Questions Of Life Quotes

The community knows that the fundamental questions of life can only be looked at in a spirit of peace and inner freedom. Nobody can force anyone else to love and to walk to freedom. Militants for a cause will tend to be organized for a struggle which they hope to win; they will seek to impose their way aggressively. Frequently they seek outward change more than inward change.

. . . As long as there are fears and prejudices in the human heart, there will be war and bitter injustice. It is only when hearts are healed, and become loving and open, that the great political problems will be solved. . . . As fears and prejudices diminish, and trust in God and others grows, the community can radiate and witness to a style and quality of life which will bring a solution to the troubles of our world.

The response to war is to live like brothers and sisters. The response to injustice is to share. The response to despair is a limitless trust and hope. The response to prejudice and hatred is forgiveness. To work for community is to work for humanity. To work for peace in community, through acceptance of others as they are, and through constant forgiveness, is to work for peace in the world and for true political solutions; it is to work for the Kingdom of God. ~ Jean Vanier

You must be a person who always seek answers to bigger questions of life within himself. ~ Deepak Burfiwala

Then one day followed the next without the basic questions of life ever being solved. ~ Friederike Mayrocker

While science has nothing of value to say on the great and aching questions of life, death, love and meaning, what the religious traditions of mankind have said forms a coherent body of thought ... There is recompense for suffering. A principle beyond selfishness is at work in the cosmos. . I do not know whether any of this is true. I am certain that the scientific community does not know that it is false. ~ David Berlinski

If you turn to a branch of those sciences that try to give a solution to the questions of life--to physiology, psychology, biology, sociology--there you will find an astounding poverty of thought, a very great lack of clarity, completely unjustified claims to answer questions that lie outside their subject and never-ending contradictions between one thinker and others, and even within himself.

If you turn to a branch of the sciences that is not concerned with solving the questions of life but answers its own scientific, specialized questions, then you are captivated by the power of human intellect but you know in advance that there are no answers to the questions of life.

These sciences directly ignore the questions of life.

They say, "We have no answers to 'What are you?' and 'Why do you live?' and are not concerned with this; but if you need to know the laws of light, of chemical compounds, the laws of the development of organisms, if you need to know the laws of bodies and their forms and the relation of numbers and quantities, if you need to know the laws of your own mind, to all that we have clear, precise, and unquestionable answers. ~ Leo Tolstoy

Until all students are faced by the tragedies, the contradictions and the stark questions of life, they cannot understand the need for redemption or God's redemptive action. ~ Reuel Howe

We are shaped by stories from the first moments of life, and even before. Stories tell us who we are, why we are here, and what will become of us. Whenever humans try to make sense of their experience, they create a story, and we use those stories to answer all the big questions of life. The stories come from everywhere
from family, church, school, and the culture at large. They so surround and inhabit us that we often don't recognize that they are stories at all, breathing them in and out as a fish breathes water. ~ Daniel Taylor

The answer to all questions of life and death, "the absolute solution" was written all over the world he had known: it was like a traveller realising that the wild country he surveys is not an accidental assembly of natural phenomena, but the page in a book where these mountains and forests, and fields, and rivers are disposed in such a way as to form a coherent sentence; the vowel of a lake fusing with the consonant of a sibilant slope; the windings of a road writing its message in a round hand, as clear as that of one's father; trees conversing in dumb-show, making sense to one who has learnt the gestures of their language... Thus the traveller spells the landscape and its sense is disclosed, and likewise, the intricate pattern of human life turns out to be monogrammatic, now quite clear to the inner eye disentangling the interwoven letters. And the word, the meaning which appears is astounding in its simplicity: the greatest surprise being perhaps that in the course of one's earthly existence, with one's brain encompassed by an iron ring, by the close-fitting dream of one's own personality - one had not made by chance that simple mental jerk, which would have set free imprisoned thought and granted it the great understanding. ~ Vladimir Nabokov

The closing of our earthly eyes is such a simple event. The shedding of the physical body does not solve the fundamental problems of enlightenment, just as changing ones clothes has nothing to do with the deep questions of life and destiny. ~ Andre Luiz Moreira

You never know the answers to the questions of life until you are asked. ~ Salman Rushdie

... apart from its function as communication, human language also often functions as a defense. The spoken word conceals the expressive language of the biological core. In many cases, the function of speech has deteriorated to such a degree that the words express nothing whatever and merely represent a continuous, hollow activity on the part of the musculature of the neck and the organs of speech. On the basis of repeated experiences, it is my opinion that in many psychoanalyses which have gone on for years the treatment has become stuck in this pathological use of language. This clinical experience can, indeed has to be applied to the social sphere. Endless numbers of speeches, publications, political debates do not have the function of getting at the root of important questions of life but of drowning them in verbiage. ~ Wilhelm Reich

Since the moment when, at the sight of his beloved and dying brother, Levin for the first time looked at the questions of life and death in the light of the new convictions, as he called them, which between the ages of twenty and thirty-four had imperceptibly replaced the beliefs of his childhood and youth, he had been less horrified by death than by life without the least knowledge of whence it came, what it is for, why, and what it is, Organisms, their destruction, the indestructibility of matter, the law of the conservation of energy, development - the terms that had superseded these beliefs - were very useful for mental purposes; but they gave no guidance for life, and Levin suddenly felt like a person who has exchanged a thick fur coat for a muslin garment and who, being out in the frost for the first time, becomes clearly convinced, not by arguments, but with the whole of his being, that he is as good as naked and that he must inevitably perish miserably. ~ Leo Tolstoy

Our old religious and moral traditions," writes Cupitt in The Great Questions of Life (2005), "have faded away, and nothing can resuscitate them. That is why a tiny handful of us are not liberal, but radical, theologians. We say that the new culture is so different from anything that existed in the past that religion has to be completely reinvented. Unfortunately, the new style of religious thinking that we are trying to introduce is so queer and so new that most people have great difficulty in recognizing it as religion at all. ~ Stephen Batchelor

I know that this stuff probably doesn't sound fun and breezy or grandly inspirational. What it is, so far as I can see, is the truth with a whole lot of rhetorical bullshit pared away. Obviously, you can think of it whatever you wish. But please don't dismiss it as some finger-wagging Dr. Laura sermon. None of this is about morality, or religion, or dogma, or big fancy questions of life after death. The capital- T Truth is about life before death. It is about making it to 30, or maybe 50, without wanting to shoot yourself in the head. It is about simple awareness - awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, that we have to keep reminding ourselves, over and over: "This is water, this is water."
It is unimaginably hard to do this, to stay conscious and alive, day in and day out. ~ David Foster Wallace

The most important questions of life are, for the most part, really only problems of probability. ~ Heinz R. Pagels

Women decide the larger questions of life correctly and quickly, not because they are lucky guessers, not because they are divinely inspired, not because they practise a magic inherited from savagery, but simply and solely because they have sense. They see at a glance what most men could not see with searchlights and telescopes ... They are the supreme realists of the race. ~ H.L. Mencken

For 6,000 years, these rules have been unquestionably right. And yet we break them every day. People feel that something is wrong in life. There is some kind of atmosphere that makes people now turn to other values. They want to contemplate the basic questions of life, and that is probably the real reason for wanting to tell these stories. ~ Krzysztof Kieslowski

Scientific reason, with its strict conscience, its lack of prejudice, and its determination to question every result again the moment it might lead to the least intellectual advantage, does in an area of secondary interest what we ought to be doing with the basic questions of life. ~ Robert Musil

The doctrines of grace are not merely a philosophy which gives the best and most logical answers to the profound questions of life. They are that. But more, they stir the inner man to self-abnegation and love for Jehovah. This act of worship before the throne of the Almighty opens a fountain of devotion which must then flow out at every level of decision and action in practical life. Self-denial is a vital link between doctrine and devotion on the one hand, and between devotion and practice on the other. ~ Walter J. Chantry

Millions of books written on every conceivable subject by all these great minds and in the end, none of them knows anything more about the big questions of life than I do ... I read Socrates. This guy knocked off little Greek boys. What the Hell's he got to teach me? And Nietzsche, with his theory of eternal recurrence. He said that the life we lived we're gonna live over again the exact same way for eternity. Great. That means I'll have to sit through the Ice Capades again. It's not worth it. And Freud, another great pessimist. I was in analysis for years and nothing happened. My poor analyst got so frustrated, the guy finally put in a salad bar. Maybe the poets are right. Maybe love is the only answer. ~ Woody Allen

Don't market yourself. Editors and readers don't know what they want until they see it. Scratch what itches. Write what you need to write, feed the hunger for meaning in your life. Play at the serious questions of life and death. ~ Donald Murray

The powerful questions of life produce a dynamic dualism, which interplay creates the operatic structure that we must operate. Can the flesh and spirit coexist? Can inner despair and renewed optimism reside under the same roof? Can we harness humankind's wretchedness in order to broker its salvation? Should all people seek out perfection or work to accept their fallibility? Should I eschew pain or embrace suffering? Do I cave into the meaningless of my life or actively rebel against the patent absurdity of human existence? ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

When you think of it, really there are four fundamental questions of life. You've asked them, I've asked them, every thinking person asks them. They boil down to this; origin, meaning, morality and destiny. 'How did I come into being? What brings life meaning? How do I know right from wrong? Where am I headed after I die?' ~ Ravi Zacharias

Genuine trust involves allowing another to matter and have an impact in our lives. For that reason, many who hate and do battle with God trust Him more deeply than those whose complacent faith permits an abstract and motionless stance before Him. Those who trust God most are those whose faith permits them to risk wrestling with Him over the deepest questions of life. Good hearts are captured in a divine wrestling match; fearful, doubting hearts stay clear of the mat. ~ Dan B. Allender

Our way–the Western Way–has always been a "work in progress." Questions of life and death, good and evil, justice and tragedy–these are never definitively settled, but must be addressed again and again as personal and public worlds shift and change. We hold our morals to be absolutes, but the context of our actions and decisions is forever changing. We are not relativists because we seek to re-evaluate again and again our most crucial moral positions. ~ Anne Rice

Mysteries simply are a feast for an active mind. And while in my lifetime I've seen science make extraordinary inroads into solving the most complex questions of life, after all this time I admit that I am thrilled that there are some things that forever will remain a mystery. For example, do I wear a toupee? ~ William Shatner

Answer the big question of eternity, and the little questions of life fall into perspective. ~ Max Lucado

The world of money, of numbers and stock markets and interest rates and credit cards, seems on the surface about as far as it could be from the world of spirituality, of seeking meaningful answers to the big questions of life ... But these two worlds must flow in and out of each other, because it takes both money and spiritual understanding to sustain it. Truly speaking, what determines where our money with its awesome power will go, and what it will do for ourselves and others? If we listen, those answers come from the center of our being, from who we really are. ~ Suze Orman

Praise consists in the love of God, in wonder at the goodness of God, in recognition of the gifts of God, in seeing God in all things He gives us, ay, and even in the things that He refuses to us; so as to see our whole life in the light of God; and seeing this, to bless Him, adore Him, and glorify Him. ~ Henry Edward Manning

Dark thought started to slip into my mind, despite all my efforts to keep them out. What was the use of anything? We were born, we lived a few years, grew old, and then died. What was the point of it all? All those people in the County and the wide world beyond, living their short little lives before going to the grave. What was it all for? My dad was dead. He'd worked hard all his life, but the journey of his life had had only one destination: the grave. That's where we were all heading. into the grave. Into the soil, to be eaten by worms. Poor Billy Bradley had been the Spook's apprentice before me. He'd had his fingers bitten off by a boggat and had died of shock and loss of blood. And where was he now? In a grave. Not even in a churchyard. He was buried outside because the Church considered him no better than a malevolent witch. That would be my fate too. A grave in unhallowed ground. ~ Joseph Delaney

Simone! Are you all right? Simone!"
And a voice, grunting with pain, says, "Todd?"
And-
And it ain't Simone's voice.
The smoke starts to clear.
And it ain't Simone.
"You saved me, Todd," says the Mayor, lying there, bad burns all over his face and hands, his clothes smoking like a brush fire. "You saved my life."
And his eyes are full of wonder of it-
That in the rush of the explozhun the person I chose to save-
The one I chose without even thinking-
(without there even being time for him to control me-)
(no time for him to make me do it-)
Was the Mayor. ~ Patrick Ness

Woman's success in lifting men out of their way of life nearly resembling that of the beasts who merely hunted and fished for food, who found shelter where they could in jungles, in trees, and caves was a civilizing triumph. ~ Mary Ritter Beard

In the English language, we have one word for love, which translates into our sexual drive. The ancient Greeks had more than one word for it, including the word agape. It means to compromise or sacrifice, and it's a kind of love I've seen in all couples who have gotten married and stayed married. It is my opinion that this kind of love determines the entire success of your married life, and to an extent, it's a good part of your financial life too. Reaching a financial goal always takes a little bit of sacrifice, and would be impossible to do on your own. Once you and your spouse realize that mutual sacrifice is a healthy part of your marriage, you are well on your way to achieving harmony in planning for your finances together. ~ Celso Cukierkorn

The secret of life is just one thing: coffee. And chocolate. And salsa. Three things; the secret of life is just three things... ~ Tracy Tennant

Finding the right woman is a lot like ridin' a bull. You'll know in a little over eight seconds whether they're worth a second ride or not. And, as you know, the best ones usually buck you off a few times before givin' you the ride of your life."
-Coleman Cade ~ Laurel Ulen Curtis

Neither right nor wrong. It is all manipulation of thoughts. ~ Kunal Narayan Uniyal

If only I could cry. I am beyond that. The light, the light, lending itself to empty downtown Saturday, but still the stupid insensate cars flush by oblivious to their stupidity, my silent plea.
It isn't Mexico. It's not Paris. It's a painting by Hopper come to life. I am trapped inside a dead thing. Language is impossible here, even in English. Who has the arrogance to say: I'm mad, this is my crazy view of things, help me.
I'm trapped in a silent world, a tableau of forty years ago. The walls are different, the tables, the heights of the veiling and the chairs. I loom above this letter. The view past the rows of cakes in the plate glass window is unfamiliar. I am a ghost. There is nothing now between me and death. Death is the unfamiliarity of everything, the strangeness of the once familiar. The same spatial configurations only the light is hollow, sick.
I think I lack the energy to hit expensive discos which I don't know where they are to be rejected tonight. I look passable. My energy's low. I love to dance but despair is not a good muse.
This Mexico, babe. Men who don't love you but act wildly as if they do initially. Self-involved, narcissistic men... The men drink and philosophize about pain. The women live it solo and culturelessly. No one cries, except easily, sentimentally. The devil, therefore God, exists.
Oaxaca was a pushover compared to this. Pain had boundaries there.
Spare us big cities, oh lord! ~ Maryse Holder

People who think of themselves as tough-minded and realistic, among them influential political leaders and businessmen as well as go-getters and hustlers of smaller caliber, tend to take it for granted that human nature is selfish and that life is a struggle in which only the fittest may survive. According to this philosophy, the basic law by which man must live, in spite of his surface veneer of civilization, is the law of the jungle. The "fittest" are those who can bring to the struggle superior force, superior cunning, and superior ruthlessness. ~ S.I. Hayakawa

Look at the big picture of the wheel of life. Above it, there is a Buddha. He is pointing, not towards the wheel, but away from it. He is indicating that there is something else - nirvana. ~ Frederick Lenz

Throughout our culture we have been led to the idea that we accept death as the end of life on earth ... Time bound as we are and goal oriented to achievements in our lifetime, we find it strange to anticipate heaven. ~ Billy Graham

It's to a writer's advantage to contain within himself elements of each sex, or any sex. It's to his advantage because it makes him able to write from the female point of view as well as the male. In some cases, of course, you will find some homosexual writers who can only write from a f - - -'s point of view. But I don't regard myself as a f - - -! Some people may. Also audiences wanted escapism. They don't like too much protest or criticism of their way of life. ~ Tennessee Williams

It's a good idea to prioritize your life and not making drinking the top priority. I think there are aspects of it that definitely illuminate bad decisions and how they'll negatively affect you. ~ Madeline Zima

Not just a thief, but a murderer as well. Beneath the handsome man, Kelsea sensed another man, a terrible one, with a life as black as the water in an ice-covered lake. A murderer many, many times.
The idea should have brought horror. Kelsea waited for a long moment, bu what came instead was an even worse realization: it didn't matter at all. ~ Erika Johansen

We read on the foreheads of those who are surrounded by a foolish luxury, that fortune sells what she is thought to give. ~ Jean De La Fontaine

Folks, just a few minutes of my voice can change a life. ~ Rush Limbaugh

I truly, genuinely like clothes. Making them is an art form, and wearing them is a form of self-expression. I find it very emotional because I can remember moments in my life - my mood, how I felt - through these clothes. ~ Diane Kruger

First she starved herself of love, which meant also life; then of poetry in deference to what she thought her religion demanded. ~ Virginia Woolf

Thus, 99 percent of the Earth's atmosphere is of biological origin. The sky is made by life. ~ Carl Sagan

If I had to narrow my choice of meats down to one for the rest of my life, I am quite certain that meat would be pork. ~ James Beard

I became very obsessed with death, and the idea that you never know when death will arrive, so one has to do as much as possible all the time to get the most out of life. That would be a motivating force. ~ Madonna Ciccone

I believe that what we get out of life is what we've set ourselves up to get, so there's no such thing as an inconsequential decision. Our destinies are the culmination of all the choices we've made along the way, which is why it's imperative to listen hard to your inner voice when it speaks up.
Don't let anyone else's noise drown it out. ~ Megan McCafferty

Pick up any newspaper or magazine, open the TV, and you'll be bombarded with suggestions of how to have a successful life. Some of these suggestions are deeply unhelpful to our own projects and priorities - and we should take care. ~ Alain De Botton

The cares of this life emerge as very small items indeed along our daily path. ~ Watchman Nee

The worst thing to be afraid of is fear. Give yourself grace. – Jessica Willis ~ The Willis Clan

I work more now because at this time of my life I am not disturbed from my aim by outside pressures such as family, passionate relationships, dealing with 'who am I?' - those complications when one is searching for one's self. ~ Jeanne Moreau

We worked well together because I was quiet, fascinated by her stories of Wisconsin, which, as she told it, was not only the center of the universe but the place where all life began. ~ Susan Power

"Christ" is bigger than the Earth planet. If tomorrow we discover life on another planet, the whole "Jesus" piece would not make sense anymore. If he did everything for just us on this planet he wouldn't be the savior of the "world." ~ Richard Rohr

You can either be a victim of the world or an adventurer in search of treasure. It all depends on how you view your life. ~ Paulo Coelho

Neither a life of anarchy nor one beneath a despot should you praise; to all that lies in the middle a god has given excellence. ~ Aeschylus

Because I know what I feel in here. And I'm not the type of person to run from anything, no matter how hard it is. I'd rather face-plant against a brick wall than live for the rest of my life wondering what could've been. And you know what? I didn't think you were that type to run, either. Maybe I was wrong. ~ Jennifer L. Armentrout

A Manhattan lawyer who describes himself as "America`s leading expert on the militia movement" writes that he hugged his three-year-old kid the night of the Oklahoma City bombing. He told junior that it happened "because they hated too much"

For now, let`s accept the premise that one hundred sixty-eight humans died in Oklahoma City because people "hated too much"

Now answer these questions if you would be so kind: did a federal sniper shoot Vicki Weaver in the face because he hated too much? Did our government conduct the Tuskegee with syphilis on black soldiers because it hated too much? ~ Jim Goad

Let go of resentment, for it will hold you back. Do not worry about what could've been, what is to come is what matters. ~ Leon Brown

The true lover of learning then must his earliest youth, as far as in him lies, desire all truth ... He whose desires are drawn toward knowledge in every form will be absorbed in the pleasures of the soul, and will hardly feel bodily pleasures I mean, if he be a true philosopher and not a sham one ... Then how can he who has the magnificence of mind and is the spectator of all times and all existence, think much of human life He cannot. Or can such a one account death fearful No indeed. ~ Plato

The word "utopia" has two meanings. It means both "good place" and "nowhere". That's the way it should be. The happiest places, I think, are the ones that reside just this side of paradise. The perfect person would be insufferable to live with; likewise, we wouldn't want to live in the perfect place, either. "A life time of happiness! No man could bear it: It would be hell on earth," wrote George Bernard Shaw, in his play Man and Superman. ~ Eric Weiner

He was special friend to Coyote Kachina, who taught him the secret of shape shifting." "Grandfather blessed this earth with his presence for ninety-eight years. He had the courage to survive and left this world a better place than he found it. We shall all miss him." She blew a kiss at Grandfather. "Goodbye, Governor. You are my sun beneath the earth, my heart above the clouds, and my prayer for a better life. I will see you every morning when the sun rises. I shall miss you when the sun sets. I will yearn for you on a cloudy day. Do not forget me." She threw a silver locket with her picture into the grave. ~ Belinda Vasquez Garcia

Jim. If you have any other outside events, don't confess them. That's my advice, okay?""What am I going to do, Bob? I have no family.""You have family," Bob said. "You have a wife who hates you. Kids who are furious with you. A brother and sister who make you insane. And a nephew who used to be kind of a drip but apparently is not so much of a drip now. That's called family."Jim fell asleep, his head leaning forward almost to his chest ~ Elizabeth Strout

In the lap of nature we always feel relax ~ Uruj Shahid

The man who dies leaving behind him millions of available wealth, which was his to administer during his life, will pass away unwept, unhonoured and insung no matter to what uses he leaves the dross which he cannot take with him. ~ Andrew Carnegie

[On Jerry Falwell] No, and I think it's a pity there isn't a hell for him to go to ... The empty life of this ugly little charlatan proves only one thing: that you can get away with the most extraordinary offenses to morality and to truth in this country if you'll just get yourself called Reverend. Who would, even at your network, have invited on such a little toad to tell us that the attacks of September 11th were the result of our sinfulness and were God's punishment if they hadn't got some kind of clerical qualification. People like that should be out in the street, shouting and hollering with a cardboard sign and selling pencils from a cup. ~ Christopher Hitchens

They communicated without words from the most primitive part of the soul. I remembered her laughing about this, saying that she felt like an animal, and how she realized that we are less human in our times of greatest love and greatest fear. ~ Christy Lefteri