The collection / 734 fragments

Life.

Explore passages mentioning life, living. Topic suggestions use transparent word matching, not scholarly classification. Editorial meanings and lexical matches are discovery aids, not independent authentication of a quotation.

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01c. 1745 AD

Had I no other proof of the immortality of the soul than the oppression of the just and the triumph of the wicked in this world, this alone would prevent my having the least doubt of it. So shocking a discord amidst a general harmony of things would make me naturally look for a cause; I should say to myself we do not cease to exist with this life; everything reassumes its order after death.

Jean Jacques Rousseau / quote

02c. 1590 AD

Rather see the wonders of the world abroad, than, living dully sluggardized at home wear out thy youth with shapeless idleness.

William Shakespeare / quote

03c. 83 AD

Philosophy is the art of living.

Plutarch / quote

04In print by 1893 AD

A crown is no cure for the headache.

Traditional proverb · Unknown culture / proverb

Meaning: Status may bring privileges without removing ordinary difficulties. The crown represents an impressive position, while the headache stands for a trouble that remains despite outward success.

05In print by 1893 AD

A good road and a wise traveller are two different things.

Traditional proverb · Unknown culture / proverb

Meaning: Favourable conditions and sound judgment are separate advantages. A smooth route cannot choose a destination or decide how someone travels; an easy opportunity still calls for attention and thoughtful choices.

06In print by 1893 AD

All things are in perpetual flux and fleeting.

Traditional proverb · Unknown culture / proverb

Meaning: Things continually change and pass away in the saying’s broad picture of life. It encourages awareness that a present condition need not last, without making change a guarantee of improvement or a reason to abandon commitments.

07In print by 1893 AD

A man's walking is a succession of falls.

Traditional proverb · Unknown culture / proverb

Meaning: Progress is pictured as a sequence of movements through temporary instability. The image can encourage a person to see adjustment as part of moving forward, without celebrating harmful mistakes or claiming that every setback is necessary.

08In print by 1893 AD

As he who has health is young, so he who owes nothing is rich.

Traditional proverb · Unknown culture / proverb

Meaning: The saying compares vitality with youth and freedom from obligations with wealth. It shifts attention from labels and possessions to conditions that can make life feel less burdened, without promising that health or debt determines anyone’s worth.

09c. 32 AD

Wisdom does not show itself so much in precept as in life—a firmness of mind and mastery of appetite.

Seneca / quote

10c. 1790 AD

Every man must think after his own fashion; for on his own path he finds a truth, or a kind of truth, which helps him through life. But he must not give himself the rein; he must control himself; mere naked instinct does not become him.

Goethe / quote

11c. 1790 AD

Herein we must exercise our tact; otherwise in the very way in which we have won the favour of mankind, we run the risk of trifling it away again unawares. This is a lesson which a man learns quite well for himself in the course of life, but only after having paid a dear price for it; nor can he, unhappily, spare his posterity a like expenditure.

Goethe / quote

12c. 1790 AD

In contemplation as in action, we must distinguish between what may be attained and what is unattainable. Without this, little can be achieved, either in life or in knowledge.

Goethe / quote

13c. 1790 AD

What I have tried to do in my life through false tendencies, I have at last learned to understand.

Goethe / quote

14c. 1790 AD

There are problematical natures which are equal to no position in which they find themselves, and which no position satisfies. This it is that causes that hideous conflict which wastes life and deprives it of all pleasure.

Goethe / quote

15c. 1790 AD

He is the happiest man who can set the end of his life in connection with the beginning.

Goethe / quote

16c. 1790 AD

Life seems so vulgar, so easily content with the commonplace things of every day, and yet it always nurses and cherishes certain higher claims in secret, and looks about for the means of satisfying them.

Goethe / quote

17c. 1790 AD

Of all peoples, the Greeks have dreamt the dream of life the best.

Goethe / quote

18c. 1790 AD

The whole art of living consists in giving up existence in order to exist.

Goethe / quote

19c. 1790 AD

People often say to themselves in life that they should avoid a variety of occupation, and, more particularly, be the less willing to enter upon new work the older they grow. But it is easy to talk, easy to give advice to oneself and others. To grow old is itself to enter upon a new business; all the circumstances change, and a man must either cease acting altogether, or willingly and consciously take over the new rôle.

Goethe / quote

20c. 1790 AD

He considered the idea as a thing of the mind, that had, it is true, no reality, but still, on passing away, left a residuum—a caput mortuum—to which some reality could not be altogether refused. We may think this a very perverse and material notion; but when he entertained his friends with the neverending consequences of his life and actions, in full belief and confidence in them, he expressed himself quite differently. Then, indeed, he was ready to admit that life produces life; that a fruitful act has effects to all time. He took pleasure in confessing that he had given a great impulse, a new direction, to the course of the world's affairs.

Goethe / quote

21c. 1790 AD

Friendship can only be bred in practice and be maintained by practice. Affection, nay, love itself, is no help at all to friendship. True, active, productive friendship consists in keeping equal pace in life: in my friend approving my aims, while I approve his, and in thus moving forwards together steadfastly, however much our way of thought and life may vary.

Goethe / quote

22c. 1790 AD

The most privileged position, in life as in society, is that of an educated soldier. Rough warriors, at any rate, remain true to their character, and as great strength is usually the cover for good nature, we get on with them at need.

Goethe / quote

23c. 1790 AD

A man may live never so retired a life but he becomes a debtor or a creditor before he is aware of it.

Goethe / quote

24c. 1790 AD

To sit in judgment on the departed is never likely to be equitable. We all suffer from life; who except God can call us to account? Let not their faults and sufferings, but what they have accomplished and done, occupy the survivors.

Goethe / quote