How We Live Our Lives Quotes & Sayings

No matter how perfect our circumstances, most of us, as Adam Phillips observed, "learn to live somewhere between the lives we have and the lives we would like." The hard part is to make peace with that misty zone and to recognize that no life - no life worth living anyway - is free of constraints. — Jennifer Senior

We live our lives by the water and if you don't know how to swim in Australia, it's like not knowing how to cross a road. It's an incredible survival thing that you really must learn when you're a child. — Eric Bana

The system that God has given us is a holistic system. This is why the Torah is concerned with how we treat others, what we eat, how we behave, and how we produce, keep and share our wealth. The word shalom reminds us that we cannot live in peace until we completely take care of all other aspects of our lives. — Celso Cukierkorn

Yet we cannot live our daily lives in a realm of pure ideas, cocooned from sense-experience. The question is not, How can we keep the imagination pure, protected from the onslaughts of reality? The question has to be, Can we find a way for the two to coexist? — J.M. Coetzee

When we ask people to live their lives through our models, we are potentially reducing life itself. How can we ever know what we might be losing? — Jaron Lanier

There is no separation between the gospel and culture, between how we live in society and how we live in our private lives, between the lordship of Jesus inside the four walls of a church building and outside that building. — Michael Brown

It's true that the hatred is still there. But it doesn't change anything. Our obligations are the same - to live and sanctify all life with our own. To participate in the world the best we know how, leaving it a better place than we found it. To raise families and teach our children to value life. What more can we do? Should we refuse to live because of the threat of death hanging over us? We've always been under sentence of death. Every generation that lives out its days in peace is a victory. Every day we live is a victory. — Ovadya Ben Malka

The witness of the Holy Ghost is even more compelling than the witness of sight. As members of the Church, we become witnesses of the Savior and the truthfulness of this work not only in word but also in keeping our covenants and in how we treat others and in how we live our everyday lives. — Loren C. Dunn

I also believe that government has no business telling us how we should live our lives. I think our lifestyle choices should be left up to us. What we do in our private lives is none of the government's business. That position rules out the Republican Party for me. — Jesse Ventura

There's a direct link between percentage of young people that are educated and how we live our lives. — Jeb Bush

How would it change the manner in which we live if we viewed ourselves as stewards of God's gifts, rather than owners of the people and things in our lives? — Anonymous

The most basic principle to being a free American is the notion that we as individuals are responsible for our own lives and decisions. We do not have the right to rob our neighbors to make up for our mistakes, neither does our neighbor have any right to tell us how to live, so long as we aren't infringing on their rights. Freedom to make bad decisions is inherent in the freedom to make good ones. If we are only free to make good decisions, we are not really free. — Ron Paul

Think about it: If there is a Creator who knows us and cares about how we live, then our lives should be profoundly affected. If there is a "history of the uni- verse"-and if we have a personal "history" that continues after the termination of our earthly existence-then this experience we call "life" should take on a totally different meaning, far different than just surviving on earth for as long as and in the most luxurious fashion
possible. — Timothy Johnson

I've heard fate talked of. It's not a word I use. I think we make our own choices. I think how we live our lives is our own doing, and we cannot fully hope on dreams and stars. But dreams and stars can guide us, perhaps. And the heart's voice is a strong one. Always is.
Your heart's voice is your true voice. It is easy to ignore it, for sometimes it says what we'd rather it did not - and it is so hard to risk the things we have. But what life are we living, if we don't live by our hearts? Not a true one. And the person living it is not the true you. — Susan Fletcher

The scenes in our life resemble pictures in a rough mosaic; they are ineffective from close up, and have to be viewed from a distance if they are to seem beautiful. That is why to attain something desired is to discover how vain it is; and why, though we live all our lives in expectation of better things, we often at the same time long regretfully for what is past. The present, on the other hand, is regarded as something quite temporary and serving as the only road to our goal. That is why most men discover when they look back on their life that they have been living the whole time ad interim, and are surprised to see that which they let go by so unregarded and unenjoyed was precisely their life, was precisely that in expectation of which they lived. — Arthur Schopenhauer

I try to imagine how we would live if we didn't know we were going to die. Would we live our lives differently? Less careful, maybe? Less scared? These are beautiful things to think about and build a song around. — Beth Gibbons

We cannot know for certain how long we have here. We cannot foresee the trials or misfortunes that will test us along the way. We cannot know God's plan for us.
What we can do is to live out our lives as best we can with purpose, and love, and joy. We can use each day to show those who are closest to us how much we care about them, and treat others with the kindness and respect that we wish for ourselves. We can learn from our mistakes and grow from our failures. And we can strive at all costs to make a better world, so that someday, if we are blessed with the chance to look back on our time here, we can know that we spent it well; that we made a difference; that our fleeting presence had a lasting impact on the lives of other human beings. — Barack Obama

The church lacks purpose, because we have lost the true power of the Holy Spirit. In the book of acts we saw miracles, and a true purpose driven church, we have traded in our power for money, and material wealth.In most churches preaching has been watered down to motivational speaking. The power of the gospel, is now a distant thought, how do we get a renewal of the power of God, by become the church. Most Christians leave Jesus at church, the power comes when Jesus lives not in the church but in the inside of us. In most churches preaching is being heard, that says God no longer does miracles. But I believe that the greatest miracle of the early Church was there power to live, and die for God. — Jordan Wells

Our decisions define our lives. We are the people we choose to be in the ways that most matter. Choose wisely. You will live with the choices you make.
The choices you make define your character. And your character defines how you feel about yourself. That image of you is projected in hundreds of ways to others. — Vicki Hinze

The lesson, I suppose, is that none of us have much control over how we will be remembered. Every life is an amalgam, and it is impossible to know what moments, what foibles, what charms will come to define us once we're gone. All we can do is live our lives fully, be authentically ourselves, and trust that the right things about us, the best and most fitting things, will echo in the memories of us that endure. — Alice McDermott

Worldly influences would hinder use of our agency afforded through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. But we are agents who can act, and that affects everything in terms of how we live the gospel in our daily lives. It affects how we pray, how we study the scriptures, how we worship at church. — David A. Bednar

Last spring, David had offered this crazy solution to our woes, only half in jest: ... "What if we admitted that we make each other nuts, we fight constantly and hardly ever have sex, but we can't live without each other, so we deal with it? And then we could spend our lives together- in misery, but happy to not be apart." Let it be a testimony to how desperately I love this guy that I have spent the last ten months giving that offer serious consideration. The other alternative in the backs of our minds, of course, was that one of us might change. He might become more open and affectionate, not withholding himself from anyone who loves him on the fear that she will eat his soul. Or I might learn how to ... stop trying to eat his soul. — Elizabeth Gilbert

That's the great, enduring challenge of our modern times, is it not, to marry faith and reason? So hard--so unreasonable--to root our lives upon a distant wisp of holiness. Faith is grand but impractical: How does one live an eternal idea in a daily way? It's so much easier to be reasonable. Reason is practical, its rewards are immediate, its workings are clear. But alas, reason is blind. Reason, on its own, leads us nowhere, especially in the face of adversity. How do we balance the two, how do we live with both faith and reason? — Yann Martel

We have such little mystery in our lives generally because of how we live now. I mean, of course, mystery is all around us, but the way we live our lives now, we're too busy to be bothered with it. — Kate Bush

For many years now I have listened to the stories of people with cancer and other life-threatening illnesses as their counselor. From them I have learned how to enjoy the minute particulars of life once again, the grace of a hot cup of coffee, the presence of a friend, the blessing of having a new cake of soap or an hour without pain. Such humble experience is the stuff that many of the very best stories are made of. If we think we have no stories it is because we have not paid enough attention to our lives. Most of us live lives that are far richer and more meaningful than we appreciate. — Rachel Naomi Remen

We have filled our lives and our churches with more comforts for us, all while turning a blind eye and a deaf ear to abject poverty in others. We need our eyes opened to the implications of the gospel for how we live. — David Platt

Our misconception is in imagining that our suffering or how intensely or how long we grieve is a measure of how much we loved. In truth, none of us would want another's grief as a testimonial of their love for us. More likely we would want our loved ones to live healthy, fulfilled lives without us. — Judy Tatelbaum

Maybe we learn to live our lives by understanding, firsthand, how not to live them. — Jodi Picoult

We sleepwalk through our lives, because how could we live if we were always this awake? — Terry Pratchett

What inspires me is the power of human potential ... the human potential to evolve in our lives, and for profound healing. It's always been there but it's become somewhat obscure to us given the stressful, fast-paced modern culture in which we live. I'm also inspired by how miraculous some of the simplest and most natural aspects of life can be the greatest sources of healing and transformation. — Brad Willis

We have a choice. We can love our lives trying to conform to some nebulous standard, or we can live our lives seeing how everything works. When we step back and look at it that way, it is obvious that the attitude of fascination is the only intelligent one to bring to anything. — Cheri Huber

I have a theory that life is gathering the raw materials, and when we die, we get to make patterns out of our lives and relive them in whatever order we want. That way I can spend forever repeating the days when I was really happy, and never have to experience any of the sad days. So that's how you live a really great life. You make sure you have enough good days that you want to go back to. — Robyn Schneider

You don't realize how small you really are until you're faced with something like that. We live our lives as if we're at the center of our own universe, but we're just tiny pieces of a shattered whole. — Cora Carmack

We live in the midst of an evil world, and see few with us, and many against us. We carry within us a weak heart, too ready at any moment to turn aside from the right way. We have near us, at every moment, a busy devil, watching continually for our halting, and seeking to lead us into temptation. Where shall we turn for comfort? What shall keep faith alive, and preserve us from sinking in despair? There is only one answer. We must look to Jesus. We must think on His almighty power, and His wonders of old time. We must call to mind how He can create food for His people out of nothing, and supply the needs of those who follow Him, even in the wilderness. And as we think these thoughts, we must remember that this Jesus still lives, never changes, and is on our side. — J.C. Ryle

The reason for problems in our churches is not that we are all evil people. It is simply that we have not learned the ways of the King and His Kingdom enough for Him to influence how we think and live in every part of our lives. — Bill Johnson

This is how we always feel, she thought. We sleepwalk through our lives, because how could we live if we were always this awake? Someone — Terry Pratchett

Free a man of the constraints that limit and inhibit his development, and you have a free human being. Freedom is the natural state of man." He looked away from the boy for a moment and recalled his youth, his own search for self. "My boy," he imparted with a ferocious passion that shook them both by the throat, "there is nothing negative about our human potential - do you understand me? God Himself created you the way you are. Do not let anyone in this world convince you otherwise. And you are capable of anything, my boy. There is and shall always be a disparity among the gifts God has granted men, but we all deserve equal consideration. All men, no matter how low, how basic, or how tormented, deserve compassion, dignified brotherhood, and respect.
"But part of respecting all men is respecting ourselves. Recognizing that God has blessed you. By embracing these gifts, we live as God lives, with love for all He has created - with an open heart. — Alexandra Silber

I met this amazing person, and we realized we had very similar views on how we wanted to live our lives. It's happened quickly, with so many children. Yesterday, picking up the kids from school, Brad turned around in the car, and there were three of them. He couldn't stop laughing. We love them and are having a great time. — Angelina Jolie

The scriptures teach us the ways of the Lord. They answer questions about how to live today. They bring a light and a spirit into our lives that we can get in no other way. — Margaret D. Nadauld

We have to keep asking ourselves: 'What does it all mean? What is God trying to tell us? How are we called to live in the midst of all this?' Without such questions our lives become numb and flat. — Henri J.M. Nouwen

And so we have the result noted: the resources of God's kingdom remain detached from human life. There is no gospel for human life and Christian discipleship, just one for death or one for social action. The souls of human beings are left to shrivel and die on the plains of life because they are not introduced into the environment for which they were made, the living kingdom of eternal life. To counteract this we must develop a straightforward presentation, in word and life, of the reality of life now under God's rule, through reliance upon the word and person of Jesus. In this way we can naturally become his students or apprentices. We can learn from him how to live our lives as he would live them if he were we. We can enter his eternal kind of life now. — Dallas Willard

Our lives say much more about how we think than our books do. The theories we preach are not always the ones we actually believe. The theories we live are the ones we really believe. — R.C. Sproul

Every day that we can open our eyes and take a look at the world around us, is another day to be thankful for. It's a chance to remember how far we've come, and to remember how we did it -- by being honest with ourselves about who we are and what we've done. By letting hope back into our lives, and learning to lean on those who care when we're too weak to stand on our own two feet.

It hasn't been easy, and it never will be. After all, every day is also a chance to slide back into the darkness. To live in ourselves and our regrets, instead of this moment. To run away from those that would help us and let self-hatred drive us back into isolation, despair, and destruction.

So let's make a promise this morning -- that we will spend today with our eyes fixed forward.

Step by step, we will do things that help make life better, for ourselves and those around us. Because just as they have forgiven us -- we must also forgive ourselves. — Nick Spencer

Think about George Orwell's three-minute hate from the novel '1984' and how that left everyone sort of exhausted and able to live their boring humdrum lives. If our lives are going to continue being unfulfilled and boring, perhaps we do need some sort of short-term violent chaos incorporated into them, to make them more palatable. — Chuck Palahniuk

I can identify with other people and situations, but I tend not to. I would rather recall things from my own life, and I don't have to force myself ... Just being in certain environments triggers a response in my brain, a certain feeling I want to articulate. For some reason, I am attracted to self-destruction. I know that personal sacrifice has a great deal to do with how we live or don't live our lives. — Bob Dylan

Here is the endurance and the faith of the saints. Revelation 13:10 How does a believer get her thoughts to bow to the truth? By believing, speaking, and applying truth as a lifestyle. This step is something we live, not just something we do. We can't just shout, "Sit!" and expect the dog to stay there for a week. We've worked a long time to get that dog to sit, but it's still not going to sit forever. We don't achieve victory once and never have to bother with that thought problem again. Our thought life is something we'll be working on the rest of our lives in our desire to be godly. — Beth Moore

Human beings have the largest impact on the overall health of the planet, and therefore we should be more responsible with how we live our lives. All of the tragedies that we are experiencing today can be linked back to the actions of human beings. — Joseph P. Kauffman

The real meditation practice is how we live our lives from moment to moment to moment. — Jon Kabat-Zinn

The way we get to live forever is through memories stored in the hearts and souls of those whose lives we touch. That's our soul print. It's our comfort, our emotional nourishment at the end of the day and the end of a life. How wonderful that they are called up at will and savored randomly. It seems to me we should spend our lives in a conscious state of creating these meaningful moments that live on. Memories matter. — Leeza Gibbons

Sometimes, I imagine how great it would be if we could live our lives without bothering other people. — Haruki Murakami

We live in a culture of a big me. We're encouraged - we raise our kids to think how great they are, where we have to market ourselves to get through life. We're in social media, where we broadcast highlight - highlight reels of our own lives on Facebook. — David Brooks

What I feel I can do is help people become aware of how pervasive and extensive the arts are, how they affect each one of us in our daily lives - what kind of [buildings] we live in, what kind of clothes we wear, what we see with our eyes. We are often blind to the beautiful things around us. What I'm mostly concerned about is how often we're blind to our own talent. I think that within each human being there is a creative spirit, and some of us have been fortunate enough to have good teachers and parents who've brought this out and encouraged it, but others haven't. — Joan Mondale

Beauty consists of its own passing, just as we reach for it. It's the ephemeral configuration of things in the moment, when you see both their beauty and their death.
... Does this mean that this is how we must live our lives? Constantly poised between beauty and death, between movement and its disappearance?
Maybe that's what being alive is all about: so we can track down those moments that are dying. — Muriel Barbery

Happiness isn't found in some finite checklist of goals that we can diligently complete and then coast. It's how we live our lives in the process. That's why the four pillars of happiness are faith, family, community and meaningful work. Those are priorities we have to keep investing in. — Arthur C. Brooks

I believe that words can help us move or keep us paralyzed, and that our choices of language and verbal tone have something - a great deal - to do with how we live our lives. — Adrienne Rich

of how we live our lives must encompass ALL scripture, not just what sounds good or what we are familiar with, or what seems easiest. It is a collection of teachings, examples, instructions, and even the corrective nature of the great I AM. — Brandy Dillon

Supernatural horror was one of the ways we found that would allow us to live with our double selves. By its employ, we discovered how to take all the things that victimize us in our natural lives and turn them into the very stuff of demonic delight in our fantasy lives. In story and song, we could entertain ourselves with the worst we could think of, overwriting real pains with ones that were unreal and harmless to our species. — Thomas Ligotti

When we recognise that unity of all living things, then at once arises the question - how can we support this life of ours with least injury to the lives around us; how can we prevent our own life adding to the suffering of the world in which we live? — Annie Besant

We hate our parents for having their own lives, don't we, for making decisions for themselves that don't seem to take us into account. They're not people, not really. They're parents; how dare they live and love and die without us? — Lisa Unger

Are the fae ever sane? We live in a world that isn't there half the time. We claim that windmills are giants, and because we say it, it's true. Our lives become myth and legend, until even we can't tell what we truly are from what we're told we ought to be. How can we live that way and be considered sane? My lord was never sane, but he was my love once. He always will be, somewhere. Wherever it is that the once upon a times go when they die. — Seanan McGuire

All the wonders you seek are within yourself. We should seek to discover our own special light. Know how to live within yourself; there in your soul lives a whole world of mysterious and enchanted thoughts; they will be drowned by noise of this world. Be still and listen to their singing and be silent. — Fyodor Tyutchev

We live in a time when the values of courage and honesty, particularly for women writers, equate to confessing only the darkest, most painful parts of our lives. "How brave you are," my students say to each other over workshop tables, "to expose that." Meaning, to uncover this family secret or that heinous act or to openly confront the demons of alcoholism, promiscuity, substance abuse, incest, infidelity, illness, betrayal ... I have also wrestled many dark angels, and continue to do so, so I acknowledge the price such writing exacts. But more and more I have come to respect the honesty and courage required to recognize the bright angels when they appear in our memory, and to allow them equal space in our narratives. — Rebecca McClanahan

We live in a world of shadow and light, pain and joy. We spend our entire lives investigating the many possible patterns of human experience including interactions between humankind and nature and with one another. We must learn from our chronicles and assist future generations by living a fully engaged life attempting to ascertain how to live in an authentic and joyous manner. — Kilroy J. Oldster

At some point, our faith and our words must become our actions and lives. Do we talk more about God than we obey him? We aren't going to get to heaven and have God say, "Thanks for talking about doing so much for me with your friends. That was awesome!" Many of us have sat in Bible studies or retreats or church talking about what we want to change and how we want to live for God, only to go home and back to the routine of life. Change is a funny thing. It takes change to change. — Jennie Allen

When we think a thought enough times it becomes a belief and that belief becomes a pattern which, in turn, becomes how we live our lives. — Sherree Mongrain

How do we live in freedom? We live in freedom when we come to believe, know, receive, and embrace the boundless love of God for us - when we are captured by his goodness, his faithfulness, his honor, his sacrifice, his heart that yearns for us. Then we can dance for an audience of One. Because we are so completely loved. We are safe and secure in the love of God. Every moment of our lives. — Stasi Eldredge

Do you ever think about the ocean?" Nick asked me.
"What about it?" I said.
"Like what could live down there? Like how there's as much life down there as up here? Maybe more?"
"God Lives Underwater," said someone. "That's the name of a band. They're awesome."
"But seriously," Nick said, "it's like an alternate universe. Right here on our own planet."
"Right here, a hundred feet from us," said Sheila.
"Right here in my hair," said one of the girls who had swum, pulling some sea gunk out of her wet hair.
Everyone laughed quietly at that. Nick drank his beer. The wood crackled as it burned. We all stared at the black ocean. — Blake Nelson

Diversity matters. Not only in what we look like, or what religion we practice, or in whom we love, but also in how we live our lives, including the order in which we go about things, the seasons in which we are able to create art. Those who are engaged in the arts should be the last to send any other message, because when artists endorse the traditional order of a society, it suggests that they have forgotten their own true role within it. — Robin Black

Everything in the universe is constantly changing, and nothing stays the same, and we must understand how quickly time flows by if we are to wake up and truly live our lives. — Ruth Ozeki

Nevertheless we are free individuals, and this freedom condemns us to make choices throughout our lives. There are no eternal values or norms we can adhere to, which makes our choices even more significant. Because we are totally responsible for everything we do. Sartre emphasized that man must never disclaim the responsibility for his actions. Nor can we avoid the responsibility of making our own choices on the grounds that we "must" go to work, or we "must" live up to certain middle-class expectations regarding how we should live. Those who thus slip into the anonymous masses will never be other than members of the impersonal flock, having fled from themselves into self-deception. On the other hand our freedom obliges us to make something of ourselves, to live "authentically" or "truly". — Jostein Gaarder

How we start our day is often how we live our lives — Louise Hay

Come and let us live my Deare,
Let us love and never feare,
What the sowrest Fathers say:
Brightest Sol that dies to day
Lives againe as blithe to morrow,
But if we darke sons of sorrow
Set; o then, how long a Night
Shuts the Eyes of our short light!
Then let amorous kisses dwell
On our lips, begin and tell
A Thousand, and a Hundred, score
An Hundred, and a Thousand more,
Till another Thousand smother
That, and that wipe of another.
Thus at last when we have numbred
Many a Thousand, many a Hundred;
Wee'l confound the reckoning quite,
And lose our selves in wild delight:
While our joyes so multiply,
As shall mocke the envious eye. — Richard Crashaw

Every single human being is trying his best. We're all doing the best we can. But when we believe what we think, we have to live out those thoughts. When there's chaos in our heads, there's chaos in our lives. When there's hurt in our thinking, there's hurt in our lives. Love thy neighbor as thyself? I always have. When I hated me, I hated you. That's how it works. If I hate someone, I'm mistaking them for me, and solutions remain hidden. — Byron Katie

I think sometimes we are reckless with our hearts the way we are with our lives. When we give them away, we give every piece. And if we do not get what we so desperately need, how do we live? — Cassandra Clare

We can choose the narrative we tell about our lives. We're born into cultures, nations and languages that we didn't choose. We're born with certain brain chemicals and genetic predispositions that we can't control. We're sometimes thrust into social conditions that we detest. But among all the things we don't control, we do have some control over our stories. We do have a conscious say in selecting the narrative we will use to organize perceptions. — David Brooks

Because I wasn't anything anymore. Not anythingI love or know or care about. Because thou shalt not kill, Kade. Thou shalt not kill. With all my heart I believed this. And I killed. So what am I now? And why should I live? How am I even alive? Because if this is what our lives are
if doing this to others before they do it to us is all our lives are
we're already dead. Honest to God I feel it, Kade. I'm dead. The hell with me. — David James Duncan

We all have an eraser incorporated within us, a delete key, but we forget how to use it. Ho'oponopono helps us to remember the power that we have to choose between erasing (letting go) or reacting, being happy or suffering. It is only a matter of choice in every moment of our lives. — Mabel Katz

We cannot hope to die peacefully if our lives have been full of violence, or if our minds have mostly been agitated by emotions like anger, attachment, or fear. So if we wish to die well, we must learn how to live well: Hoping for a peaceful death, we must cultivate peace in our mind, and in our way of life. — Dalai Lama

Aunt Grace was leaving ... Looking after her a moment, Laura had another feeling of tenderness toward her. How we live our lives side by side with those whom we never know or understand. — Bess Streeter Aldrich

Then there are also the quiet deaths. How about the day you realized you weren't going to be an astronaut or the queen of Sheba? Feel the silent distance between yourself and how you felt as a child, between yourself and those feelings of wonder and splendor and trust. Feel the mature fondness for who you once were, and your current need to protect innocence wherever you make might find it. The silence that surrounds the loss of innocence is a most serious death, and yet it is necessary for the onset of maturity.

What about the day we began working not for ourselves, but rather with the hope that our kids have a better life? Or the day we realize that, on the whole, adult life is deeply repetitive? As our lives roll into the ordinary, when our ideals sputter and dissipate, as we wash the dishes after yet another meal, we are integrating death, a little part of us is dying so that another part can live. — Matthew Sanford

This is a massive world, I think, and in each centimeter of it, a different drama unfolds every second of the day. But we live on as if the next moment in our lives will be no different than the last. How foolish we all are. — Mahbod Seraji

You know? Ain't it ironic how we live our entire lives without the luxury of time, only to spend an eternity in death. — Jason Medina

What if we all carried little timers that counted down the days of our lives? Maybe the timer's a bit dramatic. Just the date would do. It could be tattooed on our foreheads like the expiration date on a milk bottle. It might be a good thing. Maybe we'd stop wasting our lives worrying about things that never happen or collecting things that we can't take with us. We'd probably treat people better. We certainly wouldn't be screaming at someone who had a day left. Maybe people would finally stop living like they're immortal. Maybe we could finally learn how to live. — Richard Paul Evans

For true peace of mind we must acknowledge whatever fault we live upon, whatever time bomb ticks in our closet, and enjoy our Shangri-la nonetheless. It isn't the absence of the problem; it is how one lives in its presence that matters. — Chungliang Al Huang

How we live our lives does not,unfortunately depend on us alone.Circumstances,good or bad,constantly intervene.A person close to us die.A person not so close to us carries on living.All these things affect how we live. — Tariq Ali

But in short, the recipe for a growing person is always grace plus truth over time. Give a person grace (unmerited favor) an truth (structure), and do that over time, and you have the greatest chance of this person growing into a person of good character. Grace includes support, resources, love, compassion, forgiveness, and all of the relations sides of God's nature. Truth is the structure of life; it tells us how we are supposed to live our lives and how life really works. — Henry Cloud

Have you ever wondered why we bury and cremate our dead? Nothing to do with hygiene, it's just so we don't have to see the reality of death. You know, the Zoroastrians used to leave their dead in open places for the birds to eat. Now that's a far more honest way to go, don't you agree? Everyone can see what happens. It makes us live our lives more potently. That's how I want to go, at my end: openly. Not ashamed of death, but embracing it. — Cliff James

I don't think we get exempt from the pain because we live good lives. Some circumstances we can't control - in fact, most are truly beyond our abilities. Instead maybe it's how we get made new; it's one of the only times we slow down enough to listen and receive grace, real grace. — Katherine Reay

Evil is real - and powerful. It has to be fought, not explained away, not fled. And God is against evil all the way. So each of us has to decide where WE stand, how we're going to live OUR lives. We can try to persuade ourselves that evil doesn't exist; live for ourselves and wink at evil. We can say that it isn't so bad after all, maybe even try to call it fun by clothing it in silks and velvets. We can compromise with it, keep quiet about it and say it's none of our business. Or we can work on God's side, listen for His orders on strategy against the evil, no matter how horrible it is, and know that He can transform it. — Catherine Marshall

Am I sure that there is no mind behind our existence and no mystery anywhere in the universe? I think I am. What joy, what relief there would be, if we could declare so with complete conviction. If that were so I could wish to live for ever. How terrifying and glorious the role of man if, indeed, without guidance and without consolation he must create from his own rituals the meaning for his existence and write the rules whereby he lives. — Thornton Wilder

And even when our lives are good, how do we live in joy when so many others are suffering: when crushing poverty robs people of their future, when violence and terror fill our streets, and when ecological devastation endangers the very possibility of life on our planet? — Dalai Lama XIV

And that's how it is in America. We look to our communities, our faiths, our families for our joy, our support, in good times and bad. It is both how we live our lives and why we live our lives. — Mitt Romney

Our souls are not hungry for fame, comfort, wealth, or power. Our souls are hungry for meaning, for the sense that we have figured out how to live so that our lives matter. — Harold S. Kushner

We all get so caught up in our day-to-day lives and have so many gripes. But when you see the way others live and how they make the best of it, you'll realize how lucky you are. — Kristin Davis

Our government, taxes, and ideas of freedom are already duplicates of the Old World. Our politicians determine how we should live our lives - and our individual liberties are sacrificed for the benefit of the Fatherland. — Harry Browne

I suppose this is what I meant when I wrote what I did, sweet pea, about how it is we cannot possibly know what will manifest in our lives. We live and have experiences and leave people we love and get left by them. People we thought would be with us forever aren't and people we didn't know would come into our lives do. Our work here is to keep faith with that, to put it in a box and wait. To trust that someday we will know what it means, so that when the ordinary miraculous is revealed to us we will be there, standing before the baby girl in the pretty dress, grateful for the smallest things. — Cheryl Strayed

Whether we're the largest, smallest, most or least significant thing in the universe makes for a marvelous late-night discussion. It's not relevant to how we live in the here and now. We need to look around, take measure of ourselves, and decide what we can do and how much of it we do to improve our lives and the lives of as many others as we can reach. — Nikki Stern

Animals are here to live their lives. We are here to live ours. We can live well without eating them. How pathetic it is that we have to eat a life just to live our lives! — Debasish Mridha

God cares about our dietary choices. This should come as no surprise; you only have to read the first two chapters of Genesis to see God's concern for food. Humanity's first sin was disobedience manifested in a choice about eating. Adam and Eve were allowed to eat anything they wanted, except the one fruit they chose. And the New Testament makes clear that God cares about the most basic quotidian aspect of our lives. (Our God, after all, is the God who provides for the sparrows and numbers the hairs on our heads.) This God who is interested in how we speak, how we handle our money, how we carry our bodies - He is also interested in how we live with food. — Lauren F. Winner

As I come to understand the many talents and characteristics of women, I realize how needed their strengths are in this dispensation. We must remember that we are daughters of God here to provide nurturing care for one another, family and friends--loving care to soften the changes of life felt by all.

What a great opportunity we have to fill our God-given role. He has given us the privilege to shape the lives of those entrusted to our care. Even those of us who have not been blessed to have children of our own can still be influential as trainers and nurturers. It does not matter where we live, whether we are rich or poor, whether our family is large or small. Each of us can share that Christ-like love in our "motherly ministry. — Barbara W. Winder