Meaning To Life Quotes

Our obligation is to give meaning to life and in doing so to overcome the passive, indifferent life. ~ Elie Wiesel

Ascribing meaning to life is a piece of cake compared to actually living it."
-from "Hear the Wind Sing ~ Haruki Murakami

I just didn't understand. What should I do? What did I want to do? What was I thinking...? It didn't really matter if she died. That's what I thought. It's all the same in the end. The only difference is whether death comes sooner or later. Even if I do keep living, there will be only more suffering and more hardship. There's no meaning to it. There's no meaning to life. It would be better to die. This was a thoroughly logical conclusion that no one could refute. At least, I couldn't refute it. In fact, I doubt that anyone was less suited to the role of convincing someone else to give up on suicide than I was. ~ Tatsuhiko Takimoto

Ecstasy is what everyone craves - not love or sex, but a hot-blooded, soaring intensity, in which being alive is a joy and a thrill. That enravishment doesn't give meaning to life, and yet without it life seems meaningless. ~ Diane Ackerman

Is there always under the glory of white wings and graceful speed, the scaffolding of a cross?

If you meet a woman who sails her life with strength and grace and assurance, talk to her. What you will find is that there has been a suffering, that at some time she has left herself for (hanging) dead.

We are so busy doing and achieving that we have lost touch with our inner life – that life that gives meaning to symbols and conversely the symbols that give meaning to life. ~ Karl Jung

Is death that which gives meaning to life? And I said, no, life is that which gives meaning to life. ~ Donald Barthelme

True success is not the end of the journey; true success is a journey without an end. So many people relax after achieving something and they forget the undone. They neglect their untapped destiny and they halt their journey of life not reaching their real and true destination. Whilst we have life, we must live life. Whilst we have life, we must give a true meaning to life. Whilst we have life, we must dare to do the undone; though the road is weary; though we may be having a sense of fulfillment, and though we might have done something! Let us awake and pursue with all zeal and tenacity until we get to the real end of our true purpose and destiny, such that long after we are gone, the voice of our footprints will speak to inspire, build and raise a generation of champions ! ~ Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

If you fall into the category of people who want to make a great use of their existence, you need to ask yourself these two questions; "what am I doing now"?; "Where is it taking me to? ~ Israelmore Ayivor

I guess I liked the idea that ... well, that there might be some kind of larger meaning to life or whatever. My mother was into that. She had a nonreligious spiritual side to her, if that makes any sense. She believed in the idea of fate and destiny. An interconnectedness and purpose in life. ~ Jessica Park

If hundreds of thousands of people reach out for a book whose very title promises to deal with the question of a meaning to life, it must be a question that burns under their fingernails. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

Seduced by the spectacular theoretical and practical successes of the objective sciences into thinking that the methods and criteria of those sciences were the only means to truth, philosophers sought to apply those same methods and criteria to questions relating to the meaning of life and the values that give meaning to life. Philosophy, especially the Analytical species prevalent in the English-speaking world, was broken up into specialized disciplines and fragmented into particular problems, all swayed and impregnated by scientism, reductionism, and relativism. All questions of meaning and value were consigned to the rubbish heap of 'metaphysical nonsense'. ~ D.R. Khashaba

Was there any meaning to life or to war, that two men should sit together and jump within seconds of each other and yet never meet on the ground below? ~ David Kenyon Webster

Each new generation asks – What is the meaning of life? A more fertile way of putting the question would be – Why does man need a meaning to life? ~ Peter Wessel Zapffe

A mode of knowledge rooted in silence and intuitive insight which gives meaning to life but which cannot be explained in rational terms. ~ Karen Armstrong

I'm not a church kind of person, not when it comes to praying. To be honest, for me it never gets much past hoping. But I know this, and I want to say it. And I really hope someone will listen. There is a point. I don't know what it is, but everything I've had, and everything I've lost, and everything I felt - it meant something. Maybe there isn't a meaning to life. Maybe there's only a meaning to living. ~ Kami Garcia

Effort is one of those things that gives meaning to life. Effort means you care about something, that something is important to you and you are willing to work for it. ~ Carol S. Dweck

Death is not necessarily what gives meaning to life LIFE gives meaning to life, and what we do with life, which is to create knowledge like music, art, science To this end, I believe intelligent life might be evolution's secret weapon: the ultimate hack that might help us transcend entropy. ~ Jason Silva

What is the hope that can give meaning to life? Without some form of hope, the Holy Father argues that life becomes tedious and potentially burdersome, even if it is marked by material influence and technical progress. The person without hope finds himself in an existential difficulty: For what enduring purpose am I clinging to this life that I love and do not want to lose? ~ Raymond J. De Souza

There is no hidden meaning to life ... looking for one is our problem solving brain chasing its tail ~ Alan Alda

If I'm confused, or upset, or angry, if I can go out and look at the stars I'll almost always get back a sense of proportion. It's not that they make me feel insignificant; it's the very opposite; they make me feel that everything matters, be it ever so small, and that there's meaning to life even when it seems most meaningless. ~ Madeleine L'Engle

Never be too busy for the people you love. Never allow pursuits or possessions to become bigger priorities than your relationships. Love is what gives meaning to life. ~ Dave Willis

Prizing elegance, sweet emotions, and fantasy more than morals and truth; wallowing in fleeting romance rather than trying to give meaning to life, when who knows what's going to happen to you anyway; ignoring virtue and conventions to cherish only the pleasures you are definitely experiencing now: this is the Cocoro of Rococo. No matter how much deep thought, hard work, and agonizing effort went into coaxing out some insight, if that insight is boring, or not beautiful, it doesn't matter. And even if something is made just for laughs, if you find it pleasing, it has value. Other people's opinions and labor do not figure into your assessment; choosing things with your own personal sense of "I like this, I don't like that" is the ultimate individualism that sustains the very foundation of Rococo. Rococo, therefore, embodies the spirit of punk rock and anarchism more than any philosophy. Only in Rococo - elegant yet in bad taste, extravagant yet defiant and lawless - can I discover the meaning of life. ~ Novala Takemoto

What sort of ideas, I wondered, might help to give meaning to life when one is in the midst of fundamentalist persons of all kinds who believe that they have a monopoly on truth and some are even willing to kill to prove that? ~ Gurcharan Das

Someone who can search for something is happy. Searching gives a meaning to life. Nowadays it's not so easy to find something you might be looking for. The most important thing, however, is the search itself, the way you take. It's not so important where it leads. that's why my characters are always looking for something, maybe only a cat, a sheep or a wife, but that is at least the beginning of a story. ~ Haruki Murakami

It makes me think. Maybe the only meaning to life is that which we get from each other. ~ Mark Russell

Now having travelled from the pride of man in the High Renaissance and the Enlightenment down to the present despair, we can understand where modern people are. They have no place for a personal God. But equally they have no place for man as man, or for love, or for freedom, or for significance. This brings a crucial problem. Beginning only from man himself, people affirm that man is only a machine. But those who hold this position cannot live like machines! If they could, there would be no tensions in their intellectual position or in their lives. But even people who believe they are machines cannot live like machines, and thus they must "leap upstairs" against their reason and try to find something which gives meaning to life, even though to do so they have to deny their reason.
This was a solution Leonardo da Vinci and the men of the Renaissance never would have accepted, even if, like Leonardo they ended their thinking in despondency. They would not have done so, for they would have considered it intellectual suicide to separate meaning and values from reason this way. And they would have been right. Such a solution is intellectual suicide, and one may question the intellectual integrity of those who accept such a position when their starting point was pride in the sufficiency of human reason. ~ Francis A. Schaeffer

I don't necessarily view death as something negative. Death gives meaning to life. Living in fear of death is living in denial. Actually, it's not really living at all, because there is no life without death. It's two sides of the one. You can't pick up one side and say, I'm just going to use the 'heads' side. No. It doesn't work like that. You have to pick up both sides because nothing is promised to anyone in this world besides death. ~ Curtis Jackson

Caution has its place, no doubt, but we cannot refuse our support to a serious venture which challenges the whole of the personality. If we oppose it, we are trying to suppress what is best in man - his daring and his aspirations. And should we succeed, we should only have stood in the way of that invaluable experience which might have given a meaning to life. ~ Carl Jung

In desperate attempt to give meaning to life, many turn to religion, because a struggle in the name of a faith is always a justification for some grand action that could transform the world.

'We are doing God's work,' they tell themselves.

And they become devout followers, then evangelists and, finally, fanatics.

They don't understand that religion was created in order to share the mystery and to worship, not to oppress or convert others. The great manifestation of the miracle of God is life. Tonight, I will weep for you, O Jerusalem, because that understanding of the Divine Unity is about to disappear for the next one thousand years. ~ Paulo Coelho

We all return. It is this certainty that gives meaning to life and it does not make the slightest difference whether or not in a later incarnation we remember the former life. What counts is not the individual and his comfort, but the great aspiration to the perfect and the pure which goes on in each incarnation. ~ Gustav Mahler

Colors add meaning to life,
Some hidden facts they do imbibe.
One color could signify two things,
The onus lies on us,
As to how we take it. ~ Garima Jain

I made sure to pay attention to everything I was doing. To be fully in the moment. Because that's all life is, really, a string of moments that you knot together and carry with you. Hopefully most of those moments are wonderful, but of course they won't all be. The trick is to recognize an important one when it happens. Even if you share the moment with someone else, it is still yours. Your string is different from anyone else's. It is something no one can ever take away from you. It will protect you and guide you, because it IS you. What you hold here, in your hand, in this box, this is my string.

"Until recently, I thought it was death that gave meaning to life--that having an endpoint is what spurred us on to embrace life while we had it. But I was wrong. It isn't death that gives meaning to life. Life gives meaning to life. The answer to the meaning of life is hidden right there inside the question.

"What matters is holding tight to that string, and not letting anyone tell us our goals aren't big enough or our interests are silly. But the voices of others aren't the only ones we need to worry about. We tend to be our own worst critics. Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote: 'Most of the shadows in this life are caused by our standing in our own sunshine.' ... Wisdom is found in the least expected places. Always keep your eyes open. Don't block your own sunshine. Be filled with wonder. ~ Wendy Mass

Helping others in need is not only a responsibility of life; it is what gives meaning to life. ~ Mollie Marti

It is not what I do that matters, but what a sovereign God chooses to do through me. God does not want worldly successes, He wants me. He wants my heart in submission to Him. Life is not just a few years to spend on self indulgence and career advancement. It is a privilege, a responsibility, a stewardship to be lived according to a much higher calling, God's calling. This alone gives true meaning to life. ~ Elizabeth Dole

Why do you write meaningless philosophy?" you asked.
"Because it gives meaning to life," I whispered with deep empathy. ~ Debasish Mridha

The lily and the poem made it all real for me; now I knew my memories would stay with me forever. I held the lily and the poem to my heart, and concluded that my life was not a series of sand castles. There was meaning to life, and precious memories even amidst the sadness. ~ Sook Nyul Choi

Death never gave meaning to life: it was always the other way round. ~ Greg Egan

All have dreams, live for them,
They add meaning to LIFE.The only thing that
differentiates us from other beings is the fact that us can DREAM!!! ~ Sujit Lalwani

All my life, I struggled to stretch my mind to the breaking point, until it began to creak, in order to create a great thought which might be able to give a new meaning to life, a new meaning to death, and to console mankind. ~ Nikos Kazantzakis

[T]he development of man's intellectual capacities has far outstripped the development of his emotions. Man's brain lives in the twentieth century; the heart of most men lives still in the Stone Age. The majority of men have not yet acquired the maturity to be independent, to be rational, to be objective. They need myths and idols to endure the fact that man is all by himself, that there is no authority which gives meaning to life except man himself. ~ Erich Fromm

Steve is troubled by a lot of things. He is twenty-three, was raised in Virginia, and has the idea that California is the beginning of the end. "I feel it's insane," he says, and his voice drops. "This chick tells me there's no meaning to life but it doesn't matter, we'll just flow right out. There've been times I felt like packing up and taking off for the East Coast again, at least there I had a target. At least there you expect that it's going to happen." He lights a cigarette for me and his hands shake. "Here you know it's not going to."
I ask what it is that is supposed to happen.
"I don't know," he says. "Something. Anything. ~ Joan Didion

If a bell failed to ring, if a stove smoked, if a wheel on a machine stuck, you knew at once where to look and did so with alacrity; you found the defect and knew how to cure it. But the thing within you, the secret mainspring that alone gave meaning to life, the thing within us that alone is living, alone is capable of feeling pleasure and pain, of craving happiness and experiencing it- that was unknown. You knew nothing about that, nothing at all, and if the mainspring failed there was no cure. Wasn't it insane? ~ Hermann Hesse

A purpose gives meaning to life. It is like the hub in a wheel
with every spoke fitted into it to make a strong and perfect circle. Without such a hub, spokes will not radiate evenly and your wheel will lack strength, will tend to break apart on the first good bump it hits. Given a strong hub, a strong purpose, a person can take a surprising number of shocks and bumps on the outside rim without sustaining permanent damage. ~ Oveta Culp Hobby

There is a point. I don't know what is it, but everything I've had, and everything I've lost, and everything I felt
it meant something. Maybe there isn't a meaning to life. Maybe there's only a meaning to living.
That's what I've learned. That's what I'm going to be doing. LIVING. ~ Kami Garcia

Come out of the Box. Extend your hand towards other and bring more meanings to your life. ~ Amit Ray

We can work together for a better world with men and women of goodwill, those who radiate the intrinsic goodness of humankind. To do so effectively, the world needs a global ethic with values which give meaning to life experiences and, more than religious institutions and dogmas, sustain the non-material dimension of humanity. Mankind's universal values of love, compassion, solidarity, caring and tolerance should form the basis for this global ethic which should permeate culture, politics, trade, religion and philosophy. It should also permeate the extended family of the United Nations. ~ Wangari Maathai

To will the obligatory in relation to death is to fall in line with the major immutable cycles of Nature, especially human nature, and to understand that (whether or not there is a purpose or meaning to life or a life of the spirit beyond the life of the body) no one, absolutely no one, escapes being finite and mortal. And knowing this, and then to accept it, to will it, and not to be in an unnecessary state of angst or rebellion or terror over it. ~ Edwin S. Shneidman

It seems essential to try to find some meaning to life and I guess Jungian philosophy is the one that's helped me understand myself and the world more than anything else. ~ Noah Taylor

They think there's a meaning to life out there someplace just waiting for them to find it, but there ain't. There's only whatever meaning you make up for yourself. ~ Kevin Kneupper

You are not going to find the meaning of life hidden under a rock written by someone else. You'll find it by giving meaning to life from inside yourself ~ Daniel H. Pink

A journey to make real impact that changes lives, give meaning to life and living, and turns vision of the masses into realities demands a true focus, an utmost zeal and robustness and an unfailing tenacity to do whatever necessary within the powers and reach of a true leader, and with all needed dexterity, wit and wisdom, to make real impact have a meaning and give real liberation to the masses! ~ Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

As part of his life-saving therapy with suicidal patients and his own experience in a Nazi concentration camp, Frankl learned there are three things that give meaning to life: first, a project; second, a significant relationship; and third, a redemptive view of suffering. ~ Jeff Goins

Why does man need a meaning to life? ~ Peter Wessel Zapffe

We have endless books about whether Jesus existed, or whether the Jesus we have learned about is really accurate and historical or mythical. We have endless complicated tracts on fine technical issues, but we don't explore Jesus' way to happiness and peace, or try to understand his feelings about God and creation of how he views our relationship with God, or his attitude toward human weakness. Understanding these things could help us immensely in our own search for inner peace and a meaning to life. ~ Joseph Girzone

Life gives meaning to life. The answer to the meaning of life is hidden right there inside the question. ~ Wendy Mass

Our self-awareness impresses itself on us so cogently, as individuals and as a species, that we cannot imagine ourselves out of existence, even though for hundreds of millions of years humans played no part in the flow of life on the planet. When Teilhard de Chardin wrote, "The phenomenon of Man was essentially foreordained from the beginning," he was speaking from the depth of individual experience, which we all share, as much as from religious philosophy. Our inability to imagine a world without Homo sapiens has a profound impact on our view of ourselves; it becomes seductively easy to imagine that our evolution was inevitable. And inevitability gives meaning to life, because there is a deep security in believing that the way things are is the way they were meant to be. ~ Richard E. Leakey

Life is filled with unanswered questions, but it is the courage to seek those answers that continues to give meaning to life. You can spend your life wallowing in despair, wondering why you were the one who was led towards the road strewn with pain, or you can be grateful that you are strong enough to survive it. ~ J.D. Stroube

Coming to terms with incest is not easy. Learning to be a survivor, not a victim, gives new meaning to life ~ Lynette Gould

Having killed God, the atheist is left with no reason for being, no morality to espouse, no meaning to life, and no hope beyond the grave. ~ Ravi Zacharias

Bach opens a vista to the universe. After experiencing him, people feel there is meaning to life after all. ~ Helmut Walcha

The great political, artistic, and religious project of modernity has been to find a meaning to life that is not rooted in some great cosmic plan. ...But we are still convinced our lives have meaning. As of 2016, humankind indeed manages to hold the stick at both ends. Not only do we possess far more power than ever before, but against all expectations. God's death did not lead to social collapse. Throughout history prophets and philosophers have argued that if humans stopped believing in a great cosmic plan all law and order would vanish. Yet today, those who pose the greatest threat to global law and order are precisely those people who continue to believe in God and his all-encompassing plans. ~ Yuval Noah Harari

The certainty of a God giving meaning to life far surpasses in attractiveness the ability to behave badly with impunity. The choice would not be hard to make. But there is no choice and that is where the bitterness comes in. The absurd does not liberate; it binds. ~ Albert Camus

Without thoughtful effort and purposeful change, human life does not improve. The key to living a meaningful life is to accept reality. There is no inherent meaning to life just as there is no hidden meaning behind death. Life is limited and death is simply an ending. The only meaning to life is what each person passionately commits their life to accomplishing. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

This ancient affirmation of Scripture and the Christian tradition provides a teleological hope and direction that gives meaning to life now and moves us toward the future with faith and confidence in God's redemptive purpose and power. ~ Cynthia Peters Anderson

The aim of the Internet and its associated technologies was to "liberate" humanity from the tasks - making things, learning things, remembering things - that had previously given meaning to life and thus had constituted life. Now it seemed as if the only task that meant anything was search-engine optimization. ~ Jonathan Franzen

Optimistic people bring a sense of hope into world. Encouraging people bring a new meaning to life. They help you see past the clouds on a glooming day. They bring sunlight everyday ~ Stacey Chillemi

Art and psychoanalisis give shape and meaning to life and that's why we adore them. However, life as it is lived has no shape nor meaning, and that's what I am experiencing right now. ~ Iris Murdoch

Heart connection brings meaning to life and spirit to body. ~ Amy Leigh Mercree

Institutions do all the things that are supposed to be bad. They impede personal exploration. They enforce conformity. But they often save us from our weaknesses and give meaning to life. ~ David Brooks

Life is life! The real meaning and definition of life is not wealth, though wealth can define and give meaning to life. ~ Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

There's no meaning to life without music. Everybody has their own connect with music. ~ Kailash Kher

Death alone gives meaning to life, and you will never fully live until you know you must die. And make your peace with that knowledge. ~ Alice Borchardt

There is only one thing that remains to us, that cannot be taken away: to act with courage and dignity and to stick to the ideals that have given meaning to life. ~ Jawaharlal Nehru

The only meaning to life is the one that you give it, and don't let anyone tell you diffrent. ~ Mathew Mather

Our religion, with its beliefs, rituals, and dogmas becomes another segment among all the other segments that constitute our linear and fragmented existence. It offers us another set of possible acquisitions, even more tempting than all the others: a meaning to life, immortality, enlightenment, the kingdom of heaven. ~ Stephen Batchelor

The new code had been born in disillusionment, and beneath all the bravado of its exponents and the talk upon entering a new era, the disillusionment persisted. If the decade was ill-mannered, it was also unhappy. With the old order of things had gone a set of values which had given richness and meaning to life, and substitute values were not easily found. ~ Frederick Lewis Allen

I find the act of writing very painful. I can go a whole month without managing a single line, or write three days and nights straight, only to find the whole thing has missed the mark.
At the same time, though, I love writing. Ascribing meaning to life is a piece of cake compared to actually living it. ~ Haruki Murakami

In the Netherlands, the government health plan provides for a specially trained nurse/lactation expert to help each new baby's parents in their home for a full ten days following each birth (with a small co-payment). Hired for three, five, or eight hours according to individual families' needs, this maternity nurse serves the new parents breakfast in bed, feeds any older children their breakfast, walks the dog, helps the new mother with breastfeeding if necessary, cleans the house, and notifies the midwife if the mother or baby should need medical attention for any reason. The Dutch consider the care provided each family by the maternity nurse to be an investment in good health, which benefits the entire society because it so effectively reduces the number of illnesses mothers and babies experience during the first year of the baby's life and thus saves money ~ Ina May Gaskin

We must find a way to replace yearning for what life has withheld from us with gratitude for what we have been given. ~ Kent Nerburn

Big picture, it's amazing to create characters and see them brought to life in the art. And to love that art. But I especially enjoy writing a character with heightened powers that aren't especially useful to him. ~ Cynthia Leitich Smith

Estates are sometimes held by foolish forms, the breaking of a stick or the payment of a peppercorn. I was willing to hold the whole huge estate of earth and heaven by any such feudal fantasy. It could not well be wilder than the fact that I was allowed to hold it at all. At this stage I give only one ethical instance to show my meaning. I could never mix in the common murmur of the rising generation against monogamy, because no restriction on sex seemed so odd and unexpected as sex itself. To be allowed, like Endymion, to make love to the moon and then to complain that Jupiter kept his own moons in a harem seemed to me (bred on fairy tales like Endymion's) a vulgar anticlimax.Keeping to one woman is a small price for so much as seeing one woman. To complain that I could only be married once was like complaining that I could only be born once. It was incommensurate with the terrible excitement of which one was talking. It showed, not an exaggerated sensibility to sex, but a curious insensibility to it. A man is a fool who complains that he cannot enter Eden by five gates at once. Polygamy is a lack of the realization of sex; it is like a man plucking five pears in mere absence of mind. ~ G.K. Chesterton

Always strive to get what you want, what you need, especially if your intentions are good and nobody gets hurt in the process. ~ Janvier Chouteu-Chando

What have the nibblers ever done for you?"
The breeze ruffled her hair, pushing it back from her face, giving him a clear shot of her eyes. They were asking for an answer. Needing to know if she could count on him.
"They saved your life," he said.
And for just a moment, Luxa's face softened and she smiled. ~ Suzanne Collins

You'll be sorry some day. Why don't you ever understand what I'm trying to tell you: it's with your six sense that you're fooled into believing not only that you have six senses, but that you contact an actual outside world with them. If it wasn't for your eyes, you wouldn't see me. If it wasn't for your ears, you wouldn't hear that airplane. If it wasn't for your nose, you wouldn't smell that midnight mint. If it wasn't for your tongue taster, you wouldn't taste the difference between A and B. If it wasn't for your body, you wouldn't feel Princess. There is no me, no airplane, no mind, no Princess, no nothing, you for krissakes do you want to go on being fooled every damn minute of your life? ~ Jack Kerouac

So many things were starting to change in me. One of them was the people who hurt me were simply no longer a part of my life. In the past, I had always been afraid to end relationships with family or friends; now it seemed easy. It sounds strange but I think it had something to do with those first few years in the house. The fear ~ June Matthews

I have come to think that life is a far more limited thing than those in the midst of its maelstorm realize. That light shines into the act of life for only the briefest moment-perhaps only a matter of seconds. Once it is gone and failed to grasp its offered revelation, there is no second chance. One may have to live the rest of one's life in hopeless depth of loneliness and remorse. In that twilight world, one can no longer look forward to anything. All that such a person holds in his hands is the withered corpse of what should have been. ~ Haruki Murakami

I have seen many phases of life; I have moved in imperial circles, I have been a Minister of State; but if I had to live my life again, I would always remain in my laboratory, for the greatest joy of my life has been to accomplish original scientific work, and, next to that, to lecture to a set of intelligent students. ~ Jean-Baptiste Dumas

You see, I'm a mighty proud gal and I can't for the life of me, find any valid reason why anyone should lie about their origin or anything else for that matter. Frankly, I do not ascribe to the stupid theory of white supremacy and to try to hide the fact that I am a Negro for economic or any other reasons, if I do I would be agreeing to be a Negro makes me inferior and that I have swallowed whole hog all of the propaganda dished out by our fascist-minded white citizens. ~ Fredi Washington

All the business of war, and indeed all the business of life, is to endeavour to find out what you don't know by what you do; that's what I called 'guess what was at the other side of the hill'. ~ Duke Of Wellington

To love a swamp, however, is to love what is muted and marginal, what exists in the shadows, what shoulders its way out of mud and scurries along the damp edges of what is most commonly praised. And sometimes its invisibility is a blessing. Swamps and bogs are places of transition and wild growth, breeding grounds, experimental labs where organisms and ideas have the luxury of being out of the spotlight, where the imagination can mutate and mate, send tendrils into and out of the water. ~ Barbara Hurd

the American essayist Lewis Thomas on the semicolon: The semicolon tells you that there is still some question about the preceding full sentence; something needs to be added [ . . .] The period [or full stop] tells you that that is that; if you didn't get all the meaning you wanted or expected, anyway you got all the writer intended to parcel out and now you have to move along. But with the semicolon there you get a pleasant feeling of expectancy; there is more to come; read on; it will get clearer. The Medusa and the Snail, 1979 ~ Lynne Truss

I had a life-long ambition to be a professional baseball player, but nobody would sign me. ~ Gerald R. Ford

I had started in this career, in part, to pursue death: to grasp it, uncloak it, and see eye-to-eye, unblinking. Neurosurgery attracted me as much for its intertwining of brain and consciousness as for its intertwining of life and death. I had thought that a life spent in the space between the two would grant me not merely a stage for compassionate action but an elevation of my own being: getting as far away from petty materialism, from self- important trivia, getting right there, to the heart of the matter, to truly life and death decisions and struggles... surely a kind of transcendence would be found there? ~ Paul Kalanithi

How sad that I couldn't get myself sober to share a life with him, but I could do it to show him I didn't need him. ~ Josh Lanyon

I thought about you. Every day."
I froze, my hand still holding the canvas flap.
Cal's voice was slightly hoarse as he continued. "Three weeks is a long time to wonder where someone is. All that time, I thought maybe I'd done the wrong thing, telling you to find the Brannicks."
I turned around then. I wanted to make a joke, or say something sarcastic, anything that would cut the tension enveloping us. Instead, I said, "I thought about you, too."
Cal glanced up, and I met his eyes. "Cal, you…you saved my dad's life. You tried to save Archer's." My chest ached, saying that out loud, but I made myself go on. "That's so huge, I don't even know where to start. 'Thank you' doesn't really cut it, you know? And I'm not sure there's a fruit basket big enough to-"
He rose to his feet, and suddenly his arms were around me and my face was pressed against his chest. He smelled good, and familiar, and tears sprang to my eyes as I put my hands on his back and pressed him closer. He stroked my hair. "He might be okay, Sophie," Cal murmured. "The Eye could've gotten him out. ~ Rachel Hawkins

Life will give to the givers, and take from the takers ~ Steven Aitchison

We must imbue our children with principles of the higher-self, principles which see all people as true equals, and above all, which are sensitive to the delicate and fragile balance of life. ~ Bryant McGill

I, too, am among those unable to step outside the realm of worldly distinctions. I hide my excesses of joy and sorrow beneath a robe of false contentment and drown in a pool of tears unseen by others. How I envy those naive enough to covet the glory of others. Do they not realize that tears fall not only on the sleeves of worn and tattered kimonos? The jewels that spill, glittering, onto my brocade are the very water of life, but they are mistaken for mere ornament. Although no one notices, my heart is shattered into a thousand pieces. ~ Shikin Shimizu

When you see things through your heart, there is no right or wrong, true or false, only there is love to share. ~ Debasish Mridha

What is a scientist? ... We give the name scientist to the type of man who has felt experiment to be a means guiding him to search out the deep truth of life, to lift a veil from its fascinating secrets, and who, in this pursuit, has felt arising within him a love for the mysteries of nature, so passionate as to annihilate the thought of himself. ~ Maria Montessori