Post #2090

The first forty years of our life give the text, the next thirty furnish the commentary upon it, which enables us rightly to understand the true meaning and connection of the text with its moral and its beauties.
—Arthur Schopenhauer

Post #2080

The life of man is the incessant walk of nature, wherein every moment is a step towards death. Even our growing to perfection is a progress to decay. Every thought we have is a sand running out of the glass of life.
—Owen Feltham

Post #2020

Life belongs to the living, and he who lives must be prepared for vicissitudes.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Post #2002

Be still prepared for death—and death or life shall thereby be the sweeter.
—William Shakespeare

Post #1982

While we are reasoning concerning life, life is gone; and death, though perhaps they receive him differently, yet treats alike the fool and the philosopher.

— David Hume

Post #1981

HOPE writes the poetry of the boy, but memory that of the man. Man looks forward with smiles, but backward with sighs. Such is the wise providence of God. The cup of life is the sweetest at the brim; the flavor is impaired as we drink deeper, and the dregs are made bitter that we may not struggle when it is taken from our lips.

—Unknown

Post #1922

The soul is only the thinking part of the body, and with the body it passes away. When death comes, the farce is over (la farce est jouée), therefore let us take our pleasure while we can.

—Julien Offray de la Mettrie

Post #1861

For the length of life there is no law. The weakest thread will draw itself out to an unexpected length, and the strongest is suddenly cutoff by the scissors of Fate, who seems to take delight in contradictions.

—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Post #1839

The great fact is, that life is a service. The only question is, "Whom will we serve?"
—Frederick William Faber

Post #1838

We are haunted by an ideal life, and it is because we have within us the beginning and the possibility of it.
—Phillips Brooks

Post #1823

Life is a comedy to him who thinks, and a tragedy to him who feels.

—Horace Walpole

Post #1810

Life is half spent before we know what it is.
―George Herbert

Post #1794

To be active is the primary vocation of man.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Post #1761

This world is a beautiful book, but of little use to him who cannot read it.
—Carlo Goldoni

Post #1750

It is our follies that make our lives uncomfortable. Our errors of opinion, our cowardly fear of the world’s worthless censure, and our eagerness after unnecessary gold have hampered the way of virtue, and made it far more difficult than, in itself, it is.

—Owen Feltham

Post #1712

Life is short — while we speak it flies; enjoy, then, the present, and forget the future; such is the moral of ancient poetry, a graceful and a wise moral, — indulged beneath a southern sky, and all deserving, the phrase applied to it, — the philosophy of the garden.
―Edward Bulwer-Lytton

Post #1703

So live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart.

Trouble no one about their religion: respect others in their view,
and demand that they respect yours. Love your life, perfect
your life, beautify all things in your life.

Seek to make your life long and its purpose in the service of
your people. Prepare a noble death song for the day when you
go over the great divide. Always give a word or a sign of salute
when meeting or passing a friend, even a stranger, when in a
lonely place. Show respect to all people and grovel to none.

When you arise in the morning give thanks for the food and for
the joy of living. If you see no reason for giving thanks, the
fault lies only in yourself.

Abuse no one and no thing, for abuse turns the wise ones to
fools and robs the spirit of its vision.

When it comes your time to die, be not like those whose
hearts are filled with the fear of death, so that when their time
comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their
lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song and
die like a hero going home.
—Chief Tecumseh

Post #1679

What is life? A gulf of troubled waters, where the soul, like a vexed bark, is tossed upon the waves of pain and pleasure by the wavering breath of passions.
—Miss L.E. Landon

Post #1642

Man did not weave the web of life; he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.

—Chief Seattle

Post #1599

Life is like a landscape. You live in the midst of it, but can describe it only from the vantage point of distance.
—Charles A. Lindbergh