Living Life Well Quotes

Life is like playing the violin in public and learning the instrument as one goes on. ~ Samuel Butler

You get treated in life the way you teach people to treat you. ~ Wayne W. Dyer

Guard well your spare moments. They are like uncut diamonds. Discard them and their value will never be known. Improve them and they will become the brightest gems in a useful life. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

You have heard, of course, of those tiny fish in the rivers of Brazil that attack the unwary swimmer by thousands and with swift little nibbles clean him up in a few minutes, leaving only an immaculate skeleton? Well, that's what their organization is. "Do you want a good clean life? Like everybody else?" You say yes, of course. How can one say no? "O.K. You'll be cleaned up. Here's a job, a family, and organized leisure activities." And the little teeth attack the flesh, right down to the bone. But I am unjust. I shouldn't say their organization. It is ours, after all: it's a question of which will clean up the other. ~ Albert Camus

When? At this time, while you have all the opportunities, if you do not do your best to achieve the pure, stainless path to enlightenment when will you do it? If you don't meditate, don't practise the graduated path to enlightenment, especially bodhicitta, in this life, then when? When will you practise? When will you have this realization? If, in this life, you don't achieve renunciation, bodhicitta and sunyata, as well as the two stages of tantra, when will you? When will you have these attainments? When will you become enlightened? When will you perform perfect work for sentient beings? ~ Thubten Zopa Rinpoche

You might as well try to hear without ears or breathe without lungs, as to try to live a Christian life without the Spirit of God in your heart. ~ Dwight L. Moody

Well, my dear father, in the shipwreck of life
for life is an eternal shipwreck of our hopes
I throw all my useless baggage in the sea, that's all, and remain with my will, prepared to live entirely alone and consequently entirely free. ~ Alexandre Dumas

Here we do well to remember the frequently quoted words of E. M. Bounds: "One of the constitutional enforcements of the gospel is prayer. Without prayer, the gospel can neither be preached effectively, promulgated faithfully, experienced in the heart, nor be practiced in the life. And for the very simple reason that by leaving prayer out of the catalogue of religious duties, we leave God out, and His work cannot progress without Him."3 ~ D. A. Carson

And when the war's over, someday, some year, the books can be written again, the people will be called in, one by one, to recite what they know and we'll set it up in type until another Dark Age, when we might have to do the whole damn thing over again. But that's the wonderful thing about man; he never gets so discouraged or disgusted that he gives up doing it all over again, because he knows very well it is important and worth doing. ~ Ray Bradbury

Could you bring back a man without a head?" Arya asked. "Just the once, not six times. Could you?"

"I have no magic, child. Only prayers. That first time, his lordship had a hole right through him and blood in his mouth, I knew there was no hope. So when his poor torn chest stopped moving, I gave him the good god's own kiss to send him on his way. I filled my mouth with fire and breathed the flames inside him, down his throat to lungs and heart and soul. The last kiss it is called, and many a time I saw the old priests bestow it on the Lord's servants as they died. I had given it a time or two myself, as all priests must. But never before had I felt a dead man shudder as the fire filled him, nor seen his eyes come open. It was not me who raised him, my lady. It was the Lord. R'hllor is not done with him yet. Life is warmth, and warmth is fire, and fire is God's and God's alone."

Arya felt tears well in her eyes. Thoros used a lot of words, but all they meant was no, that much she understood. ~ George R.R. Martin

I walked out and breathed fresh air. I felt the sun on my skin. The world is a different place when you are well, when you are young. The world is beautiful and safe. I said hello to the gatekeeper. He said hello back to me. ~ Sarah Winman

There is a purpose to our lives, even if it is sometimes hidden from us, and even if the biggest turning points and heartbreaks only make sense as we look back, rather than as we are experiencing them. So we might as well live life as if - as the poet Rumi put it - everything is rigged in our favor. ~ Arianna Huffington

Always think intelligently and wise well past your years, but still keep the vibrancy and belief of a child. ~ Jon Luvelli

Those who guide us, who inspire us, having gone our way before, are now partners with us in building a better world. Any success we have is theirs as well as ours. To copy or imitate them should be only the beginning-the apprentice stage of life. It is fine to think, "what will a Shaker do? What would Scott Nearing have said? What would Gandhi have thought?" These are good exercises for the mind, a way of weighing ideas and contemplated actions, valuable so long as we do not follow anyone blindly.
Only by standing on their shoulders can we build a better world, but we should use the wise as advisers, not masters. ~ William Coperthwaite

Law is never so necessary as when it has no ethical significance whatever, and is pure law for the sake of law. The law that compels me to keep to the left when driving along Oxford Street is ethically senseless, as is shewn by the fact that keeping to the right answers equally well in Paris; and it certainly destroys my freedom to choose my side; but by enabling me to count on everyone else keeping to the left also, thus making traffic possible and safe, it enlarges my life and sets my mind free for nobler issues. Most laws, in short, are not the expression of the ethical verdicts of the community, but pure etiquette and nothing else. What they express is the fact that over most of the field of social life there are wide limits within which it does not matter what people do, though it matters enormously whether under given circumstances you can depend on their all doing the same thing. ~ George Bernard Shaw

Lord, help us to see in your crucifixion and resurrection an example of how to endure and seemingly to die in the agony and conflict of daily life, so that we may live more fully and creatively. You accepted patiently and humbly the rebuffs of human life, as well as the torture of the cross. Help us to accept the pains and conflicts that come to us each day as opportunity to grow as people and become more like you-make us realize that it is only by frequent deaths of ourselves, and our self-centered desires that we can come to live more fully, only by dying with you that we can rise with you. ~ Mother Teresa

I had prepared myself for the second half of my life [to be] filled with other passions that don't include being in front of the camera. And then all of a sudden I got more work and more work and more work. And I went, "Well maybe things have shifted." And I think they have. ~ Sandra Bullock

I'll be all over your business. I'd expect to be told where you're going and when, and I'll want to meet your friends." Sam cleared his throat and rolled his shoulders. "Being a couple means holidays and vacations together. It means I can count on you to be supportive when my work gets to be too much, and that you'll always be nice to my mother. That you'll have dinner with me, and we'll go to bed together as often as we can. It means I demand to be a priority, and not an option for when nothing else is going on in your life." He cleared his throat again. "Couples nowadays tend to live separate lives, but that would never fly with me. I've been told I can be overbearing, and I know there's a chance you'll feel suffocated and - ~ Taylor V. Donovan

You will not find your identity in what you have, but in who has you. You will not find your identity in what you do, but in what has been done for you. And you will not find your identity in what you desire, but in who has desired - at infinite cost to Himself - a relationship with you. Christ is your life. He gives you a new identity and will work that new identity out in your life until the day when He appears. On that day you will finally see clearly, as Christ sees you now. You will know as you are known. And you will understand that the truest thing about you - that in Christ God called you His beloved in whom He is well pleased - has been true all along. And is now true forever. Believe. Trust. Base your entire identity and worth on that fact. ~ David Lomas

We who bore the mark might well be considered by the rest of the world as strange, even as insane and dangerous. We had awoken, or were awakening, and we were striving for an ever perfect state of wakefulness, whereas the ambition and quest for happiness of the others consisted of linking their opinions, ideals, and duties, their life and happiness, ever more closely with those of the herd. They, too, strove; they, too showed signs of strength and greatness. But as we saw it, whereas we marked men represented Nature's determination to create something new, individual, and forward-looking, the others lived in the determination to stay the same. For them mankind
which they loved as much as we did
was a fully formed entity that had to be preserved and protected. For us mankind was a distant future toward which we were all journeying, whose aspect no one knew, whose laws weren't written down anywhere. ~ Hermann Hesse

The drive behind life has lost none of its power; proof that, impelled by that drive, man can build as well as destroy; that in his nature is more of Vishnu the Creator than of Siva the Destroyer. ~ George Amos Dorsey

Our days flowed around well-charted, often traveled courses, and yet, the underlying sense of falling out of time, out of the trajectory of one's life, not by choice, but by subtraction, was frequent and disquieting. Then I grieved for him, for the lost and previous Paul. He grieved for that man too. Both our griefs were mainly private, internal, unuttered. Return was impossible, and there was only one direction open ; and so we kept our compass pointed forward. [p. 286] ~ Diane Ackerman

In my creature impatience I am often caused to wish that there were some way to bring modern Christians into a deeper spiritual life painlessly by short, easy lessons; but such wishes are vain. No shortcut exists. God has not bowed to our nervous haste nor embraced the methods of our machine age. It is well that we accept the hard truth now: The man who would know God must give time to Him. ~ Aiden Wilson Tozer

Understanding dawned about the sequence of the last two lines, and with it came a sudden mental image of him doing that to me.
A flush scorched my cheeks in the next instant. Mortified, I snatched my hands away and stood so abruptly the chair fell over.
Taunting laughter followed me.
"Oh, Kitten, you were doing so well! Guess you just couldn't pass up a nice stroll in the woods. Beautiful night for it, I smell a storm coming. And you wonder why I had you pegged as an innocent. I've met nuns who were more promiscuous. I knew it would be the oral stuff that did you in, I would have bet my life on it."
"You don't have a life, you're dead."
I was trying to remind myself of that. Listening to his explicit detailing of everything he could do to me - not that I would ever let him, of course! - had made that a hard point to remember. I shook my head, trying to clear it of the images dancing in it. ~ Jeaniene Frost

If you can't learn to enjoy your life when you have problems, you may never enjoy it because we'll always have problems. ~ Joyce Meyer

At the end of the day, Esperanza stepped into Myron's office, sat down, and said, "I don't know much about family values or what makes a happy family. I don't know the best way to raise a kid or what you have to do to make him happy and well adjusted, whatever the hell 'well adjusted' means. I don't know if it's best to be an only child or have lots of siblings or be raised by two parents or a single parent or a gay couple or a lesbian couple or an overweight albino. But I know one thing." Myron looked up at her and waited. "No child could ever be harmed by having you in his life." Esperanza ~ Harlan Coben

Some people are less fortunate than others, and have to be raised in negative environments. As a result, they may have a negative mindset, but deep down they are really the same. We all experience life based on our surroundings and we all experience the same emotions. Realizing the similarity between everyone is a great way to improve the well being of the human family. Look at your neighbors with eyes of compassion; try to see the world through their eyes before you judge them. ~ Joseph P. Kauffman

Ask advice of him who governs himself well. ~ Leonardo Da Vinci

Got back and went to use the loo in Room 5 and was shocked at the state of it. Christian the producer was not well and had made a mess of it and the walls surrounding it. Even the cockroaches were running out the door. For the first time in my life I was aware that my face did a disgusted look. I decided I'd rather do it on the street than sit in there. ~ Karl Pilkington

So what, then"-his voice deepened, softened, the suave tones sliding over her skin-"will it take to convince you that you should-indeed, ought to-marry me?"
He let her look into his eyes, for once didn't keep his mask between them.
Let her see he was in earnest, sincere in wanting to know.
She drew in a long breath, then looked back at the river and let out a long, slow sigh. Wondered why she was bothering. If he truly didn't know...
Perhaps she should tell him.
"Very well. As you're so determined to hear them, these are my reasons." She'd never voiced them before, not all of them, yet if Catriona was right and he might be her hero...it behooved her to try to find the words. "I long ago decided that the one element I would never agree to marry without was true...affection." Recalling Catriona's views, she substituted the less specific, less, for men, frightening word. "An affection strong enough to last the years, powerful enough to guide and inform, deep and broad enough to be the foundation of a shared life. I want passion and laughter, interest and inclusion, a partnership at least on a practical level, and something even deeper on the personal.
"I want...to be wanted, to feel necessary and needed, to know I feel a role that only I can fill." She paused, then forced herself to go on. "But even more that that, I want that depth of affection to be offered to me, Heather Cynster, not because I am Heather Cynster, well-connected heiress and"-she ~ Stephanie Laurens

When Donald Trump says, "Let's make America great again," that is code for let's take America backward. Back to a time when opportunity and dignity were reserved for some, not all. Back to the days when abortion was illegal, women had far fewer options, and life for too many women and girls was limited. Well, Donald, those days are over. ~ Hillary Clinton

it's pretty well impossible to create a better life if you're not prepared to have some uncomfortable feelings. However, ~ Russ Harris

Fore Word
Poetry and prayer are synonymous in my life, and because both are a gift, which I accept with joy and sometimes pain, I seldom know whether I have served the gift well or ill. But perhaps that doesn't really matter; the important thing is to be willing - to want to serve the gift whenever it comes, either as verse or prayer ...
My heart's climate is not constant; I doubt if anyone's is. My inner weather shifts with the days. But much sunshine has shone on me through the sharing and giving and receiving.
And so I am taught to pray. And so I am taught to be. ~ Madeleine L'Engle

He'll be okay. We'll take care of him. Even when he's having a bad day, we'll do our best to make him feel safe."
"Thank you, Frankie. I knew you would. That's why I'm here."
For him.
And for me.
For you.
I'm here for you.
I want you in my life again.
Even if all you'll give me is your friendship.
Fuck that. That will never be enough for me.
Not with you.
There was so much I wanted to tell her but couldn't. ~ Penelope Ward

A popular feel for scientific endeavors should, if possible, be restored given the needs of the twenty-first century. This does not mean that every literature major should take a watered-down physics course or that a corporate lawyer should stay abreast of quantum mechanics. Rather, it means that an appreciation for the methods of science is a useful asset for a responsible citizenry. What science teaches us, very significantly, is the correlation between factual evidence and general theories, something well illustrated in Einstein's life. ~ Walter Isaacson

She had a collection of matchbooks from extravagant places, dropped here and there on tables in the dingy apartment she still shared with Gregg. They made it look as if she lived a gay, mad life. What a typical picture for anyone from out of New York: career girl's apartment, stockings drying over the shower rod, clothes flung helter-skelter in the rush to get to the office on time, to a date on time, a bottle of wine there too, wads of dust lying under the studio couch because you couldn't clean except weekends and sometimes not even then, and all those brightly colored matchbooks with names of well-known eating places, so that even if one managed only two good and sufficient meals a week one could still light one's cigarettes for the rest of the week with the memory. ~ Rona Jaffe