Life

The line of life is a ragged diagonal between duty and desire.
~ William Rounseville (W.R.) Alger

Whoever would live contented and die happy must not pursue public applause, but must give more than is given him, and love without asking a return.
~ William Rounseville (W.R.) Alger, The Solitudes of Nature and of Man, or, The Loneliness of Human Life (1867). Summary of the Subject

This life is the bud of eternity; if plucked and used as the portion of the soul, that soul will be empty now and empty forever. But while thus abused it is worthless; rightly used, it is beyond all price. Here is generated, cherished, ripened, the life that will never die.
~ William Arnot

For the battle of life is joined, and
You might fight long and true.
For in this strife, it's the game of your life
And the only loser is you.
~ William E. Bailey, The Rhythms of Life. Warrior's Song

During a walk or in a book or in the middle of an embrace, suddenly I awake to a stark amazement at everything. The bare fact of existence paralyzes me . . . To be alive is so incredible that all I can do is to lie still and merely breathe -- like an infant on its back in a cot. It is impossible to be interested in anything in particular while overhead the sun shines or underneath my feet grows a single blade of grass.
~ Wilhelm Nero Pilate (W.N.P.) Barbellion, in The Journal of a Disappointed Man (31 March 1919). March 22, 1915 entry

All life is based on the fact that anything worth getting is hard to get. There is a price to be paid for anything. Scholarship can only be bought at the price of study, skill in any craft or technique can only be bought at the price of practice, eminence in any sport can only be bought at the price of training and discipline.
~ William Barclay

The awful importance of this life is that it determines eternity.
~ William Barclay, The Gospel of John, Vol. 1 (1975).

So each day I pass judgment and sentence myself to remain among the living. Condemned to live, I must then ceaselessly create reasons for living. The judgment is not so severe, nor the task so difficult, as we imagine. We have only to be open to the world and it will pour its riches at our feet.
~ William E. Barrett, The Illusion of Technique: A Search for Meaning in a Technological Civilization (1978).

Unfortunately, nothing in life is nothing but; it is always something more.
~ William E. Barrett, Irrational Man: A Study in Existential Philosophy (1958).

The beauty and genius of a work of art may be reconceived, though its first material expression be destroyed; a vanished harmony may yet again inspire the composer; but when the last individual of a race of living things breathes no more, another heaven and another earth must pass before such a one can be again.
~ Charles William ("Will") Beebe, The Bird, Its Form and Function (1906).

What I planned to do in life has again and again been prevented by events beyond my control, yet on each occasion I found something else worth doing.
~ William Henry (W.H.) Beveridge, Farewell Address to Undergraduates in University College, Oxford (11 March 1945).

Do what you will, this
Life's a Fiction
And is made up of Contradiction.
~ William Blake, Gnomic Verses xxiii

For everything exists and not one sigh nor smile nor tear, one hair nor particle of dust, not one can pass away.
~ William Blake

For every thing that lives is holy, life delights in life.
~ William Blake, America a Prophecy (1793).

Work, love, death -- these three --
Life, is there more for me?
~ William Stanley Braithwaite, from Lyrics of Life and Love (1904). Two Questions

Each person's life is a story that is telling itself in the living.
~ William Bridges, Transitions: Making Sense of Life's Changes (1980).

The best things in life are free; and, they are also priceless.
~ Jean Williams Brown

Life is a glass given to us to fill; a busy life is filling it with as much as it can hold; a hurried life has had more poured into it than it can contain.
~ William A. Brown

Whose life is a bubble, and in length a span.
~ William Browne, Britannia's Pastorals, Book I (1613). Song 2

The ladder of life is full of splinters, but they always prick the hardest when we're sliding down.
~ William L. Brownell

I grieve for life's bright promise, just shown and then withdrawn.
~ William Cullen Bryant, Waiting by the Gate. Stanza 7

Life mocks the idle hate
Of his arch enemy Death.
~ William Cullen Bryant, from Poems (1832 edition). Forest Hymn (written in 1825)

So live that when thy summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan that moves
To that mysterious realm, where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,
Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave,
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.
~ William Cullen Bryant, from Poems (1821). Thanatopsis (originally printed in the North American Review: 1817; written in 1811)

There are things you just can't do in life. You can't beat the phone company, you can't make a waiter see you until he's ready to see you, and you can't go home again.
~ Bill Bryson, The Lost Continent: Travels in Small Town America (1989).

We live on a planet that has a more or less infinite capacity to surprise. What reasoning person could possibly want it any other way?
~ Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything (2003). Chapter 23: The Richness of Being

I mean to live my life an obedient man, but obedient to God, subservient to the wisdom of my ancestors; never to the authority of political truths arrived at yesterday at the voting booth.
~ William F. Buckley, Jr., Up from Liberalism (1959).

I feel that this life is sort of a penal colony. People have goofed or we wouldn't be here.
~ William S. Burroughs

Demand your lawyer, make your phone call, the whole television scene.
~ William S. Burroughs, Speed (1984).

The way is long, and rough the road,
And bitter the night, and dread,
And each poor slave is but a goad
To lash the one ahead.
~ William Wilfred Campbell, The Poems of Wilfred Campbell (1905). The Blind Caravan

Have little care that Life is brief,
And less that Art is long.
Success is in the silences
Though Fame is in the song.
~ (William) Bliss Carman, from Ballads and Lyrics (1902). Envoi

There are two births: the one when light
First strikes the new awakened sense;
The other when two souls unite,
And we must count our life from thence,
When you loved me and I loved you,
Then both of us were born anew.
~ William Cartwright, from Comedies, Tragi-comedies, With other Poems (1651). To Chloe, Who Wished Herself Young Enough for Me

Life is a fragment, a moment between two eternities, influenced by all that has preceded, and to influence all that follows. The only way to illumine it is by extent of view.
~ Willam Ellery Channing, in Dr. Channing's Note-book (1887). Life

All of life is the exercise of risk.
~ Rev. William Sloane Coffin, Jr.

Clearly the trick in life is to die young as late as possible.
~ Rev. William Sloane Coffin, Jr., from Credo (2003). Life in General

Beloved, till life can charm no more;
And mourned, till Pity's self be dead.
~ William Collins

Life is a journey: -- on we go,
Thro' many a scene of joy and woe.
~ William Combe, The Tour of Doctor Syntax, in Search of the Picturesque (1812).

A life of ease is a difficult pursuit.
~ William Cowper, from Poems by William Cowper of the Inner Temple, Esq. (1782). Retirement

Men deal with life, as children with their play,
Who first misuse, then cast their toys away.
~ William Cowper, from Poems by William Cowper of the Inner Temple, Esq. (1782). Hope

What is it but a map of busy life,
Its fluctuations, and its vast concerns?
~ William Cowper, The Task (1785). Book IV. The Winter Evening

Ah, well! We live and learn, or, anyway, we live.
~ Will (William Jacob) Cuppy, How to Be a Hermit or, A Bachelor Keeps House (1929).

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare?
~ William Henry (W.H.) Davies, Songs of Joy (1911). Leisure

Life, as he conceived of it, was a long decline from a glorious past, and if a reader approaches a newspaper in that spirit, he can find much to confirm him in his belief, particularly if he has never examined any short period of the past in day-to-day detail.
~ (William) Robertson Davies, Leaven of Malice (1954).

If you step on people in this life, you're going to come back as a cockroach.
~ Willie Davis

The supreme test of life comes when at last the illusion of immunity fails us, and that test cannot be evaded.
~ William James "W.J." Dawson, The Book of Courage (1911). I: The Need of Courage

Life's two Great Questions: Why me? and What do I do now?
~ William L. DeAndrea

Birth is the sudden opening of a window, through which you look out upon a stupendous project.
~ William (W.) MacNeile Dixon, The Human Situation (1937).

It is hope of long life that maketh life seem short.
~ William Drummond (of Hawthornden), from Flowers of Zion; or Spiritual Poems (1623). A Cypress Grove

This life, which seems so fair,
Is like a bubble blown up in the air
By sporting children's breath,
Who chase it everywhere.
~ William Drummond (of Hawthornden), from Poems: Amorous, Funerall, Divine, Pastorall, in Sonnets, Songs, Sextains, Madrigals (1616).

What sweet delight a quiet life affords.
~ William Drummond (of Hawthornden), from Poems: Amorous, Funerall, Divine, Pastorall, in Sonnets, Songs, Sextains, Madrigals (1616).

Living from hand to mouth.
~ Guillaume de Salluste Du Bartas, Divine Weekes and Workes (1621). Second Week, First Day. Part IV

Believe in life! Always human beings will live and progress to greater, broader and fuller life.
~ William Edward Burghardt (W.E.B.) Du Bois

[L]ife is in its basis a mystery, a river flowing from an unseen source; and in its development an infinite subtlety too complex for thought, much more so for utterance. And yet the thirst for unity draws us on.
~ William James "Will" Durant, The Mansions of Philosophy: A Survey Of Human Life And Destiny (1929).

Nature will destroy me, but she has a right to; she made me, and burned my senses with a thousand delights; she gave me all that she will take away. How shall I ever thank her sufficiently for these five senses of mine -- these fingers and lips, these eyes and ears, this restless tongue and this gigantic nose?
~ William James "Will" Durant, On the Meaning of Life (1932).

Water is a living thing: it is life itself. In it life began.
~ Wilma Dykeman, The French Broad (1955).

[L]ife involves maintaining oneself between contradictions that can't be solved by analysis.
~ William Empson (notes to the poem "Bacchus").

I could just remember how my father used to say that the reason for living was to get ready to stay dead a long time.
~ William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying (1930).

One way to get the most out of life is to look upon it as an adventure.
~ William Feather

We hustle at both work and play, and consequently enjoy neither to the utmost.
~ William Feather

Start each day with a smile and get it over with.
~ W.C. Fields

Life seems to be simply a preface to more life, a perpetual preparing for something that we get no nearer to, a march in a dream, in which we exhaust ourselves with marching and come out where we started. And the only happy man is he who learns to love marching itself, with all its fatigue and its uncertainty of a destination.
~ Wilson Follett, The Modern Novel: A Study of the Purpose and the Meaning of Fiction (1918). Tragedy and Comedy

Is life a boon?
If so, it must befall
That Death, whene'er he call,
Must call too soon.
~ William Schwenck (W.S.) Gilbert, from Songs of a Savoyard (1890). Is Life A Boon

Life is a joke that's just begun.
~ William Schwenck (W.S.) Gilbert, The Mikado (1885 opera).

Oh, don't the days seem lank and long,
When all goes right and nothing goes wrong,
And isn't your life extremely flat,
When you've nothing whatever to grumble at?
~ William Schwenck (W.S.) Gilbert

What indeed is life, unless so far as it is enjoyed? It does not merit the name.
~ William Godwin

Each day I'll do a golden deed,
By helping those who are in need;
My life on earth is but a span,
And so I'll do the best I can.
~ William M. Golden, A Beautiful Life (1918 song).

The journey of life is like a man riding a bicycle. We know he got on the bicycle and started to move. We know that at some point he will stop and get off. We know that if he stops moving and does not get off he will fall off.
~ William Golding, Address to Les Anglicistes, Lille, France. (13 February 1977). Utopias And Antiutopias

Our days are numbered. One of the primary goals in our lives should be to prepare for our last day. The legacy we leave is not just in our possessions, but in the quality of our lives. What preparations should we be making now? The greatest waste in all of our earth, which cannot be recycled or reclaimed, is our waste of the time that God has given us each day.
~ Billy Graham, Billy Graham Evangelistic Association DECISION magazine Are You Prepared for Eternity? (2002)

The fact is, we cannot truly face life until we have learned to face the fact that it will be taken away from us.
~ Billy Graham

Life is something like this trumpet. If you don't put anything in it, you don't get anything out. And that's the truth.
~ W.C. (William Christopher) Handy, Quoted in New York Herald Tribune (15 February 1954).

A life of action and danger moderates the dread of death.
~ William Hazlitt, Table-Talk, or Original Essays on Men and Manners, 2nd series (1824). On The Fear of Death

To be remembered after we are dead, is but poor recompense for being treated with contempt while we are living.
~ William Hazlitt, Characteristics: in the Manner of Rochefoucault's Maxims (1823).

The art of life is to know how to enjoy a little and endure much.
~ William Hazlitt, in Literary Examiner (London, September - December 1823). Common Places. I

The best part of our lives we pass in counting on what is to come.
~ William Hazlitt, from The Plain Speaker (1826). On Novelty and Familiarity

Fate's a fiddler, Life's a dance.
~ William Ernest (W.E.) Henley, from A Book of Verses (1888). Bric-à-Brac. Double Ballade of Life and Fate

Life is (I think) a blunder and a shame.
~ William Ernest (W.E.) Henley, from A Book of Verse (1888). In Hospital: Rhymes and Rhythms. II. Waiting

Madam, Life's a piece in bloom
Death goes dogging everywhere:
She's the tenant of the room
He's the ruffian on the stair.
~ William Ernest (W.E.) Henley

Who but knows
How it goes!
Life a last year's Nightingale,
Love a last year's Rose.
~ William Ernest (W.E.) Henley, from Echoes of Life and Death (1888). XLV

We need not hesitate to admit that the Sun is richly stored with inhabitants.
~ William Herschel

It's just a ride and we can change it any time we want. It's only a choice. No effort, no work, no job, no savings and money, a choice, right now, between fear and love. The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your door, buy guns, close yourself off. The eyes of love instead see all of us as one.
~ Bill Hicks, in Bill Hicks Live: Satirist, Social Critic, Stand Up Comedian (2004 DVD). It's Just A Ride (originally from Revelations; 1992)

Life is only a dream and we are the imagination of ourselves.
~ Bill Hicks

In Europe life is histrionic and dramatized, and . . . in America, except when it is trying to be European, it is direct and sincere.
~ William Dean Howells, in Harper's New Monthly Magazine (September 1899). Their Silver Wedding Journey

Life is an outward occupation, an actual work, in all ranks and all situations.
~ Wilhelm von Humboldt, in Thoughts and Opinions of a Statesman (1849). Letter XI

Ethics is the science of conduct, and the art of life.
~ William Dewitt Hyde, Practical Ethics (1892). Introduction

A chain is no stronger than its weakest link, and life is after all a chain.
~ William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902). Lectures VI and VII: The Sick Soul

If this life be not a real fight, in which something is eternally gained for the universe by success, it is not better than a game of private theatricals from which one may withdraw at will. But it feels like a real fight -- as if there were something really wild in the universe which we, with all our idealities and faithfulnesses, are needed to redeem.
~ William James, from The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy (1897). Is Life Worth Living?

Knowledge about life is one thing; effective occupation of a place in life, with its dynamic currents passing through your being, is another.
~ William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902). Lecture XX: Conclusions

Life defies our phrases, it is infinitely continuous and subtle and shaded, whilst our verbal terms are discrete, rude and few.
~ William James

Our lives are like islands in the sea, or like trees in the forest, which co-mingle their roots in the darkness underground.
~ William James

The best use of life is to spend it for something that outlasts life.
~ William James

The great use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it.
~ William James

The old question of whether there is design is idle. The real question is what is the world, whether or not it have a designer -- and that can be revealed only by the study of all nature's particulars.
~ William James, from Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking (1907).

This life is worth living, we can say, since it is what we make it.
~ William James

We need a life not correlated with death, a health not liable to illness, a kind of good that will not perish, a good in fact that flies beyond the Goods of nature.
~ William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902). Lectures VI and VII: The Sick Soul

I've come to realize that life is not a musical comedy, it's a Greek tragedy.
~ Billy Joel

Life is too short for the full story.
~ William George Jordan, The Crown of Individuality (1909). IX. The Inspiration of Possibilities

If you have come to comprehend a little of the mystery of life, and can value its attractions according to their worth; these are no reasons why you should walk forth with solemn countenance to blight the enjoyments of other men. Life to them is as real, as the mystery is to you. Their time will come as yours has, so hasten it for them, if you can, by making life brighter, more joyous, better.
~ William Q. Judge, The Path (August 1886). Musings On The True Theosophist's Path

How, then, did life originate on the Earth? . . . Did grass and trees and flowers spring into existence, in all the fullness of ripe beauty, by a fiat of Creative Power? or did vegetation, growing up from seed sown, spread and multiply over the whole Earth? Science is bound, by the everlasting vow of honour, to face fearlessly every problem which can be fairly presented to it. If a probable solution, consistent with the ordinary course of nature, can be found, we must not invoke an abnormal act of Creative Power.
~ Lord Kelvin (William Thomson), Address at the British Association for the Advancement of Science (1871). On The Origin Of Life.

[O]verpoweringly strong proofs of intelligent and benevolent design lie all around us; and if ever perplexities, whether metaphysical or scientific, turn us away from them for a time, they come back upon us with irresistible force, showing to us through Nature the influence of a free will, and teaching us that all living things depend on one ever-acting Creator and Ruler.
~ Lord Kelvin (William Thomson), Address at the British Association for the Advancement of Science (1871). On The Origin Of Life.

Oh! why should the spirit of mortal be proud?
Like a swift-fleeting meteor, a fast-flying cloud,
A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave,
Man passeth from life to his rest in the grave.
~ William Knox, from Songs of Israel (1824). Mortality

Tastes, instincts, feelings, passions, powers,
Sleep there unfelt, unseen;
And other lives lie hid in ours --
The lives that might have been --.
~ William Edward Hartpole (E.H.) Lecky, from Poems (1891). Undeveloped Lives

The abundant life does not come to those who have had a lot of obstacles removed from their path by others. It develops from within and is rooted in strong mental and moral fiber.
~ William Mather Lewis

I'll leave the sharp stones of the highway,
And avoid, in some grass-covered byway,
Life's weariness.
~ William Lindsey, from Apples of Istakhar (1895). Life's Underpay

Life is not a having and a getting, but a being and a becoming.
~ Myrna Loy (née Myrna Adele Williams)

Life is a race between your hand raising the champagne cup to your lips and the ocean's tide rising to swallow you.
~ William Markiewicz, Extracts of Existence (1990).

It is a fact that each one of us has the potential to influence the course of all life on Earth for the better. Through the simple act of just thinking about water, we create a bond with water. In this way we form a bond with all life, as we raise the level of our own water consciousness.
~ William E. Marks

Common sense and nature will do a lot to make the pilgrimage of life not too difficult.
~ W. Somerset Maugham, The Razor's Edge (1944).

I am sick of this way of life. The weariness and sadness of old age make it intolerable. I have walked with death in hand, and death's own hand is warmer than my own. I don't wish to live any longer.
~ W. Somerset Maugham (on his ninetieth birthday), in A Traveller in Romance: Uncollected Writings 1901-1964 (1984).

I haven't got time for that sort of nonsense. Life isn't long enough for love and art.
~ W. Somerset Maugham, The Moon and Sixpence (1919).

If then one puts aside the existence of God and the possibility of survival as too doubtful to have any effect on one's behaviour, one has to make up one's mind what is the meaning and use of life. If death ends all, if I have neither to hope for good to come nor to fear evil, I must ask myself what I am here for, and how in these circumstances I must conduct myself.
~ W. Somerset Maugham, The Summing Up (1938).

And this is so like life. For if you are born in easy circumstances, and always have everything you want, it is not difficult to look pleasant; whereas, if you have to struggle to rise in the world, and the competition is severe, your character and aspect are likely to become hard and forbidding.
~ William Babington (W.B.) Maxwell, from Fabulous Fancies (1903). In the Black Forest Country

In the game of life knowledge scores but attitude wins.
~ Billy Joe "Red" McCombs, Commencement Address, McCombs School of Business (18 May 2001). Making a Difference

It's your life. Live it with people who are alive. It tends to be contagious.
~ Peter McWilliams, You Can't Afford the Luxury of a Negative Thought (1995). Part Two -- The Cure

Life, it turns out, is not a struggle; it's a wiggle.
~ Peter McWilliams, Life 101: Everything We Wished We Had Learned about Life in School--But Didn't (August 1994).

In the battle of existence, talent is the punch; tact is the clever footwork.
~ Wilson Mizner

Life's a tough proposition, and the first hundred years are the hardest.
~ Wilson Mizner

To my embarrassment I was born in bed with a lady.
~ Wilson Mizner

I will now let my claims for decent life stand as I have made them. To sum them up in brief, they are: first, a healthy body; second, an active mind in sympathy with the past, the present and the future; thirdly, occupation fit enough for a healthy body and an active mind; and fourthly, a beautiful world to live in.
~ William Morris, Signs of Change (1888). How We Live And How We Might Live

Masters, I have to tell a tale of woe,
A tale of folly and of wasted life,
Hope against hope, the bitter dregs of strife,
Ending, where all things end, in death at last.
~ William Morris, from The Earthly Paradise (1868-70). Prologue

Nor on one string are all life's jewels strung.
~ William Morris, The Life and Death of Jason (1867). Book XVII

The earth and the growth of it and the life of it! If I could but say or show how I love it!
~ William Morris, from News from Nowhere (1890). XXXI. An Old House Amongst New Folk

What other blessings are there in life save these two, fearless rest and hopeful work?
~ William Morris, Address delivered before the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, London (1882). The Lesser Arts of Life

I would not live alway: I ask not to stay
Where storm after storm rises dark o'er the way.
~ William Augustus Muhlenberg, I would not live alway

All things return eternally, and ourselves with them: We have already existed in times without number, and all things with us.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra (1885).

[Anything which] is a living and not a dying body . . . will have to be an incarnate will to power, it will strive to grow, spread, seize, become predominant -- not from any morality or immorality but because it is living and because life simply is will to power.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil (1885-86).

Believe me! The secret of reaping the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment from life is to live dangerously!
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, The Joyful Wisdom (1882).

I still live, I still think: I still have to live, for I still have to think.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, The Gay Science (1882).

Judgments, value judgments concerning life, for or against, can in the last resort never be true: they possess value only as symptoms, they come into consideration only as symptoms -- in themselves such judgments are stupidities.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

Life always gets harder toward the summit -- the cold increases, the responsibility increases.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, The Antichrist (1888).

No, life has not disappointed me. On the contrary, I find it truer, more desirable and mysterious every year -- ever since the day when the great liberator came to me: the idea that life could be an experiment of the seeker for knowledge -- and not a duty, not a calamity, not trickery.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

The person lives most beautifully who does not reflect upon existence.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

This life as you live it now and have lived it, you will have to live again and again, times without number, and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and all the unspeakably small and great in your life must return to you and everything in the same series and sequence -- and in the same way this spider and this moonlight among the trees, and this same way this moment and I myself. The eternal hour glass of existence will be turned again and again -- and you with it, you dust of dust!
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, The Gay Science (1882).

This secret spoke Life herself unto me: "Behold," said she, "I am that which must ever surpass itself."
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

Make the most of Life you may,
Life is short and wears away.
~ William Oldys, On a Fly Drinking out of a Cup

Live neither in the past nor in the future, but let each day's work absorb your entire energies, and satisfy your wildest ambition.
~ William Osler, Address at McGill College, Montreal (1899). After Twenty-Five Years

To know what has to be done, then do it, comprises the whole philosophy of practical life.
~ William Osler, from Aequanimitas: With Other Addresses to Medical Students, Nurses and Practioners of Medicine (1904). British Medicine in Greater Britain (originally published in Montreal Medical Journal; 1897)

[W]e are here to add what we can to, not to get what we can from, life.
~ William Osler, from Aequanimitas: With Other Addresses to Medical Students, Nurses and Practioners of Medicine (1904). Doctor and Nurse (delivered at Johns Hopkins Hospital; 1891)

If one is so busy doing and experiencing that there is no time for reflection, life becomes not a connected whole but a pile of beads without a string.
~ William J. O'Malley, in America magazine (13 June 1992).

I'm reconciled to the fact that I will never get out of this life alive. And while I'm still breathing, I'm going to live it up.
~ Billy Pearson (remarks in a 1959 Parade magazine piece titled "How I Squandered a Million Dollars."), Quoted in The San Diego Union-Tribune (15 December 2002). Billy Pearson, 82; jockey, quiz show winner

And he that lives to live ever, never fears dying.
~ William Penn, Some Fruits of Solitude (1693).

True godliness does not turn men out of the world, but enables them to live better in it and excites their endeavors to mend it.
~ William Penn, No Cross, No Crown (1668-1669).

Remind me each day that the race is not always to the swift; that there is more to life than increasing its speed.
~ Wilferd A. Peterson

The first chance in life is ever being born at all, and a mighty uncertain affair it seems to us mortals.
~ William Matthew Flinders Petrie, Seventy Years in Archaeology (1931). Chapter 1, Preparation

A well-ordered life is like climbing a tower; the view halfway up is better than the view from the base, and it steadily becomes finer as the horizon expands.
~ William Lyon ("Billy") Phelps, Happiness (August 1927).

[I]nject a few raisins of conversation into the tasteless dough of existence.
~ William Sydney Porter (O. Henry), from The Voice of the City: Further Stories of the Four Million (1908). The Complete Life Of John Hopkins

Life is made up of sobs, sniffles and smiles, with sniffles predominating.
~ William Sydney Porter (O. Henry), from The Four Million (1906). The Gift of the Magi

Naturalistic evolution has clear consequences that Charles Darwin understood perfectly. 1) No gods worth having exist; 2) no life after death exists; 3) no ultimate foundation for ethics exists; 4) no ultimate meaning in life exists; and 5) human free will is nonexistent.
~ William (Will) B. Provine, Darwin Day Keynote Address (1998). Evolution: Free will and punishment and meaning in life

Take nothing for granted: a true life is earned second by second, thought by thought.
~ Bill Purdin, Legend, Inc. (accessed May 2003). Quote Archives.

[I]t was not dogma that moved the world, but life.
~ William M. Ramsay, The Letters to the Seven Churches of Asia (1904). Chapter XXIV: The Letter to the Church in Thyatira

Live your lives with energy and excitement that will leave no doubt that you have made your mark.
~ Willie Randolph, Commencement Address at Fordham University (19 May 2007).

In one thing, indeed, all living creatures are alike, and that is, that life makes more life.
~ William Brighty Rands, from Lilliput Lectures (1871). The Family

Love, work, and knowledge are the wellsprings of our lives, they should also govern it.
~ Wilhelm Reich

Do the best you can, and don't take life too serious.
~ Will Rogers, Quoted in Criswell Freeman The Wisdom of the West (1997).

In the early days of the Indian Territory, there were no such things as birth certificates. You being there was certificate enough.
~ Will Rogers

Live so that you wouldn't be ashamed to sell the family parrot to the town gossip.
~ Will Rogers

Live your life so that whenever you lose, you are ahead.
~ Will Rogers, Weekly Articles (5 July 1931).

While the Darwinists hold that no struggle for existence takes place where the survival of the creature is not threatened, I believe the life-struggle to be ubiquitous: it is first and foremost precisely such a life-struggle, a struggle for the increase of life, but not a struggle for life!
~ William Henry (W.H.) Rolph, Biological Problems, with an Attempt at the Development of Rational Ethics (1884).

Friends are the icing on the cake. Having gotten to the stage of life where I am, knowing all the people I was able to help and the people who have helped me, all the friends I made, and all the people who respect me and who I respect, I'm proud of what I have achieved. I'm proud of my family and what I've done for society. These are the things that make the trip worthwhile.
~ William Rosenberg, Time To Make the Donuts (December 2001).

Sometimes it takes years to really grasp what has happened to your life. I just want to be remembered as a hardworking lady with certain beliefs.
~ Wilma Rudolph, Quoted in Words of Women Quotations for Success (1997).

A life without adventure is likely to be unsatisfying, but a life in which adventure is allowed to take whatever form it will is sure to be short.
~ Bertrand Arthur William Russell, Authority and the Individual (1949).

Every living thing is a sort of imperialist, seeking to transform as much as possible of its environment into itself. . . . When we compare the (present) human population of the globe with . . . that of former times, we see that "chemical imperialism" has been . . . the main end to which human intelligence has been devoted.
~ Bertrand Arthur William Russell, An Outline of Philosophy (1927).

Life is a brief, small and transitory phenomenon in an obscure corner, not at all the sort of thing that one would make a fuss about if one were not personally concerned.
~ Bertrand Arthur William Russell, The Impact of Science on Society (1951).

Basketball is a metaphor. . . . Whatever you attempt to do, try to find out how good you can do it.
~ William Felton (Bill) Russell

The struggle has only to do with the fruitful, but nor necessarily easy, task of letting go the old view of oneself as a possessor of life, as the grand custodian and manipulator of experience. . . . Could we be Life itself rather than the recipient of it? Indeed we can! We are!
~ William Samuel, The Awareness of Self-Discovery (1970).

Every life in the world is a miracle, and it's a miracle every minute each of us stays alive, and unless we know this, the experience of living is cheated of the greater part of its wonder and beauty.
~ William Saroyan, The Beautiful People (1941).

In the time of your life, live -- so that in that wondrous time you shall not add to the misery and sorrow of the world, but shall smile to the infinite variety and mystery of it.
~ William Saroyan, The Time of Your Life (1939 play).

Living is an art. It's not book-keeping. It takes a lot of rehearsing for a man to get to be himself.
~ William Saroyan, The Time of Your Life (1939 play).

The end of life evokes the errors of it, and a fellow wishes he had known better.
~ William Saroyan, The Bicycle Rider in Beverly Hills (1952).

Just have one more try -- it's dead easy to die,
It's the keeping-on-living that's hard.
~ Robert William Service, The Quitter

[A] light heart lives long.
~ William Shakespeare, Love's Labour's Lost. Act V, scene ii

All's well that ends well. . . .
~ William Shakespeare, All's Well that Ends Well

Heigh ho! sing, heigh ho! unto the green holly:
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:
Then heigh ho, the holly!
This life is most jolly.
~ William Shakespeare, from As You Like It. Act II, scene vii, Blow, blow thou winter wind

I bear a charmed life.
~ William Shakespeare, Macbeth. Act V, scene viii

I have set my life upon a cast,
And I will stand the hazard of the die.
~ William Shakespeare, King Richard III

I've hope to live, and am prepared to die.
~ William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure. Act III, scene i

If this were play'd upon a stage now,
I would condemn it as an improbable fiction.
~ William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night. Act III, scene iv

Life is a shuttle.
~ William Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor. Act V, scene ii

Live to be the show and gaze o' the time.
~ William Shakespeare, Macbeth

Merely, thou art Death's fool;
For him thou labour'st by thy flight to shun
And yet run'st toward him still.
~ William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure. Act III, scene i

O gentlemen, the time of life is short!
To spend that shortness basely were too long.
~ William Shakespeare, King Henry IV, Part I

Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more; it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
~ William Shakespeare, Macbeth. Act V, scene v

So weary with disasters, tugg'd with fortune,
That I would set my life on any chance,
To mend it, or be rid on 't.
~ William Shakespeare, Macbeth. Act III, scene i

The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together: our virtues would be proud if our faults whipped them not; and our crimes would despair if they were not cherished by our virtues.
~ William Shakespeare, All's Well that Ends Well. Act IV, scene iii

The wheel is come full circle.
~ William Shakespeare, King Lear. Act V, scene iii

Though this be madness, yet there is method in 't.
~ William Shakespeare, Hamlet. Act II, scene ii

Tongue nor heart
Cannot conceive nor name thee!
~ William Shakespeare, Macbeth

We are born to die.
~ William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet. Act III, scene iv

Oh, for God's sake . . . get a life, will you?
~ William Shatner

They tell how it was, and how time
came along, and how it happened
again and again. They tell
the slant life takes when it turns
and slashes your face as a friend.
~ William Stafford, Scars

You are a product of your environment. So choose the environment that will best develop you toward your objective. Analyze your life in terms of its environment. Are the things around you helping you toward success -- or are they holding you back?
~ William (W.) Clement Stone

Ah! how ugly Life can be
After Love from it is lopped!
~ William Wetmore Story, from Graffiti d'Italia (1868). Black Eyes

Our graves that hide us from the burning sunne
Are but drawne curtaynes when the play is done.
~ William Strode, On the Life of Man.

I have only three rules in life: never do anything underhand, never get your feet wet, go to bed at ten.
~ Bishop William Stubbs

Every writer since the beginning of time, just like other people, has been afflicted by what [a] friend of mine calls "the fleas of life" -- you know, colds, hangovers, bills, sprained ankles and little nuisances of one sort or another.
~ William Styron, in Conversations with William Styron (1985).

Life is a battle in which we fall from wounds we receive in running away.
~ William Laurence Sullivan

Live so that when the final summons comes you will leave something more behind you than an epitaph on a tombstone or an obituary in a newspaper.
~ William A. "Billy" Sunday

All the world is perpetually at work about nothing else, but only that our poor mortal lives should pass the easier and happier for that little time we possess them, or else end the better when we lose them.
~ Sir William Temple, 1st Baronet, in The Works of Sir William Temple, Bart., Vol. III (1814). Letter to the Countess of Essex; Upon Her Grief (29 January 1674)

[A]s he alone is born crying, he lives complaining, and dies disappointed.
~ Sir William Temple, 1st Baronet, from Miscellanea, Part II (1690). Upon The Gardens of Epicurus: or, Of Gardening, in the Year 1685

When all is done, human life is, at the greatest and the best, but like a froward child, that must be played with and humoured a little to keep it quiet till it falls asleep, and then the care is over.
~ Sir William Temple, 1st Baronet, from Miscellanea, Part II (1690). Of Poetry

Life is the soul's nursery.
~ William Makepeace Thackeray

In the game of life it's a good idea to have a few early losses, which relieves you of the pressure of trying to maintain an undefeated season.
~ William E. "Bill" Vaughan

Enough, I am, and shall not choose to die.
No matter what our future Fate may be:
To live, is in itself a majesty!
~ William Ross Wallace, from Meditations in America, and Other Poems (1851). The Chant of a Soul

Each of us will one day be judged by our standard of life -- not by our standard of living; by our measure of giving -- not by our measure of wealth; by our simple goodness -- not by our seeming greatness.
~ William Arthur Ward

Three keys to more abundant living: caring about others, daring for others, sharing with others.
~ William Arthur Ward

Life is rough:
Sing smoothly, O Bard.
Enough, enough,
To have found life hard.
~ William Watson, from Poems of William Watson (1892). Art Maxims.

Time, and the ocean, and some fostering star,
In high cabal have made us what we are.
~ William Watson, Ode on the Day of the Coronation of King Edward VII

If life is just a stage, then we are all running around ad-libbing, with absolutely no clue what the plot is. Maybe that's why we don't know whether it's a comedy or tragedy.
~ Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes

Mom and Dad say I should make my life an example of the principles I believe in. But every time I do, they tell me to stop it.
~ Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes

My life needs a rewind/erase button.
~ Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes

But to the tireless toiler toward the goal,
Shall the great miracles of God be known
And life revealed, immortal and divine.
~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox, from New Thought Pastels (1906). Consciousness

Here, on this side of the grave,
Here, should we labor and love.
~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox, from Poems of Power (1901). Here and now

If one poor burdened toiler o'er life's road,
Who meets us by the way,
Goes on less conscious of his galling load,
Then life, indeed, does pay.
~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox, from Poems of Power (1901). "Does it pay?"

Life hurries past
too strong to stop;
too sweet to loose.
~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox

I made up my mind several years ago that I had worked very hard to get to where I am in life and that I was only going to do things that are fun and exciting.
~ Andy Williams

Life is good. And relaxed. And fun. That's really what it should be. Not too serious.
~ Andy Williams

The important things are children, honesty, integrity and faith.
~ Andy Williams

It's your life that you are living. Don't pick and choose when you'll be there. All of it is yours. No one else suffers more if you waste it than you. Be patient with yourself and make every effort to be fully attentive so that you don't waste any of it.
~ Angel Kyodo Williams, Being Black: Zen and the Art of Living with Fearlessness and Grace (2000).

Life is but the acceptance of responsibilities or their evasion; it is a business of meeting obligations or avoiding them. To every man the choice is continually being offered, and by the manner of his choosing you may fairly measure him.
~ Ben Ames Williams, Splendor (1927).

Life is a hundred year trip away from home. When you die, your spirit will be singing, Home at last, home at last, thank God I'm home at last. Wow. What a trip.
~ DeWayne "Dooby" Williams, Guru of Gerlach, Rock Inscription at Dooby Avenue, Gerlach Nevada.

I've knocked about a good bit, you know. Never had any advantages, but I always tried to do the right thing.
~ (George) Emlyn Williams, Night Must Fall (1935 play). Act I

You come out of a woman and you spend the rest of your life trying to get back inside.
~ Heathcote Williams, The Speakers (1964).

Perhaps we all too easily become worshipers of life. We may make life itself an idol. If all our marbles are in a basket called life, death may indeed be the unwanted, purposeless intuder.
~ Philip W. Williams, in When A Loved One Dies (1976). Press On

Every aspect of personal life is radically affected by the quality of general life, and yet the general life is seen at its most important in completely personal terms.
~ Raymond Williams, The Long Revolution (1961). Realism and the Contemporary Novel

Our sense of community and compassionate intelligence must be extended to all life forms, plants, animals, rocks, rivers, and human beings. This is the story of our past and it will be the story of our future.
~ Terry Tempest Williams, Statement before the Senate Subcommittee on Forest & Public Lands Management, Washington DC (13 July 1995).

Don't look forward to the day when you stop suffering. Because when it comes you'll know that you're dead.
~ Thomas Lanier ("Tennessee") Williams, in the London Observer (1958).

Enthusiasm is the most important thing in life.
~ Thomas Lanier ("Tennessee") Williams

I think life is a process of burning oneself out and time is the fire that burns you.
~ Thomas Lanier ("Tennessee") Williams, New York Post (30 April 1958).

Life has got to go on. No matter what happens, you've got to keep on going.
~ Thomas Lanier ("Tennessee") Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire (1947).

Life is important. There's nothing else to hold onto.
~ Thomas Lanier ("Tennessee") Williams, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955).

Mendacity is a system that we live in. Liquor is one way out an' death's the other.
~ Thomas Lanier ("Tennessee") Williams, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955).

There is a horror in things, a horror at heart of the meaningless of existence. Some people cling to a certain philosophy that is handed down to them and which they accept. Life has a meaning if you're bucking for heaven. But if heaven is a fantasy, we are in this jungle with whatever we can work out for ourselves. It seems to me that the cards are stacked against us.
~ Thomas Lanier ("Tennessee") Williams, in Life Magazine (9 March 1962). The Angel of the Odd

What you need is someone to take hold of you -- gently, with love, and hand your life back to you.
~ Thomas Lanier ("Tennessee") Williams

Life is a voyage.
The winds of life come strong
From every point; yet each will speed thy course along,
If thou with steady hand when tempests blow
Canst keep thy course aright and never once let go.
~ Theodore Chickering Williams, from Poems of Belief (1910). The Voyage of Life

Doctors cannot give patients months or years to live. They can only quote statistics. Life is not controlled by statistics; statistics are only numbers. Life is a pact made between an individual being and the spiritual forces of the universe. Only God can know the future.
~ Wendy Williams, The Power Within (1990)

O tangled web! my heart can see
A picture true of life in thee.
~ Effie Williamson, from The Tangled Web: Poems and Hymns (1883). The Tangled Web

I found out life's hard but it ain't impossible.
~ August Wilson, Two Trains Running (1992).

You can't just be alive. Life don't mean something unless it got meaning.
~ August Wilson, Joe Turner's Come and Gone (1984).

You still trying to get something for nothing. Life don't own you nothing. You owe it to yourself.
~ August Wilson, Fences (1985).

If I had my whole life to live over again, I don't think I'd have the strength.
~ Clerow "Flip" Wilson

The cost of living is going up and the chance of living is going down.
~ Clerow "Flip" Wilson

Each species, to put the matter succinctly, is a masterpiece. It deserves that rank in the fullest sense, a creation assembled with extreme care by genius.
~ Edward Osborne (E.O.) Wilson, in Witness: Endangered Species of North America (1994). Introduction

You shouldn't watch life, you should be out in it. If you enjoy watching adventures on television, go out and have an adventure.
~ William Windom, (1969)

Is there not an art, a music, and a stream of words that shalt be life, the acknowledged voice of life?
~ William Wordsworth, from The Recluse, Part I, Book I (published in 1888). Home at Grasmere (written c. 1800)

Life is divided into three terms -- that which was, which is, and which will be. Let us learn from the past to profit by the present, and from the present to live better in the future.
~ William Wordsworth

The dreary intercourse of daily life,
Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb
Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold
Is full of blessings.
~ William Wordsworth

We live by Admiration, Hope, and Love;
And, even as these are well and wisely fixed,
In dignity of being we ascend.
~ William Wordsworth, The Excursion (1814). Book IV: Despondency Corrected

From our birthday, until we die,
Is but the winking of an eye.
~ William Butler Yeats, from The Poetical Works of William B. Yeats (1906-1907). Early Poems: III. The Rose. To Ireland in the Coming Times

Never to have lived is best, ancient writers say;
Never to have drawn the breath of life, never to have looked into the eye of day;
The second best's a gay goodnight and quickly turn away.
~ William Butler Yeats, From Oedipus at Colonus (1928)

The mystical life is the centre of all that I do and all that I think and all that I write. . . .
~ William Butler Yeats

To me all things are made of the conflict of two states of consciousness, beings or persons which die each other's life, live each other's death. That is true of life & death themselves.
~ William Butler Yeats, Letter to Ethel Mannin (20 October 1918).

Why is life a perpetual preparation for something that never happens?
~ William Butler Yeats, Journal entry (16 September 1909)

. . . O hand with strength to take --
O dauntless heart, to suffer, and to dare --
O swerveless will,
To bend, or else to break --
To life, to love, to conquest, and to spoil,
Awake! Awake!
~ William Young, Wishmakers' Town (1885). The Bells