Lives Our Life Quotes

So words play a very important part in our lives. Our life, it appears, is a network of complicated, interrelated words. Words have a great impact upon us, like 'god', 'democracy', 'freedom', 'totalitarianism'. These words conjure up familiar images. The words 'wife' and 'husband' are part of our everyday currency. But the word 'wife' is not actually the living person, with all her complexities and troubles. So the word is never the actual.

When the word becomes all-important, the living, the actual is neglected. ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

Whenever we are in the box, we have a need that is met by others' poor behavior. And so our boxes encourage more poor behavior in others, even if that behavior makes our lives more difficult. ~ The Arbinger Institute

Ideas never stop, dear S, they're everywhere, in everything - all we have to do is be open to them. And stories tend to arrive with their plots intact and reveal the plots in the writing. Often you think you've got a plot only to find, once you start writing, it's doing something else altogether. And the short story is the form most suited to the spatial moment, which is why it so touches us as a form, I think, with our lives so made up every day of the momentousness of the ordinary moment. ~ Ali Smith

We hold each other's lives in our open hands, not in clenched fists. ~ Lloyd Alexander

Morality came before religion, and religion was our ancestors' way of responding to that built-in need. And if that was so, then it was perfectly possible to lead a good life, to have a strong sense of right and wrong, without ever letting God and his harpies into the room. ~ Salman Rushdie

So much depends on our expectations of what our life should be. The less you expect, the more content you are. ~ Lucinda Riley

According to Jeremiah 31 and Ezekiel 36, God promised to impart His law into us, to change our heart, to regenerate our spirit, and to put His Spirit within us. As a result, we have the inward law, which is actually God Himself, to produce in us not only what God requires, but also what God is. This was the reason the Lord Jesus said to His disciples, "You therefore shall be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect" (Matt. 5:48). When the divine life within us grows to perfection, we shall be perfect even as our Father is perfect. ~ Witness Lee

Crowds of bees are giddy with clover
Crowds of grasshoppers skip at our feet,
Crowds of larks at their matins hang over,
Thanking the Lord for a life so sweet. ~ Jean Ingelow

We're freaks, that's all. Those two bastards got us nice and early and made us into freaks with freakish standards, that's all. We're the tattooed lady, and we're never going to have a minute's peace, the rest of our lives, until everybody else is tattooed, too. ~ J.D. Salinger

Dying is an integral part of life, as natural and predictable as being born. But whereas birth is cause for celebration, death has become a dreaded and unspeakable issue to be avoided by every means possible in our modern society. Perhaps it is that. ~ Elisabeth Kubler Ross

Man has created technology. Technology has created man; what we are today. Electricity is our way of life. Without it many would perish. ~ O.J. Rendchen

So we reached our decisions simultaneously, and apart, and if I knew that Court was fighting a battle, did he, too, sense mine? Did it have anything to do with his coming back to life again? For he is here, I am no longer living with a marble image. And I will never know why. Court being Court I can never ask him why; we wrestled with our problems alone and we must live alone with the answers. And is it part of a marriage, part of being a human being, that we must always reach our decisions alone? ~ Madeleine L'Engle

If we grow wiser and more learned in our intercourse with wise and learned persons, how much more will we gain in our inner life by communing with God in prayer. ~ Huldrych Zwingli

One of our meditators, after a program with us, came back and said, "After all this yoga, now I am able to understand what is my life, but I am unable to understand what is my wife." (Laughter). You cannot understand, you just have to include. If you make her a part of yourself, you somehow have a wonderful relationship. You do not have to understand every damn thing that the other person is. In fact, they will feel threatened if you understand everything. Isn't it? They will get scared. People are not looking for understanding, though they claim that they are looking for understanding. It is inclusiveness that you are seeking in a relationship. Nobody likes to be managed. But everybody longs to be included. Inclusion does not mean you have to go and hug everybody on the street. It is just the way you are, that is all. ~ Sadhguru

I live a normal life, I take care of our baby, I cook, and I look forward to the weekend so I can spend some time with my husband. It's the kind of change we all secretly dream of, but which isn't always easy to deal with. ~ Angela Lindvall

Life itself has become the final disposable, exploitable resource. We will do anything. Level whole mountains, erase whole species, relocate mighty rivers, burn forests to the ground, change the pH of the water, blanket ourselves in toxic chemistry. It took two million years for our species just to stand up and only five hundred to do the rest. Our culture is one of abundance, of entitlement, and basically little else. We've put our birthright at risk because we don't know how to control ourselves. Our lust. ~ Stephen Markley

We all of us die, Miss Smallwood,' he interrupted. 'But we don't all of us make our lives count for something. How much better to die saving another soul than to stand safe on shore and do nothing while others perish? ~ Julie Klassen

I would miss having Nic in my life. I would miss his funny phone messages and his humor, the stories, our talks, our walks, watching movies with him, dinners together, and the transcendent feeling between us that is love.
I would miss all of it.
I miss it now.
And here it sinks in: I don't have it now. I have not had it whenever Nic has been on drugs.
Nic is absent, only his shell remains. I have been afraid - terrified - to lose Nic, but I have lost him. ~ David Sheff

Man, furthermore, must make his choices as an individual, for individuality is one side of one's consciousness of one's self. We can see this point clearly when we realize that consciousness of one's self is always a unique act - I can never know exactly how you see yourself and you never can know exactly how I relate to myself. This is the inner sanctum where each man must stand alone. This fact makes for much of the tragedy and inescapable isolation in human life, but it also indicates again that we must find the strength in ourselves to stand in our own inner sanctum as individuals. ~ Rollo May

Believing in fate has probably always arisen in part because of the delights and terrors of storytelling. We have to realize
to learn
that in life we are not the readers but the authors of our own narratives. ~ Margaret Visser

What we are accustomed to decry as great social evils, will, for the most part, be found to be only the out-growth of our own perverted life; and though we may endeavor to cut them down and extirpate them by means of law, they will only spring up again with fresh luxuriance in some other form, unless the conditions of human life and character are radically improved. ~ Samuel Smiles

Don't let the burdens and hardships of this life
distract you or discourage you, but keep your eyes firmly fixed on what God has promised
at the end of our journey: heaven itself. ~ Billy Graham

When we compared our dream list to our "joy and meaning" list, we realized that by merely letting go of the list of things we want to accomplish and acquire, we would be actually living our dream - not striving to make it happen in the future, but living it right now. The things we were working toward did nothing in terms of making our life fuller. ~ Brene Brown

Fate often allows a future to take shape with no regard for our expectation, plan, or readiness. Fate's skillful editing of our life choices is like the careful grooming of lads on their first day of school: combed, polished, scrubbed, newly dressed, and glowing too. This is how we become ready for our life lessons. ~ David Richo

Everything bad that they (the ungodly) can seize hold of in our life is twisted maliciously against Christ and His teaching. The result is that by our fault God's sacred name is exposed to insult. The more closely we see ourselves being watched by our enemies, the more intent we should be to avoid their slanders, so that their ill-will strengthens us in the desire to do well. ~ John Calvin

I love you", he whispered. "You'll have the words every day for the rest of our lives. ~ Katherine Allred

We so often spend our time searching for answers that we allow the questions to linger on, even when faced with the greatest truth
that some things just aren't ours to know. ~ Thurman P. Banks Jr.

A flash of enlightenment offers a preview of coming attractions, but when it fades, you will see more clearly what separates you from that state - your compulsive habits, outmoded beliefs, false associations, and other mental structures. Just when our lives are starting to get better, we may feel like things are getting worse - because for the first time we see clearly what needs to be done. ~ Dan Millman

Storytelling is at the heart of life ... In finding our own story, we assemble all the parts of ourselves. Whatever kind of mess we have made of it, we can somehow see the totality of who we are and recognize how our blunderings are related. We can own what we did and value who we are, not because of the outcome but because of the soul story that propelled us. ~ Marion Woodman

It could be that God has absconded but spread, as our vision and understanding of the universe have spread, to a fabric of spirit and sense so grand and subtle, so powerful in a new way, that we can only feel blindly of its hem. ~ Annie Dillard

Manipulating the media is akin to poisoning a nation's water supply – it affects all of our lives in unimaginable ways. ~ Lance Morcan

We need to make sure we are not analyzing the events in our lives from a secular, human, worldly point of view rather than from a divine, spiritual, godly point of view. ~ Tony Evans

Every journey has a starting point ... and it has an end. God meant for [life] to be filled with joy and purpose. He invites us to ... take the rest of our journey with Him. ~ Billy Graham

We stand ready to work together, where possible, in helping rebuild not only homes and businesses, but most importantly, lives of those who so desperately need our help. ~ Marc Morial

Everything has a spirit and it's all connected. If you think about that, if you live your life by it, then you're less likely to cause any hurt. It's like how our bodies go back into the ground when we die, so that connects us to the earth. If you dump trash, you're dumping it on your and my ancestors. Or to bring it down to its simplest level: treat everything and everybody the way you want to be treated, because when you hurt someone, you're only hurting yourself. ~ Charles De Lint

I think we need to do some deep soul searching about what's important in our lives and renew our spirit and our spiritual thinking, whether it's through faith-based religion or just through loving nature or helping your fellow man. ~ Louie Schwartzberg

How many more burdens do you think you can bear alone? How many more years can I go on alone, without you? Our days are filled from dawn to dusk, honey, but our lives are empty. ~ Leila Meacham

If peace comes from seeing the whole,
then misery stems from a loss of perspective.

We begin so aware and grateful. The sun somehow hangs there in the sky. The little bird sings. The miracle of life just happens. Then we stub our toe, and in that moment of pain, the whole world is reduced to our poor little toe. Now, for a day or two, it is difficult to walk. With every step, we are reminded of our poor little toe.

Our vigilance becomes: Which defines our day - the pinch we feel in walking on a bruised toe, or the miracle still happening?

It is the giving over to smallness that opens us to misery. In truth, we begin taking nothing for granted, grateful that we have enough to eat, that we are well enough to eat. But somehow, through the living of our days, our focus narrows like a camera that shutters down, cropping out the horizon, and one day we're miffed at a diner because the eggs are runny or the hash isn't seasoned just the way we like.

When we narrow our focus, the problem seems everything. We forget when we were lonely, dreaming of a partner. We forget first beholding the beauty of another. We forget the comfort of first being seen and held and heard. When our view shuts down, we're up in the night annoyed by the way our lover pulls the covers or leaves the dishes in the sink without soaking them first.

In actuality, misery is a moment of suffering allowed to become everything. So, when feeling miserable, we m ~ Mark Nepo

Let us finally consider how naive it is altogether to say: "Man ought to be such and such!" Reality shows us an enchanting wealth of types, the abundance of a lavish play and change of forms - and some wretched loafer of a moralist comments: "No! Man ought to be different." He even knows what man should be like, this wretched bigot and prig: he paints himself on the wall and comments, "Ecce homo!" But even when the moralist addresses himself only to the single human being and says to him, "You ought to be such and such!" he does not cease to make himself ridiculous. The single human being is a piece of fatum from the front and from the rear, one law more, one necessity more for all that is yet to come and to be. To say to him, "Change yourself!" is to demand that everything be changed, even retroactively. And indeed there have been consistent moralists who wanted man to be different, that is, virtuous - they wanted him remade in their own image, as a prig: to that end, they negated the world! No small madness! No modest kind of immodesty!
Morality, insofar as it condemns for its own sake, and not out of regard for the concerns, considerations, and contrivances of life, is a specific error with which one ought to have no pity - an idiosyncrasy of degenerates which has caused immeasurable harm.
We others, we immoralists, have, conversely, made room in our hearts for every kind of understanding, comprehending, and approving. We do not easily negate; we make it a ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Let us do our duty in our shop or our kitchen, in the market, the street, the office, the school, the home, just as faithfully as if we stood in the front rank of some great battle, and knew that victory for mankind depended on our bravery, strength, and skill. When we do that, the humblest of us will be serving in that great army which achieves the welfare of the world. ~ Theodore Parker

If only everything were like that. It's not easy to do: owning and accepting the pain of our past, the heartbreak, our misgivings, and using them for good. Make our lives better not in spite of it all...but because of it. ~ J.B. Salsbury

She sat back on her heels and nodded. The thought experiment she proposed was certainly odd, but her point was simple. Everything in the universe was constantly changing, and nothing stays the same, and we must understand how quickly time flows by if we are to wake up and truly live our lives.
That's what it means to be a time being, old Jiko told me, and then she snapped her crooked fingers again.
And just like that, you die. ~ Ruth Ozeki

Persistence may not solve everything - at least in our lifetime - but it is truer to the meaning of life for us to wait for another plowing, another seeding, another harvest, then not. ~ Joan D. Chittister

The life of hope, then, is shot through with social influences at every level. We learn to formulate ideals in tandem with others. We pursue particular hopes, sometimes succeeding and sometimes failing, in the company of those we love. And as we develop habits of hope and the hopefulness which helps us weather our trials, we reach out to others, inspiring them, sharing our own hopes with them, and contributing our abilities as best we can to foster the growth of agency. ~ Patrick Shade

I never set out to make a movie that was everything to everybody; if that were the case, we could all just take a picture of a tree and agree that the tree is beautiful and move on with our lives. I wouldn't even need to show up. ~ Shane Carruth

A truly radical resolution would be to embrace existence just as it is, as the only thing that matters, to proclaim that the world itself is heaven, made for our total enjoyment and fulfillment ... ~ CrimethInc.

Those of us whose work is to write software are incredibly lucky. Building software is a guiltless pleasure because we get to use our creative energy to get things done. We have arranged our lives to have it both ways; we can enjoy the pure act of writing code in sure knowledge that the code we write has use. We produce things that matter. We are modern craftspeople, building structures that make up present-day reality, and no less than bricklayers or bridge builders, we take justifiable pride in our accomplishments. ~ Sandi Metz

God created us for this: to live our lives in a way that makes him look more like the greatness and the beauty and the infinite worth that he really is. This is what it means to be created in the image of God. ~ John Piper