Well Lived Quotes

The silence of death, of the cemetery, was no punishment, but a reward for a life well lived. ~ Caitlin Doughty

Unable to choose how I would die physically, I could only choose how I would die mentally. Whether my mortality caught me at twenty-eight or ninety-three, I made the choice to die content, slipped into the nothingness, my atoms becoming the very fog that cloaked the trees. The silence of death, of the cemetery, was no punishment, but a rewards for a life well lived. ~ Caitlin Doughty

I've always been salaried; I've never owned anything. I've done very well, lived very well. ~ Joan Rivers

She knew her husband would never stray, so highly did he value that which he'd waited nearly six thousand years to know, so precious was it to him: love. She knew he would be there with her until the very end, that he would cherish each wrinkle, every line in her face, because in the final analysis they were not a negation of life but an affirmation of a life well lived. Proof positive of laughter and tears, of joy and grief, of passion, of living. ~ Karen Marie Moning

I was tired of fighting the windstorm I was tossed into, and instead I would let go and ride with the winds of change. How bad could it be, compared to the life I knew? I was living life as if it were a rehearsal for the real thing. Another beginning might be rough at first, but any place worth getting to is going to have some problems. I wanted the good life, the life well lived, and you can't buy that or marry into it. It's there to be found, and it can be taken by those who want it and have the resolve to make it happen for themselves. ~ John William Tuohy

Look well to this day. Yesterday is but a dream and tomorrow is only a vision. But today well lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness and every tomorrow a vision of hope. Look well therefore to this day. - Francis ~ Marie Force

Time well spent leads to life well lived. ~ Martin Uzochukwu Ugwu

This is life. The longer you live, the more you fail. Failure is the mark of a life well lived. ~ Brandon Sanderson

Because in the end, the measure of a well-lived life is not titles or riches. It's not even measured by the people we please, especially at the cost of our own souls. No, the true measure of a well-lived life is how well we love…and how well we are loved in return. ~ Cathy Maxwell

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

The measure of a life well lived is how many good dogs you can fit into it.
[or cats] ~ Marion Lennox

You need to remember the best legacy you can give your kids is an example of a life well lived. They may listen to what you say, but they will do what you do. If you tell them to take care of yourself but you don't do it yourself, what kind of message are you sending? ~ Brooke Castillo

Ultimately, Roger learned only of the encounter with the urban bees. The boy remained thoroughly fascinated by what he heard nonetheless, his blue-eyed stare never once straying from Holmes; his visage passive and accepting, his eyes wide, Roger's pupils stated fixed on those venerable, reflective eyes, as though the boy were seeing distant lights shimmering along an opaque horizon, a glimpse of something flickering and alive existing beyond his reach. And, in turn, the gray eyes that focused sharply on him - piercing and kind at the same instant - endeavoured to bridge the lifetime that separated the two of them, attempting to do so as brandy was sipped, and the vial's glass grew warmer against soft palms, and that seasoned, well-lived voice somehow made Roger feel much older and more worldly than his years. ~ Mitch Cullin

Is love partnership for everyone? Is it essential to a life well lived, or is that just a cultural myth? ~ Jeff Brown

Change is the currency of a life well lived. How are you spending yours? ~ Will Craig, Living The Hero's Journey

A life is well lived when you are content with your condition and gracious for your possessions. ~ Debasish Mridha

The most difficult thing to do after a life well lived is to sit down and type it all out. To start with, your fingers are old and gnarled. You can see the skin crinkled up like paper, the knobby knuckles, the veins standing up blue and aggressive and you wonder, when did your hands change, when did they stop being young and firm and definite, when did the hesitancy creep in, when did the trembling begin. Your mind sieves through memories as thick as molasses and as bitterly sweet. The words trip on your tongue but hesitate to make their way onto the page because you debate endlessly in your head about which of them you should put down in print, terrified of the permanency of the written word. Memories are the kind of elusiveness that shift, change form, and remodel themselves by the second. It is a challenge to wrestle with them, to get them to agree to be analysed, to be put down in words and encapsulated into sentences, moulded into paragraphs. As long as they are shifting, morphing into different things as the moment suits them, they aren't bound by one person's recollection of how things were, of how they happened. These are my memories.
And this was my life. And so I try to write this. I am already half way through what I am trying to put down. I have no idea who would want to read the story of my life. But I write it out, more for myself, than for anyone else who would care to read. ~ Kiran Manral

Busy is good, isn't it? Busy means we're hard at it, achieving our ends or "goals." Haven't had time to stop, or look around or think. That's considered the sign of a life well lived ... Suppose, though, you're not sure that what you're doing is at all worthwhile. Suppose you blundered into it over a spoonful of lime pickle. It's easy, it pays quite well. But really it's a distraction. It stops you thinking about what you ought to be doing. ~ Sebastian Faulks

We are kidding ourselves when we romanticize death as the climax of a life well lived. It is an enemy. It cuts us off from all the wonderful pleasures of this world. We call death sweet names only as the lesser of evils. The executioner that delivers the coup de grace in our suffering is not the fulfillment of a longing, but the end of hope. The longing of the human heart is to live and to be happy. ~ John Piper

He who hid well, lived well. ~ Rene Descartes

At the end of the day, what I cherish most are the human relationships. With the unfailing support of my wife and partner I have lived my life to the fullest. It is the friendships I made and the close family ties I nurtured that have provided me with that sense of satisfaction at a life well lived, and have made me what I am. ~ Lee Kuan Yew

We might not be the ones to change the world. We might not belong to the few that "put a ding in the universe." We might not be something the whole world would celebrate. But...In the little corners that we live; in the lives that we've played a part in, we should be nothing but unforgettable. ~ Nesta Jojoe Erskine

True wealth does not glitter. It is revealed by the beauty of a life well lived. ~ Debasish Mridha

The best possible preparation for the future is a well lived present. ~ George H. Brimhall

Life, if well lived, is long enough. ~ Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Real security only comes when we are comfortable with who we are, real happiness is a byproduct of a life well lived. ~ Daniel Gottlieb

Today well lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness and every tomorrow a vision of hope. Look well therefore to this day. ~ Francis Gray

There is a distinct feeling of contentment that engulfs your entire being after a day well lived, a battle well fought, and a purpose tirelessly pursued. ~ Steve Maraboli

A lot of people might define a life well lived by how much is in the bank. I feel like it's how much you laugh. ~ Jill Kargman

Indeed, the big decisions in life are hardly ever clear - except for one. And that one is piercingly clear: life is a series of dilemmas, of options, of conundrums, of possibilities taken and not taken. Negotiating these moments well is of the essence of the life well lived. ~ Joan D. Chittister

I refuse to live with the regret of gambling for tomorrow. I will not lay on my deathbed wondering what might have been. I will ride the waves of purpose and chance towards the wonderful splendor of my dreams. At the end of my day, I will rest my head on the pillow of a day well-lived and a life well-ventured. ~ Steve Maraboli

Happiness is not a goal ... it's a by-product of a life well lived. ~ Eleanor Roosevelt

Best Attitude for living a Life Well Lived is toFeed Your Heart with Love and Harmony AND DO IT NOW! Not tomorrow, NOW!!!!
_nickc ~ Nick Catricala

A lot of people are frightened by old age - by being around people who are, basically, on their way out - but I'm fascinated by it. It's an amazing thing to be around someone who has had a life well lived. ~ Cate Blanchett

Create a story of which you will be proud. ~ Pam Jenoff

A life without imagination would not be a life well lived. Colour your thoughts and paint the shared skies with your dreams for all to see. ~ Truth Devour

Photos sat on the piano and shelves bulged with books, testament to a life well lived. ~ Louise Penny

Here's to a well-lived childhood . . . . Here's to Growing up Alaska. ~ Niki Breeser Tschirgi

Running is about finding your inner peace, and so is a life well lived. ~ Dean Karnazes

Experiences are the currency of a life well lived. ~ Mark Batterson

The dignity to be sought in death is the appreciation by others of what one has been in life, ... that proceeds from a life well lived and from the acceptance of one's own death as a necessary process of nature ... It is also the recognition that the real event taking place at the end of our life is our death, not the attempts to prevent it. ~ Sherwin B. Nuland

One of the hallmarks of a life well lived, a life worthy to return to God's presence and receive a fulness of the Father, is to be "valiant in the testimony of Jesus". Paul was valiant, and we can be valiant as well. To be "valiant in the testimony of Jesus" is to be faithful. ~ Lawrence E. Corbridge

A life well lived is the most exquisite work of art. ~ Erwin McManus

Happiness is the result of a life well lived ~ Danny Dover

You're not supposed to die with your potential. A life well lived squeezes all the potential placed within and does something with it. ~ Erwin McManus

Participation. Good intentions. That's a recipe for a life well lived. ~ Ted Sanders

Growing older is an opportunity for you to increase your value and competence as the neural connections in your hippocampus and throughout your brain increase, weaving into your brain and body the wisdom of a life well lived, which allows you to stop living out of fear of disappointing others and being imperfect. Ageless living is courageous living. It means being undistracted by the petty dramas of life because you have enough experience to know what's not worth worrying about and what ought to be your priorities. ~ Christiane Northrup

The ultimate act of heroism shouldn't be death. You're always saying you want to give Baz the stories he deserves ... So you're going to kill him off? Isn't the best revenge supposed to be a life well-lived? The punk-rock way to end it would be to let them live happily ever after. ~ Rainbow Rowell

About 80 percent of the stuff I live with is old. I like letting things take on the character they're meant to have by really being used. ... when you own things that have the imperfections they deserve, that they've earned from a well-lived life, it frees you from feeling as though they're untouchable. ~ Nate Berkus

To do what you wanna do, to leave a mark - in a way that you think is important and lasting - that's a life well-lived. ~ Laurene Powell Jobs

Honor is in family, in hard work and care and love, in a small life well lived. ~ Natasha Ngan

The truth is that a life well lived is always lived on a rising scale of difficulty. ~ N.D. Wilson

Many people experience the travesty of regret in their end days; the realization that nothing held them back, that nothing was in their way, that there is no one to blame, only themselves. Don't just sit by waiting for your life to happen, make it happen! Don't just hope your dreams will come alive, breathe life into them! Don't let your fear help you birth a well-nourished regret, take action today! At the end of the day, at the end of the year, at the end of your life, live in such a manner that you can hold your head up high, smile, and be proud of a life well lived. ~ Steve Maraboli

A life full of laughter is a life well lived. ~ V.C. Birlidis

Look at the stories of people who have changed the world - they have so often started with little, but they distinguished themselves by how they approached life, opportunity, relationships and struggle. Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Gandhi. You name them. The list is huge but the common qualities are small.

Resourcefulness and a determination to survive the 'lemons' are invariably at the heart of these successes.

The secret to a life well lived is taking the resources around us - the people we know, the possessions we own, the skills we've acquired - and combining them in such a way that they add up to something greater than their constituent parts.

That's the lemonade bit.

So often in the wild I have felt totally beaten, but I have kept going, kept trying to think smart, be resourceful, positive, energetic - despite the fatigue - and it has always made a critical difference.

We can't always choose our circumstances but we can choose how we respond to what life throws at us, and there is power when we realize our ability to alter our destiny.

A life in the wild has taught me not to fear the unexpected, but to embrace it. In fact, I have learnt that those curve balls from left-field are very often the making of us. ~ Bear Grylls

Regret, Daisy knew, was the only confirmation of a well-lived life. If you didn't occasionally go too far, you weren't going anywhere. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

If I had thought the beef marrow might be a hell of a lot of work for not much difference, I needn't have worried. The taste of the marrow is rich, meaty, intense in a nearly-too-much way. In my increasingly depraved state, I could think of nothing at first but that it tasted like really good sex. But there was something more than that, even. What it really tastes like is life, well lived. Of course the cow I got marrow from had a fairly crappy life – lots of crowds and overmedication and bland food that might or might not have been a relative. But deep in his or her bones, there was a capacity for feral joy. I could taste it. ~ Julie Powell

You cannot buy a life well lived! ~ Shawn King

Anxiety and depression are the price you pay for a well-lived life. ~ George Vaillant

Men prided themselves on aging. They might lose their hair and expand their bellies and still be deemed a wondrous catch, marrying twenty years their junior. Yet heaven forbid a young lady grow into old age and be proud of the lines on her face; the very lines that told a story of a life well lived. The nerve of us to live happily and without apology. ~ Kerri Maniscalco

Do not plan to die, do not plan for the death of your name or your influence - rather, plan for the resting of a life well lived. Make an eternal mark. ~ Archibald Marwizi

Yesterday is but a dream,
Tomorrow is only a vision.
But today well lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness, and every tomorrow a vision of hope. ~ Kalidasa

A life well lived is a life full of decisions. ~ Guess

Our power lies in our small daily choices, one after another, to create eternal ripples of a life well lived. ~ Mollie Marti

A well-lived day is medicine unto itself. ~ Acharya Shunya

Love is the key to a life well lived. ~ Rasheed Ogunlaru

A life well lived is the best antidote to that fatal truth. Be active, not a passive worrywart. Find magic in the moment, joy in making someone smile. Listen to a lover's sigh; look into the dancing eyes of a child you made feel special. Most of all, marvel at the wonder that eons of evolutionary time and all your unique experiences have joined to comprise the symphony that is YOU. ~ Philip G. Zimbardo

A life well-lived or a life lived well? The placement of words really does change the connotation. ~ Carol Morgan

There are many things in this world that are an outrage, to be sure, but death at our current life expectancy doesn't strike me as one of them. Maybe I sound like some Victorian who felt that forty years ought to be enough for any man, but one of the marks of a life well lived has to be reaching a state of finally getting it, of not needing more, and of being able to sign off with something approaching peace of mind. ~ David Rakoff

The gifts of an honorable, well-lived life are in those who will miss you once you're gone. ~ Donald E. Williams, Jr.

The best gift you can give anyone is a well-lived life of your own. ~ Tig Notaro

Cemeteries are full of unfulfilled dreams ... countless echoes of 'could have' and 'should have' ... countless books unwritten ... countless songs unsung ... I want to live my life in such a way that when my body is laid to rest, it will be a well needed rest from a life well lived, a song well sung, a book well written, opportunities well explored, and a love well expressed. ~ Steve Maraboli

Glory is sacrifice, glory is exhaustion, glory is having nothing left to give.
Almost.
It is death by living. ~ N.D. Wilson

A life well-lived is not measured by material possessions or the size of the funeral turnout. The quantity and depth of laugh lines on the face of the person lying in repose in their coffin reveals a life's true worth. ~ Stewart Stafford

Happiness comes as a by-product of the "life well lived." And ~ Henry Cloud

When we haven't the time to listen to each other's stories we seek out experts to tell us how to live. The less time we spend together at the kitchen table, the more how-to books appear in the stores and on our bookshelves. But reading such books is a very different thing than listening to someone' s lived experience. Because we have stopped listening to each other we may even have forgotten how to listen, stopped learning how to recognize meaning and fill ourselves from the ordinary events of our lives. We have become solitary; readers and watchers rather than sharers and participants. ~ Rachel Naomi Remen

I've lived in a good climate, and it bores the hell out of me. ~ John Steinbeck

The buried code of many American films has become: If I kill you, I have won and you have lost. The instinctive ethical code of traditional Hollywood, the code by which characters like James Stewart, John Wayne and Henry Fonda lived, has been lost. ~ Roger Ebert

It's hard to get fluffed up about love anymore. I've lived it. I try to avoid it. If I'm extremely fond of a woman, if I think I might really wind up walking down the aisle again ... I go in another direction. ~ Phil Everly

Petra Ral, 10 kills, 48 assists. Oluo Bozado, 39 kills, 9 assists. Eld Jinn, 14 kills, 32 assists. Gunther Schultz, 7 kills, 40 assists. "Come back home alive, and you're a full-fledged member," is the common view in the Survey Corps ... but *those people* have lived through hell again and again, producing results all the way. They've learned how to live ... When facing a titan, you never know enough. Think all you want. A lot of the time, you're going into a situation you know nothing about. So what you need is to be quick to act ... and make tough decisions in worst-case scenarios. Still, that doesn't mean they've got no heart. Even when they had their weapons pointed at you, they had strong feelings. However ... they have no regrets. ~ Hajime Isayama

Dane lived above a greengrocer's shop at 26 Tavistock Street, Covent Garden, with her secretary, Olwen Bowen, herself a writer of children's books, but who now devoted herself to the care of her companion. 'One climbed up a rickety staircase and there was Winifred, surrounded by her paintings, sculptures, a piano and goodness knows how many books, where she would give many after-the-theatre parties . . . ~ Philip Hoare

No man, I suspect, ever lived long in the country without being bitten by these meteorological ambitions. He likes to be hotter and colder, to have been more deeply snowed up, to have more trees and larger blown down than his neighbors. ~ James Russell Lowell

How did we get here? Once upon a time, Dane and I were happy. We were in love.
In fairy tales, the wedding is always followed by and they lived happily ever after. In real life, I do just means the real work begins. ~ Meghan March

History is lived forwards but it is written in retrospect. We know the end before we consider the beginning and we can never wholly recapture what it was to know the beginning only. ~ C.V. Wedgwood

People always say it's harder to heal a wounded heart than a wounded body. Bullshit. It's exactly the opposite - a wounded body takes much longer to heal. A wounded heart is nothing but ashes of memories. But the body is everything. The body is blood and veins and cells and nerves. A wounded body is when, after leaving a man you've lived with for three years, you curl up on your side of the bed as if there's still somebody beside you. That is a wounded body: a body that feels connected to someone who is no longer there. ~ Xiaolu Guo

For years afterward, I had dreams in which my mother appeared in strange forms, her features sewn onto other beings in combinations that seemed both grotesque and profound: as a slippery white fish at the end of my hook, with a trout's gaping, sorrowful mouth and her dark, shuttered eyes; as the elm tree at the edge of our property, its ragged clumps of tarnished gold leaves replaced by knotted skeins of her black hair; as the lame gray dog that lived on the Mueller's property, whose mouth, her mouth, opened and closed in yearning and who never made a sound. As I grew older, I came to realize that death had been easy for my mother; to fear death, you must first have something to tether you to life. But she had not. It was as if she had been preparing for her death the entire time I knew her. One day she was alive; the next, not.
And as Sybil said, she was lucky. For what more could we presume to ask from death - but kindness? ~ Hanya Yanagihara

I think of that lost world, the way we lived before these new networking technologies, as having two poles: solitude and communion. The new chatter puts us somewhere in between, assuaging fears of being alone without risking real connection. It is a shallow between two deeper zones, a safe spot between the dangers of contact with ourselves, with others. ~ Rebecca Solnit

Bisceglia Pharmacy is a tiny, dusty relic tucked into a dying strip mall on the other side of the Kansas-Missouri state line. I see Liv's doubt as we pull up to the pharmacy and there's a dog chained up out front gnawing industriously on an old shoe.

"Uh," she says, stepping over the dog, who doesn't stop his chewing to look up, "is this like...a licensed pharmacy?"

"We're in Missouri now, princess. This is what shit looks like here."

Liv shoots me a look as we walk through the door - which is propped open with a rabbit-eared television set - and into the dimly lit pharmacy. "You know, it's not nice to be geographically snobby."

"I lived on the Missouri side of Kansas City until Mom died," I tell her. "So I feel a little entitled to some trash talk. Also this place was my first job. So I'm double entitled ~ Laurelin Paige

Pimlott foresaw a time when wolves would be reintroduced to national parks in both Canada and the United States, and people would begin to see woulds "as they are --one of the most interesting and intelligent animals that has ever lived on our globe." Such thoughts, Pimlott assured readers, "are not mere fanciful daydreams. ~ Bruce Hampton

They could have lived on happiness alone, in their glamourous poverty, in their apartment. ~ Lauren Groff

Every second is a forever in Wink. Every day is a cool afternoon waiting to happen. And every life is one lived quietly, with your feet up and your sun-dappled lawn before you as you watch the world happily drift by. ~ Robert Jackson Bennett

And thanks be to God, Johnny, said Mr Dedalus, that we lived so long and did so little harm. ~ James Joyce

In a lot of ways, I envy someone like Omar Sharif who lived in a hotel for decades. ~ Viggo Mortensen

Since the death of his daughter, a consumptive, he had not thrashed a woman; he lived alone. ~ Elias Canetti

One's forty, one has lived more than half one's life, the world is marvellous and mysterious. And yet one spends four hours chattering about nothing at Tantamount House. Why should triviality be so fascinating? Or is there something else besides the triviality that draws one? ~ Aldous Huxley

He wanted to be better than what he was made of. In Mumbai's dirty water, he wanted to be ice ... He wanted to be recognized as better than the dirty water in which he lived. He wanted a verdict of ice. ~ Katherine Boo

My feelings for Kaden, although confusing and admittedly self destructive, ran deeper than physical appearances. All the pain he caused me, all the terror I lived with, was nothing compared to the anxiety of not knowing what would happen if I were to find myself without him. ~ Lydia Kelly

I've lived the American dream. I was born and raised on the farm, first in my family to graduate from college. I spent 13 years working in our family business. ~ Cathy McMorris Rodgers

No man understands a deep book until he has seen and lived at least part of its contents. ~ Ezra Pound

The ones who lived, who truly lived, they make an imprint on our lives. They leave their mark in our hearts. They change the course of our fates and our destinies. Those are the real heroes. The ones who cared enough for a human being that they rewrote their futures."
- Alastor Moody ~ Mordred