upon the violent, and the schemer falls into the pit which he digs for another."
Arthur Conan Doyle, 1859-1930
"I saw that all beings are fated to happiness: action is not life, but a way of wasting some force, an enervation. Morality is the weakness of the brain."
Arthur Rimbaud,
"The two enemies of human happiness are pain and boredom."
Arthur Schopenhauer,
"Almost all of our sorrows spring out of our relations with other people."
Arthur Schopenhauer,
"As perfume doth remain/ In the folds where it hath lain,/ So the thought of you remaining/ Deeply folded in my brain,/ Will not leave me: all things leave me:/ You remain."
Arthur Symons, 1865-1945
"No matter what age you are, or what your circumstances might be, you are special, and you still have something unique to offer. Your life, because of who you are, has meaning."
Barbara de Angelis,
"Sexual ecstasy usually arises among dyads, or groups of two, but the ritual ecstasy of "primitives" emerged within groups generally composed of thirty or more participants. Thanks to psychology and the psychological concerns of Western culture generally, we have a rich language for describing the emotions drawing one person to another--from the most fleeting sexual attraction, to ego-dissolving love, all the way to the destructive force of obsession. What we lack is any way of describing and understanding the "love" that may exist among dozens of people at a time; and it is this kind of love that is expressed in ecstatic ritual."
Barbara Ehrenreich,
"Do not weep; do not wax indignant. Understand."
Baruch Spinoza,
"I have made a ceaseless effort not to ridicule, not to bewail, not to scorn human actions, but to understand them."
Baruch Spinoza,
"The good life, as I conceive it, is a happy life. I do not mean that if you are good you will be happy; I mean that if you are happy you will be good."
Bertrand Russell,
"The secret of happiness is this: let your interests be as wide as possible, and let your reactions to the things and persons that interest you be as far as possible friendly rather than hostile."
Bertrand Russell,
"The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge."
Bertrand Russell,
"For certain is death for the born And certain is birth for the dead;Therefore over the inevitable
Thou shouldst not grieve."
Bhagavad Gita, 250BC-250AD
"There are amazingly wonderful people in all walks of life; some familiar to us and others not. Stretch yourself and really get to know people. People are in many ways one of our greatest treasures."
Bryant H. McGill, 1969-
"Within the hearts of men, loyalty and consideration are esteemed greater than success."
Bryant H. McGill, 1969-
"You may find many contradictory statements and philosophies within my writings. However, to this I will say such is life, for life is full of contradictions."
Bryant H. McGill, 1969-
"Affection is responsible for nine-tenths of whatever solid and durable happiness there is in our lives."
C. S. Lewis, 1889-1963
"The whole world is a man's birthplace."
Caecilius Statius, 220-168 BCE
"To work hard, to live hard, to die hard, and then to go to hell after all would be too damned hard."
Carl Sandberg, 1863-1952
"A baby is God's opinion that life should go on."
Carl Sandburg, 1878-1967
"One does not kill oneself for love of a woman, but because love - any love - reveals us in our nakedness, our misery, our vulnerability, our nothingness."
Cesare Pavese,
"We do not remember days, we remember moments.The richness of life lies in memories we have forgotten."
Cesare Pavese,
"Life is pain and the enjoyment of love is an anesthetic."
Cesare Pavese, 1908-1950
"Suicide sometimes proceeds from cowardice, but not always; for cowardice sometimes prevents it; since as many live because they are afraid to die, as die because they are afraid to live."
Charles Caleb Colton, 1780-1832
"There are three modes of bearing the ills of life, by indifference, by philosophy, and by religion."
Charles Caleb Colton, 1780-1832
"False happiness renders men stern and proud, and that happiness is never communicated. True happiness renders them kind and sensible, and that happiness is always shared."
Charles de Montesquieu,
"We need never be ashamed of our tears."
Charles Dickens, 1812-1870
"Why fear death? It is the most beautiful adventure in life."
Charles Frohman, 1860-1915
"Eternity is not something that begins after you're dead. It is going on all the time. We are in it now."
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, 1860-1935
"Compassion automatically invites you to relate with people because you no longer regard people as a drain on your energy."
Chogyam Trungpa,
"A strange mixture of fear and joy comes with driving off from the hospital with your firstborn in the vehicle. There's a powerful sense of transition and new beginning, and yet fear as well. It's a fear closely attached to the question, "What do I do with this thing?" It's a healthy fear born out of an awareness of the fragility of new life."
Chris Seidman,
"For humanism also appeals to man as man. It seeks to liberate the universal qualities of human nature from the narrow limitations of blood and soil and class and to create a common language and a common culture in which men can realize their common humanity."
Christopher Dawson,
"The wise are instructed by reason, ordinary minds by experience, the stupid, by necessity, and brutes by instinct."
Cicero, 106-43 BCE
"If we don't know life, how can we know death?"
Confucius, 551-479 BCE
"If a man takes no thought about what is distant, he will find sorrow near at hand."
Confucius, 551-479 BCE
"Do not impose on others what you yourself do not desire."
Confucius, 551-479 BCE
"Life is a succession of moments, To live each one is to succeed."
Corita Kent, 1918-1986
"The human consciousness is really homogeneous. There is no complete forgetting, even in death."
D.H. Lawrence, 1885-1930
"The only justice is to follow the sincere intuition of the soul, angry or gentle. Anger is just, and pity is just, but judgement is never just."
D.H. Lawrence, 1885-1930
"One could laugh at the world better if it didn't mix tender kindlyness with its brutality."
D.H. Lawrence, 1885-1930
"This is the very worst wickedness, that we refuse to acknowledge the passionate evil that is in us. This makes us secret and rotten."
D.H. Lawrence, 1885-1930
"Men! The only animal in the world to fear."
D.H. Lawrence, 1885-1930
"I cannot cure myself of that most woeful of youth's follies--thinking that those who care about us will care for the things that mean much to us."
D.H. Lawrence, 1885-1930
"Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all."
Dale Carnegie, 1888-1955
"Remember happiness doesn't depend upon who you are or what you have; it depends solely on what you think."
Dale Carnegie, 1888-1955
"It is not reason which is the guide of life, but custom."
David Hume, 1711-1776
"The life of man is of no greater importance to the universe than that of an oyster."
David Hume, 1711-1776
"Each person's life is lived as a series of conversations."
Deborah Tannen, 1945-
"The less you open your heart to others, the more your heart suffers."
Deepak Chopra,
"There are two primary choices in life: to accept conditions as they exist, or accept the responsibility for changing them."
Denis Waitley,
"There are some people who live in a dream world, and there are some who face reality; and then there are those who turn one into the other."
Desiderius Erasmus,
"The nearer people approach old age the closer they return to a semblance of childhood, until the time comes for them to depart this life, again like children, neither tired of living nor aware of death."
Desiderius Erasmus,
"Too much sanity may be madness. And maddest of all, to see life as it is and not as it should be."
Don Quixote,
"Aim for success, not perfection. Never give up your right to be wrong, because then you will lose the ability to learn new things and move forward with your life. Remember that fear always lurks behind perfectionism. Confronting your fears and allowing yourself the right to be human can, paradoxically, make yourself a happier and more productive person."
Dr. David M. Burns,
"Nothing's the same for anyone. That's why life's this Hell, if you do a thing you're damned, and if you don't you're damned-"
E.M. Forster, 1879-1970
"The boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins?"
Edgar Allan Poe, 1809-1849
"Your face encompasses the beauty of the whole earth. Your lips, as red as ripening fruit, gently part as if in pain. It is the smile of a corpse. Now the hand of death touches life. The chain is forged that links the thousand families that are dead to the thousand generations to come."
Edvard Munch, 1863-1944
"There is a destiny that makes us brothers;/ None goes his way alone; /All that we send into the lives of others/ Comes back into our own."
Edwin Markham, 1852-1940
"Often we can help each other most by leaving each other alone; at other times we need the hand-grasp and the word of cheer."
Elbert Hubbard, 1856-1915
"Love grows by giving. The love we give away is the only love we keep. The only way to retain love is to give it away."
Elbert Hubbard, 1859-1915
"There is no failure except in no longer trying."
Elbert Hubbard, 1856-1915
"The ineffable joy of forgiving and being forgiven forms an ecstasy that might well arouse the envy of the gods."
Elbert Hubbard, 1856-1915
"Give us a religion that will help us to live -- we can die without assistance."
Elbert Hubbard,
"No matter what you've done for yourself or for humanity, if you can't look back on having given love and attention to your own family, what have you really accomplished?"
Elbert Hubbard, 1856-1915
"A man is not paid for having a head and hands, but for using them."
Elbert Hubbard, 1856-1915
"The fact that life has no meaning is a reason to live, moreover, the only one."
Emile Cioran, 1911-1995
"There is no means of proving it is preferable to be than not to be."
Emile Cioran, 1911-1995
"Life is merely a fracas on an unmapped terrain, and the universe a geometry stricken with epilepsy."
Emile Cioran, 1911-1995
"We are born to exist, not to know, to be, not to assert ourselves."
Emile Cioran, 1911-1995
"What would be left of our tragedies if an insect were to present us his?"
Emile Cioran, 1911-1995
"Hope is the thing with feathers, that perches in the soul, and sings the tune without words, and never stops at all."
Emily Dickinson, 1830-1886
"Kindness can become its own motive. We are made kind by being kind."
Eric Hoffer,
"Someone who thinks the world is always cheating him is right. He is missing that wonderful feeling of trust in someone or something."
Eric Hoffer,
"Compassion is the antitoxin of the soul: where there is compassion even the most poisonous impulses remain relatively harmless."
Eric Hoffer,
"Man is the only animal for whom his own existence is a problem which he has to solve."
Erich Fromm, 1900-1980
"In the nineteenth century the problem was that God is dead. In the twentieth century the problem is that man is dead."
Erich Fromm, 1900-1980
"That man can destroy life is just as miraculous a feat as that he can create it, for life is the miracle, the inexplicable. In the act of destruction, man sets himself above life; he transcends himself as a creature. Thus, the ultimate choice for a man, inasmuch as he is driven to transcend himself, is to create or to destroy, to love or to hate."
Erich Fromm, 1900-1980
"If a person loves only one other person and is indifferent to all others, his love is not love but a symbiotic attachment, or an enlarged egotism."
Erich Fromm, 1900-1980
"The history of man is a graveyard of great cultures that came to catastrophic ends because of their incapacity for planned, rational, voluntary reaction to challenge."
Erich Fromm, 1900-1980
"The danger of the past was that men became slaves. The danger of the future is that man may become robots."
Erich Fromm, 1900-1980
"The quest for certainty blocks the search for meaning. Uncertainty is the very condition to impel man to unfold his powers."
Erich Fromm, 1900-1980
"Today I begin to understand what love must be, if it exists.... When we are parted, we each feel the lack of the other half of ourselves. We are incomplete like a book in two volumes of which the first has been lost. That is what I imagine love to be: incompleteness in absence."
Erich Fromm, 1900-1980
"If it were not for hopes, the heart would break."
Erich Fromm, 1900-1980
"Healthy children will not fear life if their elders have integrity enough not to fear death."
Erik Erikson, 1902-1994
"Believing as we do in growth, and in a new generation, both of those who create and those who enjoy, we call all young people together, and as young people, who carry the future with us, we want to wrest freedom for our actions and our lives from the older, more comfortably established forces."
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, 1880-1938
"Death is a friend of ours, and he that is not ready to entertain him is not at home."
Francis Bacon,
"Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark, and as that natural fear in children is increased by tales, so is the other."
Francis Bacon,
"Nothing begins, and nothing ends,/ That is not paid with moan;/ For we are born in others pain/ And perish in our own."
Francis Thompson, 1859-1907
"The laws of this world are for children."
Frank Wedekind, 1864-1918
"Test yourself on mankind. It is something that makes the doubter doubt, the believer believe."
Franz Kafka, 1883-1924
"Association with human beings lures one into self-observation."
Franz Kafka, 1883-1924
"Youth is happy because it has the ability to see beauty. Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old."
Franz Kafka, 1883-1924
"The experience of life consists of the experience which the spirit has of itself in matter and as matter, in mind and as mind, in emotion, as emotion, etc."
Franz Kafka, 1883-1924
"My painting carries with it the message of pain."
Frida Kahlo, 1907-1953
"We love life, not because we are used to living but because we are used to loving."
Friedrich Nietzsche, 1844-1900
"In heaven all the interesting people are missing."
Friedrich Nietzsche, 1844-1900
"Let us beware of saying that death is the opposite of life. The living being is only a species of the dead, and a very rare species."
Friedrich Nietzsche, 1844-1900
"I call an animal, a species, an individual depraved when it loses its instincts, when it chooses, when it prefers what is harmful to it."
Friedrich Nietzsche, 1844-1900
"Christianity was from the beginning, essentially and fundamentally, life's nausea and disgust with life, merely concealed behind, masked by, dressed up as, faith in "another" or "better" life."
Friedrich Nietzsche, 1844-1900
"Is life not a thousand times too short for us to bore ourselves?"
Friedrich Nietzsche, 1844-1900
"There is no way to Happiness. Happiness is the way."
Gautama Buddha, 563-483 BCE
"What bereaved people need is a little comic relief, and this is why funerals are so farcical."
George Bernard Shaw, 1856-1950
"What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult for each other?"
George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans), 1819-1880
"Man lives in a world of meaning."
George H. Mead, 1863-1931
"There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval."
George Santayana, 1863-1952
"The family is one of nature's masterpieces."
George Santayana, 1863-1952
"How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because someday in life you will have been all of these."
George Washington Carver,
"Nothing is old, nothing is new, save the light of grace underneath which beats a human heart. The way of feeling, of understanding, of loving; the way of seeing the country, the faces that your father saw, that your mother knew. The rest is chimerical."
Georges Henri Rouault, 1871-1958
"There's no dearth of kindness/ In the world of ours;/ Only in our blindness/ We gather thorns for flowers."
Gerald Massey,
"Ignorance is the mother of fear."
Harry Homes,
"The world is moved along, not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the aggregate of tiny pushes of each honest worker."
Helen Keller, 1880-1968
"On the last analysis, then, love is life. Love never faileth and life never faileth so long as there is love."
Henry Drummond, 1851-1897
"Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not; and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad."
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,
"Man is everywhere still in chains."
Herbert Read,
"If the individual is a unit in a corporate mass, his life is not merely brutish and short, but dull and mechanical."
Herbert Read,
"The future unit is the individual, a world in himself, self-contained and self-creative, freely giving and freely receiving, but essentially a free spirit."
Herbert Read,
"In the evolution of mankind there has always been a certain degree of social coherence."
Herbert Read,
"Life is the continuous adjustment of internal relations to external relations."
Herbert Spencer,
"The preservation of health is a duty. Few seem conscious that there is such a thing as physical morality."
Herbert Spencer,
"A generation of men is like a generation of leaves; the wind scatters some leaves upon the ground, while others the burgeoning wood brings forth - and the season of spring comes on. So of men one generation springs forth and another ceases."
Homer,
"One shouldn't be afraid of the humans. Well, I am not afraid of the humans, but of what is inhuman in them."
Ivo Andric, 1892-1975
"All my life as an artist I have asked myself: What pushes me continually to make sculpture? I have found the answer. art is an action against death. It is a denial of death."
Jacques Lipchitz, 1891-1973
"For nothing is fixed, forever and forever and forever, it is not fixed; the earth is always shifting, the light is always changing, the sea does not cease to grind down rock. Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have. The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other, and children cling to us. The moment we cease to hold each other, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out."
James Baldwin,
"Problems come from the environment, the cities, the economy, the racism. They come from architecture, school systems, capitalism, exploitation."
James Hillman,
"Man has but three events in his life: to be born, to live, and to die. He is not conscious of his birth, he suffers at his death and he forgets to live."
Jean de la Bruyere,
"The existentialist says at once that man is anguish."
Jean-Paul Sartre,
"No man is an Island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee."
Jjohn Donne,
"He is happiest, be he king or peasant, who finds peace in his home."
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,
"Every day we should hear at least one little song, read one good poem, see one exquisite picture, and, if possible, speak a few sensible words."
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe,
"Education is not a preparation for life; Education is life itself."
John Dewey,
"Death comes equally to us all, and makes us all equal when it comes."
John Donne, 1572--1631
"The creative individual has the capacity to free himself from the web of social pressures in which the rest of us are caught. He is capable of questioning the assumptions that the rest of us accept."
John Gardner,
"Actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness; wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure and the absence of pain."
John Stuart Mill, 1806-1873
"If we hope for what we are not likely to possess, we act and think in vain, and make life a greater dream and shadow than it really is."
Joseph Addison,
"If you wish to succeed in life, make perseverance your bosom friend, experience your wise counselor, caution your elder brother, and hope your guardian genius."
Joseph Addison,
"Man is subject to innumerable pains and sorrows by the very condition of humanity, and yet, as if nature had not sown evils enough in life, we are continually adding grief to grief and aggravating the common calamity by our cruel treatment of one another."
Joseph Addison,
"The most violent appetites in all creatures are lust and hunger; the first is a perpetual call upon them to propagate their kind, the latter to preserve themselves."
Joseph Addison,
"Life is a game with many rules but no referee. One learns how to play it more by watching it than by consulting any book, including the holy book. Small wonder, then, that so many play dirty, that so few win, that so many lose."
Joseph Brodsky,
"In the name of motherhood and fatherhood and education and good manners, we threaten and suffocate and bind and ensnare and bribe and trick children into wholesale emulation of our ways."
June Jordan,
"Consequently, most of us really exist at the mercy of other people's formulations of what's important."
June Jordan,
"Ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation."
Kahlil Gibran, 1883-1931
"Our worst fault is our preoccupation with the faults of others."
Kahlil Gibran, 1883-1931
"We fear death, yet we long for slumber and beautiful dreams."
Kahlil Gibran, 1883-1931
"Just living isn't enough," said the butterfly, "one must also have freedom, sunshine, and a little flower."
Kahlil Gibran, 1883-1931
"When you have solved all the mysteries of life you long for death, for it is but another mystery of life."
Kahlil Gibran, 1883-1931
"Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards."
Kahlil Gibran, 1883-1931
"A man's true wealth is the good he does in the world. Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror. But you are eternity and you are the mirror."
Kahlil Gibran, 1883-1931
"Life without liberty is like a body without spirit."
Kahlil Gibran, 1883-1931
"Just living isn't enough," said the butterfly, "one must also have freedom, sunshine, and a little flower.""
Kahlil Gibran, 1883-1931
"Safeguarding the rights of others is the most noble and beautiful end of a human being."
Kahlil Gibran, 1883-1931
"Life without love is like a tree without blossoms or fruit."
Kahlil Gibran, 1883-1931
"The optimist sees the rose and not its thorns; the pessimist stares at the thorns, oblivious to the rose."
Kahlil Gibran, 1883-1931
"It is my duty to voice the suffering of men, the never-ending sufferings heaped mountain-high."
Kathe Kollwitz,
"Look at life with the eyes of a child."
Kathe Kollwitz,
"Learn from the past, Hope for the future, Live in the present."
Ken Lancaster,
"Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken winged bird that cannot fly."
Langston Hughes, 1902-1967
"In dwelling, live close to the ground. In thinking, keep to the simple. In conflict, be fair and generous. In governing, don't try to control. In work, do what you enjoy. In family life, be completely present."
Lao Tzu,
"Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love."
Lao Tzu,
"I have just three things to teach: simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are your greatest treasures."
Lao Tzu,
"Night's deepest gloom is but a calm; that soothes the weary mind: The labored days restoring balm; the comfort of mankind."
Leigh Hunt,
"The groundwork of all happiness is health."
Leigh Hunt,
"There are two worlds: the world we can measure with line and rule, and the world that we feel with our hearts and imagination."
Leigh Hunt, 1784-1859
"Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around."
Leo Buscaglia,
"The great art of life is sensation, to feel that we exist, even in pain."
Lord Byron,
"The greatest wealth is to live content with little, for there is never want where the mind is satisfied."
Lucretius,
"We are each of us angels with only one wing, and we can only fly by embracing one another."
Lucretius, 94 BC-55BC
"Time, which changes people, does not alter the image we have retained of them."
Marcel Proust,
"It is not because other people are dead that our affection for them grows faint, it is because we ourselves are dying."
Marcel Proust,
" In a man's life, his time is but a moment, his being a mere flux, his senses a dim glimpse,
his body food for the worms, and his soul a restless eddy …
the things of the body pass like a flowing stream;
life is a brief sojourn, and one's mark in this world is soon forgotten."
Marcus Aurelius,
"What gift has providence bestowed on man that is so dear to him as his children?"
Marcus Tullius Cicero,
"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 must be attained."
Marie Curie,
"Over the years your bodies become walking autobiographies, telling friends and strangers alike of the minor and major stresses of your lives."
Marilyn Ferguson,
"The greatest revolution in our generation is that of human beings, who by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives."
Marilyn Ferguson,
"Man is the only creature whose emotions are entangled with his memory."
Marjorie Holmes,
"Man is the Reasoning Animal. Such is the claim. I think it is open to dispute. Indeed, my experiments have proven to me that he is the Unreasoning Animal... In truth, man is incurably foolish. Simple things which other animals easily learn, he is incapable of learning. Among my experiments was this. In an hour I taught a cat and a dog to be friends. I put them in a cage. In another hour I taught them to be friends with a rabbit. In the course of two days I was able to add a fox, a goose, a squirrel and some doves. Finally a monkey. They lived together in peace; even affectionately.
Next, in another cage I confined an Irish Catholic from Tipperary, and as soon as he seemed tame I added a Scotch Presbyterian from Aberdeen. Next a Turk from Constantinople; a Greek Christian from Crete; an Armenian; a Methodist from the wilds of Arkansas; a Buddhist from China; a Brahman from Benares. Finally, a Salvation Army Colonel from Wapping. Then I stayed away for two whole days. When I came back to note results, the cage of Higher Animals was all right, but in the other there was but a chaos of gory odds and ends of turbans and fezzes and plaids and bones and flesh--not a specimen left alive. These Reasoning Animals had disagreed on a theological detail and carried the matter to a Higher Court."
Mark Twain, 1835-1910
"All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality."
Martin Luther King,
"I love the line of Flaubert about observing things very intensely. I think our duty as writers begins not with our own feelings, but with the powers of observing."
Mary Oliver, 1935-
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