Life quotes
Quotations about life itself, from Shakespeare’s stage and Dickens’s best and worst of times to Whitman’s multitudes and Beckett’s nothing to be done. Life is quoted constantly and sourced rarely, so each entry names its earliest verifiable source and the character who says it, since the speaker is often not the author.
All the world’s a stage, / And all the men and women merely players;
Because I could not stop for Death – / He kindly stopped for me –
Break, break, break, / On thy cold gray stones, O Sea! / And I would that my tongue could utter / The thoughts that arise in me.
Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing, / Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before;
Does the road wind up-hill all the way? / Yes, to the very end.
But, dost thou love life? then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of,
Good fences make good neighbors.
Home is the place where, when you have to go there, / They have to take you in.
Do I contradict myself? / Very well then I contradict myself, / (I am large, I contain multitudes.)
I can resist everything except temptation.
I celebrate myself, and sing myself, / And what I assume you shall assume, / For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I’ve dreamt in my life dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas: they’ve gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the colour of my mind.
I have had my invitation to this world’s festival, and thus my life has been blessed.
I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,
I wandered lonely as a Cloud / That floats on high o’er Vales and Hills, / When all at once I saw a crowd / A host of dancing Daffodills;
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.
I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.
I wish I were a girl again, half savage and hardy, and free;
I would always rather be happy than dignified.
I’m Nobody! Who are you? / Are you – Nobody – too?
In the midway of this our mortal life, / I found me in a gloomy wood, astray / Gone from the path direct:
It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness,
Life, although it may only be an accumulation of anguish, is dear to me, and I will defend it.
Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself.
My heart leaps up when I behold / A Rainbow in the sky:
Thus, reader, myself am the matter of my book: there’s no reason thou shouldst employ thy leisure about so frivolous and vain a subject.
Nothing to be done.
On the seashore of endless worlds children meet. The infinite sky is motionless overhead and the restless water is boisterous.
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, / Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—
One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.
Piping down the valleys wild, / Piping songs of pleasant glee, / On a cloud I saw a child, / And he laughing said to me:
Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”
Remember that I am thy creature; I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel, whom thou drivest from joy for no misdeed.
Remember that thou art an actor in a play, of such a kind as the teacher (author) may choose; if short, of a short one; if long, of a long one:
Seek not that the things which happen should happen as you wish; but wish the things which happen to be as they are, and you will have a tranquil flow of life.
Should auld acquaintance be forgot, / And never brought to mind?
So be my passing! / My task accomplished and the long day done, / My wages taken, and in my heart / Some late lark singing,
Some say the world will end in fire, / Some say in ice.
The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men / Gang aft agley,
The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.
The most manifest sign of wisdom is a continual cheerfulness;
The only reward of virtue is virtue; the only way to have a friend is to be one.
The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new.
The unexamined life is not worth living.
There is no Frigate like a Book / To take us Lands away
They give birth astride of a grave, the light gleams an instant, then it’s night once more.
Thou hast made me endless, such is thy pleasure. This frail vessel thou emptiest again and again, and fillest it ever with fresh life.
To be, or not to be, that is the question: / Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer / The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, / Or to take arms against a sea of troubles / And by opposing end them?
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, / Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, / To the last syllable of recorded time;