Life Defining Quotes

As soon as you are born, you're given a name, a religion, a nationality and a race. You spend the rest of your life defining and defending a fictional identity. ~ Brandon Garic Notch

Love is one of the most motivating and self-defining forces in our lives, whether we turn from it or allow ourselves to be drawn to it. If you allow romantic possibilities with others to consume all your time and energy, they will distract you from the things of interest that fill your life with passion and purpose. ~ A.J. Darkholme

At times you have to fight. No way around it. At some point, every one of us is confronted with danger or injustice. How we choose to combat that challenge is often life-defining. You can face difficulties head-on, or run from them, or ignore them until they consume you. But no one escapes conflict. No one. ~ Bill O'Reilly

I think the difference between being miserable and finding happiness is just a matter of perspective. If you live your life defining yourself by what other people think of you, it's a form of self-torture. ~ Sarah Silverman

We have laid the foundation for a better life. Things that were unimaginable a few years ago have become everyday reality. I belong to the generation of leaders for whom the achievement of democracy was the defining challenge. ~ Nelson Mandela

...I've been ripped off, lied to, slandered, gossiped about slapped, falsely accused, and had my truths not believed. I've had my heart broken, had my pride stomped on, witnessed unforgivable acts, and heard words that hurt so much I withed that they would not replay in my head, but they did. In all these moments--some tear-soaked, some life-defining, but all character-building moments--I have felt vulnerable.
And I believe these feelings of vulnerability--when a person feels scared and alone and overwhelmed and pissed off, wen the sting of unfairness bites deep--while miserable to live through, are the basis for writing compelling fiction. ~ Jessica Page Morrell

We are condemned to be free people, liberated people who must make life-defining decisions. Freedom requires choices and all choices entail value decisions. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

For communication to be effective, especially in matters as life-defining as the gospel message, truth and relevance are the two indispensable wings on which it is borne. ~ Ravi Zacharias

The word, and the concept of feminism, was a gift because it gave me a sense of identity and a way of defining how I wished to live my life. ~ Betty Buckley

Life is hard and then we die! ~ Barbara Johnson

There is only one religion and that is to love unconditionally. Those who kill in the name of religion are the bigot and biggest nonbeliever. ~ Debasish Mridha

Let us work joyfully while we have the strength. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

Cultivated men and women who do not skim the cream of life, and are attached to the duties, yet escape the harsher blows, make acute and balanced observers. ~ George Meredith

Like madness is the glory of this life. ~ William Shakespeare

The world is constructed of pairs. The sky overhead and the depths of the earth. Light and dark. It originates from either end, and then wanders the gap between ... The land belongs to the sky, starting at the horizon. The sea would appear to be in between, but there is no sea without a bottom. As it is above the earth, it is within the sky's domain. Those which have life all arrive beneath the earth upon dying. Those which cannot be in the light all descend beneath the earth, all equal. Evil avoids light. Below the earth is darkness. Am I am its god. ~ Aki

Why say "yes"? "Yes" means opportunity. "Yes" makes the dots in your life appear. And if you're willing and open, you can connect these dots. You don't know where these dots are going to lead, and if you don't invest yourself fully, the dots won't connect. The lives you make with those dots always lead to interesting places. "No" closes doors. "Yes" kicks them wide open.....As long as you're able to say "yes", the opportunities keep coming, and with them, the adventures. Say "no" to fear and complacency. Keep saying "yes" and the journey will continue. ~ William Shatner

In the depression, was I ever suicidal; or in other words, did I ever think about taking my life? I'm not sure if I ever pondered this act but, honestly, I did not care whether I lived or died; for to me, death had already taken place - and it seemed to be worse as disbelief gave way to shock…and then reality. ~ H. Kirk Rainer

‪Repel people in your mind and you'll repel them in your life. See others as above you in your mind and you'll be below them in your life. Love people in your mind and connect with them in life. The brainwaves we send out are the only ones others will surf back to our shores.‬ ~ Curtis Tyrone Jones

I said, to hell with the whole thing, to hell with show business. I'm gonna make a new life for myself, and I got off drugs, completely kicked all that stuff. ~ Tommy Kirk

But one thing was for certain: something would happen next. Something always did. Especially when you live the life of a spy. ~ Embee

Your complaint should be a pointer to what God wants you to do ~ Sunday Adelaja

Devotion does not mean only Chanting praise and singing glory of God, nor fasting and offerings made to God. Devotion is a specific attitude towards life and existence. ~ Pandurang Shastri Athavale

Human affairs are like a chess-game: only those who do not take it seriously can be called good players. Life is like an earthen pot: only when it is shattered, does it manifest its emptiness. ~ Seneca The Younger

All right," Eric agreed. "If you were me, and your wife were sick, desperately so, with no hope of recovery, would you leave her? Or would you stay with her, even if you had traveled ten years into the future and knew for an absolute certainty that the damage to her brain could never be reversed? And staying with her would mean-"
"I can see what it would mean, sir," the cab broke in. "It would mean no other life for you beyond caring for her."
"That's right," Eric said.
"I'd stay with her," the cab decided.
"Why?"
"Because," the cab said, "life is composed of reality configurations so constituted. To abandon her would be to say, I can't endure reality as such. I have to have uniquely special easier conditions."
"I think I agree," Eric said after a time. "I think I will stay with her."
God bless you, sir," the cab said. "I can see that you're a good man. ~ Philip K. Dick

It's a very short trip. While alive, live. ~ Malcolm Forbes

When we protect the places where the processes of life can flourish, we strengthen not only the future of medicine, agriculture and industry, but also the essential conditions for peace and prosperity. ~ Harrison Ford

The beauty of any first time is that it leads to a thousand others ... ~ Pico Iyer

Your story may not have such a happy beginning, but that doesn't make you who you are. It is the rest of your story, who you choose to be.
-Soothsayer ~ KungFuPandaMakers

A cozy home is not just a sixty-five thousand dollar house bought from Bank of America. A cozy home is a total consciousness of the two individuals within the framework of the home, and in relationship to the entire surrounding of this planet and beyond this planet. God lives in cozy homes. ~ Harbhajan Singh Yogi

Look - I understand that an unexamined life is not worth living, but do you think I could someday have an unexamined lunch? ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

Where is the Life we lost in living? ~ T. S. Eliot

Love means more to me than being sexually compatible. It means being an important part of your life as you'll be in mine. It means encouraging you to be everything you've ever wanted to be, sharing in your triumphs and comforting you in your failures. It means giving you the courage to try again. That's what love is all about. ~ Debbie Macomber

How wonderful will it be when all beings experience each other as limbs on the one body of life. ~ Shantideva

He said, 'Life has hurt us again.'
A worse hurt than those hurts we have already endured?'
No,' he said, 'I suppose not. ~ Donald McCaig

Made me wonder whether putting names to time made much of a difference anyway. What did it measure? Not how much life passes. Hell no. Your whole life can pass and be changed in a second or in a century. Don't matter. ~ Robert Hicks

Making excuses instead of putting yourself and your dreams first only leads to a life of mediocrity and regret. And you don't deserve that, nobody does. But to stop the excuses it's going to take getting hard-core and figuring out exactly what you want. So push yourself to ignore all those excuses that pop into your head, and accept the truth that you are the master of your ship, the author of your life, and that your adventure is only as awesome as you can imagine it. Once you stop talking yourself out of doing what you really want, you'll find the shiniest version of you and experience a sense of accomplishment that rivals any accolades. ~ Alexis Jones

So many of us were taught to keep a lid on anything and everything outrageous. To just turn it off. We turn off our life force, turn off our feelings, turn off our sensuality, and as a consequence, we turn off our power. ~ Regena Thomashauer

Oh, I'm going to take them," said Miss Cornelia. "Of course, I was glad to, but Mary would have given me no peace till I asked them any way. The Ladies' Aid is going to clean the manse from top to bottom before the bride and groom come back, and Norman Douglas has arranged to fill the cellar with vegetables. Nobody ever saw or heard anything quite like Norman Douglas these days, believe ME. He's so tickled that he's going to marry Ellen West after wanting her all his life. If I was Ellen - but then, I'm not, and if she is satisfied I can very well be. I heard her say years ago when she was a schoolgirl that she didn't want a tame puppy for a husband. There's nothing tame about Norman, believe ME. ~ L.M. Montgomery

You can read all the books in the world on the Nazi concentration camps and the gas chambers, and yet reality will draw upon you only when you are put through that yourself. It is a law of God, or nature, if you prefer, that pain, suffering and grief cannot be transferred or known by proxy. Neither empathy nor sympathy but experience alone is a valid currency of affliction. It alone makes you a card-holding member all allows you to join the club of the wretched of the earth. All else is counterfeit. ~ Kiran Nagarkar

Coaching is not a natural way of life. Your victories and losses are too clear cut. ~ Tommy Prothro

Doesn't matter how good your bullets are if you don't aim carefully. ~ Brandon Sanderson

I wrote the book because I wanted to be able to share some things that I had learned and as pompous as that may sound, as you get to a certain point in life, you figure so what am I doing? ~ Goldie Hawn

Adversity refined us like gold. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

I have never savored life with such gusto as I do now. ~ Candice Bergen

I guess if you have an original take on life, or something about you is original, you don't have to study people who came before you. You don't have to mimic anybody. You just have a gut feeling inside, an instinct that tells you what's right for you, and you can't do it in any other way. ~ Barbra Streisand

Close friends and relatives, while not meaning to do so, often handicap one through "opinions" and sometimes through ridicule, which is meant to be humorous. Thousands of men and women carry inferiority complexes with them all through life, because some well-meaning, but ignorant person destroyed their confidence through "opinions" or ridicule. ~ Napoleon Hill

And if you don't have someone to tell you, I want you to know, that I am glad that you're alive today. ~ Lacey Sturm

Life is a civil right. Abortion is a civil wrong. ~ Alveda C. King

I go about looking at horses and cattle. They eat grass, make love, work when they have to, bear their young. I am sick with envy of them. ~ Sherwood Anderson

Laughter sets your entire soul ablaze with happy endorphins and shifts your vibrations. ~ Sanjo Jendayi