Quotes & Sayings About Life And How Short It Is

He lives hard, works hard, has but few comforts and fewer necessities. He has but little, if any, taste for reading. He enjoys a coarse practical joke or smutty story; loves danger but abhors labor of the common kind; never tires riding, never wants to walk, no matter how short the distance he desires to go. He would rather fight with pistols than pray; loves tobacco, liquor and women better than any other trinity. His life borders nearly upon that of an Indian. If he reads anything, it is in most cases a blood and thunder story of sensational style. He enjoys his pipe, and relishes a practical joke on comrades, or a corrupt tale, wherein abounds much vulgarity and animal propensity. — Joseph Mccoy

You can't imagine fame. You can only ever see it from an outsider and comment on it with the rueful wisdom of a non participant. When it happens to you, it doesn't matter what age or how, it is a very steep learning curve. The imprtanot thing to realize in all of it is that life is short, to protect the ones you love, and not expose yourself to too much abuse or narcissistic reflection gazing and move on. If fame affords me the type of ability to do the kind of work I'm being offered, who am I to complain about the downsides. It's all relative. And this are obviously very high class problems. The way privacy becomes an every shrinking island is inevitable but also manageable and it doesn't necessary have to get that way ... — Benedict Cumberbatch

Being a mum makes you more aware of how short life is and how important it is to enjoy every minute because you have less time for yourself. A day doesn't have 24 hours any more - it only lasts 10, or eight. So you learn to get rid of all the parasites. I'm not talking about people, but things that could be toxic for happiness. — Ludivine Sagnier

Anyway, that's the past, and what matters is the future. That's how life works, because it's short and precious and kind of doubtful. — Terry Brooks

I've never been good at writing letters, so I hope you'll forgive me if I'm not able to make myself clear.
I've been thinking about you constantly since I left, wondering why the journey I'm on seemed to have led through you. I know my journey's not over yet, and that life is a winding path, but I can only hope it somehow circles back to the place I belong.
That's how I think of it now. I belong with you.
It is almost as if a part of you is with me. I want to believe that's true. No, change that - I know it's true. Before we met, I was as lost as a person could be, and yet you saw something in me that somehow gave me direction again. It was you, that I had been looking for all along. And it's you who is with me now.
I realize that I miss you more than I've ever missed anyone. In the short time we spent together, we had what most people can only dream about, and I'm counting the days until I can see you again. Never forget how much I love you. — Unknown

We are reminded how short life really is, and how we are just passing through. So, all the people you haven't told you love lately, tell them, and live your days like you mean it. — Hal Sutton

Renouncing false beliefs will not usher in the millennium. Few things about the strategy of contemporary apologists are more repellent than their frequent recourse to spurious alternatives. The lesser lights inform us that the alternative to Christianity is materialism, thus showing how little they have read, while the greater lights talk as if the alternative were bound to be a shallow and inane optimism. I don't believe that man will turn this earth into a bed of roses either with the aid of God or without it. Nor does life among the roses strike me as a dream from which one would not care to wake up after a very short time. — Walter Kaufmann

Consider the whole universe whereof thou art but a very little part, and the whole age of the world together, whereof but a short and very momentary portion is allotted unto thee, and all the fates and destinies together, of which how much is it that comes to thy part and share. — Marcus Aurelius

Whether I will live a long time or a short time, I'm alive now, at this moment. What I want is to know that there are other things to hope for besides length of life. What I want to know is that it isn't necessary to turn away from thoughts of suffering or death but neither is it necessary to give these thoughts too much time and space. What I want is to be intimate with the knowledge that life is temporary. And then, in the light (or shadow) of that knowledge, to know how to live. How to live now. — Irvin D. Yalom

Read poetry every day of your life. Poetry is good because it flexes muscles you don't use often enough. Poetry expands the senses and keeps them in prime condition. It keeps you aware of your nose, your eye, your ear, your tongue, your hand.
And, above all, poetry is compacted metaphor or simile. Such metaphors, like Japanese paper flowers, may expand outward into gigantic shapes. Ideas lie everywhere through the poetry books, yet how rarely have I heard short story teachers recommending them for browsing.
What poetry? Any poetry that makes your hair stand up along your arms. Don't force yourself too hard. Take it easy. Over the years you may catch up to, move even with, and pass T. S. Eliot on your way to other pastures. You say you don't understand Dylan Thomas? Yes, but your ganglion does, and your secret wits, and all your unborn children. Read him, as you can read a horse with your eyes, set free and charging over an endless green meadow on a windy day. — Ray Bradbury

It is the life-affirming genius of baseball that the short can pummel the tall, the rotund can make fools of the sleek, and no matter how far down you find yourself in the bottom of the ninth you can always pull out a miracle. — Bill Vaughn

Appreciate life and those in it while you've got it. We can all do a little better at appreciating the miracle of life and the lives of those we love. Starting right now, we can say, do, and love a little bit better. After all, a life full of love is a life fully lived, and a life fully lived is a miracle, no matter how long--or short--it may be. — Christina G. Hibbert

The saying is, life is short, but what if it's not? But if life is short, is this how you would like to spend your last days? And if life is long, is this how you want to spend 50, 60, or 70 years? Being ashamed? Being quiet? Hoping no one notices you? Not telling the truth? Walking around heavy? If I die in my sleep tonight, God forbid, I am happy with how I've lived my life. I've lived it truthfully. — Karrine Steffans

If you want to be reborn,' it is written in the Tao Te Ching, 'let yourself die.' This is what I've been having trouble with, the fact that letting go can feel, at times, like a death. Someday, I know, I will lose everything. All the small deaths along the way are practice runs for the big ones, asking us to learn to be present, to grow in faith, to be grateful for what is. Life is finite and short. But this new task, figuring out how to let go of so much that has been precious
my children, my youth, my life as I know it
can feel like a bitter foretaste of other losses yet to come. — Katrina Kenison

Life is very, very short, and you can choose to live it how you want. You can choose to dumb yourself down and not express yourself just so you can fit in, just so people won't dislike you. — Gerard Way

Life is too damn short and [screwed] up to go through it silently loving someone and never telling them how you feel. [Screw] the consequences, [screw] the implications of the actions, to hell with it all ... whatever happens as a result is better than the nothingness that is inevitable with silence. — Janis Joplin

If I'm wrong, and you find yourself in an organization where sucking up is in fact a good way to get ahead, look for a new job. It's not a quality organization after all, no matter how glittering its public reputation may be. Life is too short to work there. — Charles Murray

I recall those beautiful summer mornings with my parents by the sandy beach of Belek. My father used to teach me how to ride waves. I remember him constantly emphasizing the fact that no wave, no matter how big it is should stir enough fear inside me to keep me glued to the shore. He used to repeat those words while glancing at my mother with a smile that could set the whole sea on fire. My mother, sitting on the beach, too afraid of the deep blue sea, contented herself with building sand castles, ones my father would step on trying to drag her hopelessly into water.
Step on your sand castle and dive deep. Dive deep into the unknown. Life is damn too short for building sand castles. — Malak El Halabi

As soon as I moved to New York, I experienced Hurricane Irene and then Hurricane Sandy hit me in quite a big way. I had 12 days without any electricity or any water. The thing that I realized the most from it was that we've become so dependent on technology. There's so much accessibility to information that suddenly when everything is cut off, you're completely lost, and you start asking deeper and more profound questions - how short life is, and how grateful we should be for things. — Archie Panjabi

Fair ... You'd be amazed how often I hear that word, Frank Zhang,and how meaningless it is. Is it fair your life will burn so short and bright? Was it fair when I guided your mother to the Underworld? No, not fair. And yet it was her time. There is no fairness in Death. If you free me, I will do my duty. — Rick Riordan

You see, the Mets are losers, just like nearly everybody else in life. This is a team for the cab driver who gets held up and the guy who loses out on a promotion because he didn't maneuver himself to lunch with the boss enough. It is the team for every guy who has to get out of bed in the morning and go to work for short money on a job he does not like. And it is the team for every woman who looks up ten years later and sees her husband eating dinner in a t-shirt and wonders how the hell she ever let this guy talk her into getting married. The Yankees? Who does well enough to root for them, Laurence Rockefeller? — Jimmy Breslin

Poetry is like a portrait of a moment or person, and the poem is almost like looking at a photograph; it slaps you in the face and kisses you at the same time. Nothing else does that, with that brevity. Songs try to do it, but that's three minutes. A poem, you read it and it kind of changes your life and you don't know how it happened and you can never forget it. It's like the best song lyric, the best line from a film-everything in the world that's short and great put together. — Warsan Shire

WHEN RELIGION CANNOT KNEEL Aristotle said democracy would only work in a culture already committed to virtue. There is no communal myth left that teaches us the essentially tragic nature of human life; there is no vision that proclaims the primacy of the common good; there is no transcendent image that makes human virtue a divine reflection. There is No One to reflect and No One to love and serve. I do not want to belong to a religion that cannot kneel. I do not want to live in a world where there is No One to adore. It is a lonely and labored world if I am its only center. My life is too short to discover wisdom on my own, to identify and properly name my own self-importance, to learn how to love if I have to start at zero. — Richard Rohr

Coming from where we do, it's a rough adjustment - living here." He put a hesitant hand on her shoulder, his calluses scratching against the fabric of her dress. "It's true what they say about life in the dark ages, you know: nasty, brutish, and short. You and I once took it for granted we would die as old people in our beds, but we have no such assurance now. I'll help you how I can, Isabella; but I can't guarantee that either of us will live even to see tomorrow. Life is worth fighting for, young lady. But don't feel it is something you're owed. — Kristin McTiernan

We all have the ability to be successful. But the truth about success is that it starts from within you. It starts by changing your internal thoughts about how you feel. Once you do that, the world is in your hands. You literally have the ability to have anything you want as long as your internal thoughts truly reflect what you want in your life and what you believe you can achieve. — Monica Breckenridge

The thing that I learned early on is you really need to set goals in your life, both short-term and long-term, just like you do in business. Having that long-term goal will enable you to have a plan on how to achieve it. — Denise Morrison

In the days of the Roman Colosseum, captured soldiers were regularly thrown to the lions. But one soldier earned a reputation for bravery and managed to save his life by a bold act. When a lion sprang toward him with lunch on its mind, the man whispered something in the lion's ear just at the last moment. The lion cowered, turned a sickly green, and then slunk back into its cage. This happened again and again, with even the empire's fiercest lions turning tail once they had heard what the man whispered. The emperor, curious to understand the man's power over these beasts, promised him his life in exchange for the secret of how he caused the lions to leave him alone. "It's simple," the soldier told the emperor. "When a lion is about to attack, I just whisper, 'After you've eaten, they're going to ask you to make a short speech.' Works every time.
— Arthur H. Bell

Shortness of life was a primary force in the permanence of institutions, strange though it is to say it. But it is so much easier to hold onto whatever short-term survival scheme you have, rather than risking it all on a new plan that might not work - no matter how destructive your short-term plan might be for the following generations. Let them deal with it, you know. And really, to give them their due, by the time people learned the system they were old and dying, and for the next generation it was all there, massive and entrenched and having to be learned all over again. — Kim Stanley Robinson

Power doesnt come from fights, and fist, and musles, it comes from the heart. -Dina"

"Life is short, live it to the fullest. -Dina"

"Never let your anger out when your angry, keep it inside. Let the people who your angry with know how strong you are. -Dina"

"Put a smile on your face no matter what happens. keep walking forward because you cant changed what already happened. -Dina"

"Never look back, keep walking forward, this is the path you chosed. -Dina"

"Don't ruin your life because of a small mistake. -Dina"

"We people do not need god to make things happen, we need the will and courage to do it ourselves.-Dina"

"I wonder what life would be like if i didnt have the people i have today. -Dina"

"I wonder what life would be like for others if i wasn't born. -Dina — What

If you're not doing something with your life, then it doesn't matter how long you live. If you're doing something with your life, then it doesn't matter how short your life may be. A life is not measured by years lived, but by its usefulness. If you are giving, loving, serving, helping, encouraging, and adding value to others, then you're living a life that counts! — John C. Maxwell

It is only by seeing women in their own homes, among their own set, just as they always are, that you can form any just judgment. Short of that, it is all guess and luck - and will generally be ill-luck. How many a man has committed himself on a short acquaintance, and rued it all the rest of his life! — Jane Austen

Oh, captive, bound, and double-chained!" cried the phantom, "who does not understand the toll of a lifetime of incessant labor by man, an immortal creature! For this flesh must pass into eternity before the good of which it is capable can be understood. How tragic not to know that a Christian spirit working kindly in its little realm of influence, whatever it may be, will find its mortal life too short for the vast opportunities it has to be useful. Not to know that no regret can ever make amends for one missed life's opportunity! Yet such was I! Oh, such was I! — Charles Dickens

It is not from choice that my life is music and nothing more, but when one is an artist what else can he be? When a whole lifetime is too short to attain the heights he wants to reach, how then can he devote any of the little time he has to things outside of his art? — Ignacy Jan Paderewski

The condition of all who are preoccupied is wretched, but most wretched is the condition of those who labor at preoccupations that are not even their own, who regulate their sleep by that of another, their walk by the pace of another, who are under orders in case of the freest things in the world-loving and hating. If these wish to know how short their life is, let them reflect how small a part of it is their own. — Seneca The Younger

If someone called me chubby, it would no longer be something that kept me up late at night. Being called fat is not like being called stupid or unfunny, which is the worst thing you could ever say to me. Do I envy Jennifer Hudson for being able to lose all that weight and look smokin' hot? Of course, yes. Do I sometimes look at Gisele Bundchen and wonder how awesome life would be if I never had to wear Spanx? Duh, of course. That's kind of the point of Gisele Bundchen. And maybe I will, once or twice, for a very short period of time. But on the list of things I want to do in my lifetime, that's not near the top. I mean, it's not near the bottom either. I'd say it's right above "Learn to drive a vespa," but several notches below "film a chase scene for a movie. — Mindy Kaling

Aurelius says that one reason it doesn't matter how long you live is that this is not theatre, that the whole is not the thing. Each moment is the thing. The soul obtains its own end, wherever the limit of life may be fixed. Not as ... in a play ... where the whole action is incomplete if anything cuts it short; but in every part and wherever it be stopped, it makes what has been set before it full and complete, so that it can say, 'I have what is my own. — Jennifer Michael Hecht

Happiness is not a zero-sum game. It's the only case in which the resources are limitless, and in which the rich can get richer at no expense to anyone else. That day in the park, I found it remarkably easy to own my happiness and celebrate Kate's as well.
It's a strange thing, though, how rare, maybe impossible, it is to have everyone you care about thriving at the same time. For a short spell, life seems certain and stable, until something shifts and redistributes, randomly, unpredictably, and when you look around at the new landscape, you see that it's someone else's turn now. You redirect your attention to focus on the friend in need. You hope - you know - they will do the same for you, when your turn comes. — Amy Poeppel

We've got one life and the older we get the more we come to realize how short it is. — Brian Lumley

Too many people believe that everything must be pleasurable in life, which makes them constantly search for distractions and short-circuits the learning process. The pain is a kind of challenge your mind presents - will you learn how to focus and move past the boredom, or like a child will you succumb to the need for immediate pleasure and distraction? Much as with physical exercise, you can even get a kind of perverse pleasure out of this pain, knowing the benefits it will bring you. In any event, you must meet any boredom head-on and not try to avoid or repress it. Throughout your life you will encounter tedious situations, and you must cultivate the ability to handle them with discipline. — Robert Greene

There is a word I have always avoided in my writing, my life, my thoughts. That word is love. What does it mean? How do you deal with it? If you find it and lose it, how do you get over it? Love is something you feel and when you feel it you can't trust it or define it. How can you sustain love for a long time? A short time? You may love your family, your friends. But you don't invite them inside your body. — Chloe Thurlow

You could make a good case that the history of social life is about the history of the technology of memory. That social order and control, structure of governance, social cohesion in states or organizations larger than face-to- face society depends on the nature of the technology of memory-both how it works and what it remembers In short, what societies value is what they memorize, and how they memorize it, and who has access to its memorized form determines the structure of power that the society represents and acts from. — Eben Moglen

When I was a child, the lessons my father taught me had been about perseverance, never to accept limitations that stood in my way. As an adult, watching him in his final years, I also saw how to come to terms with limits that couldn't simply be wished away. When to shift from pushing against limits to making the best of them is not often readily apparent. But it is clear that are times when the cost of pushing exceeds its value. Helping my father through the struggle to define that moment was simultaneously among the most painful and most privileged experiences of my life. Part of the way my father handled the limits he faced was by looking at them without illusion. Though his circumstances sometimes got him down, he never pretended they were better than they were. He always understood that life is short and one's place in the world is small. But he also saw himself as a link in a chain of history. — Atul Gawande

Intelligence is attractive, but so is life experience. You can't amass it just by reading a ton of books. But you can live a lot of life in a short time. Travel. Talk to everyone. Collect adventures, and use them to understand the world. That's how you learn to treat people well. And that's sexy. — Nicole Lapin

I appreciate how impossible it is to convey an adequate realization of the office of President. A few short paragraphs in the Constitution of the United States describe all his fundamental duties. Various laws passed over a period of nearly a century and a half have supplemented his authority. All of his actions can be analyzed. All of his goings and comings can be recited. The details of his daily life can be made known. The effect of his policies on his own country and on the world at large can be estimated. His methods of work, his associates, his place of abode, can all be described. But the relationship created by all these and more, which constitutes the magnitude of the office, does not yield to definition. Like the glory of a morning sunrise, it can only be experienced it cannot be told. — Calvin Coolidge

Perhaps there is nothing in the world I cling to as much as this feeling of adventure; but it comes when it pleases; it is gone so quickly and how empty I am once it has left. Does it, ironically, pay me these short visits in order to show me that I have wasted my life? — Jean-Paul Sartre

Sports can unite a group of people from different backgrounds, all working together to achieve a common goal. And even if they fall short, sharing that journey is an experience they'll never forget. It can teach some of the most fundamental and important human values: dedication, perseverance, hard work, and teamwork. It also teaches us how to handle our success and cope with our failure. So, perhaps the greatest glory of sport is that is teaches us so much about life itself. — Ahmad Rashad

He is different, and there will be many people you love who will be unhappy with you. You don't want them to feel you've dishonored them. Yes, I know how it is. But life is short. A chance for great happiness doesn't come along all that often. — Dean Koontz

... the worshipers here are not likely to kill one another, they all offer the same sacrifice, and how the fat spits and the carcasses sizzle as God in the sublime heavens inhales the odors of all this carnage with satisfaction. Jesus pressed his lamb to his breast, unable to fathom why God could not be appeased with a cup of milk poured over His altar, that sap of life which passes from one being to another, or with a handful of wheat, the basic substance of immortal bread. Soon he will have to part with the old man's generous gift, his for such a short time, the poor little lamb will not live to see the sun set this day, it is time to mount the stairs of the Temple, to deliver it to the knife and sacrificial fire, as if it were no longer worthy of existence or being punished ... — Jose Saramago

A sematary," I say. "A what?" Viola says, looking round at all the square stones marking out their graves. Must be a hundred, maybe two, in orderly rows and well-kept grass. Settler life is hard and it's short and lotsa New World people have lost the battle.
"It's a place for burying dead folk," I say.
Her eyes widen. "A place for doing what?"
"Don't people die in space?" I ask.
"Yeah," she says. "But we burn them. We don't put them in holes." She crosses her arms around herself, mouth and forehead frowning, peering around at the graves. "How can this be sanitary? — Patrick Ness

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

Hammer does not think he will make it through this next winter. His breath comes short in his chest, and it takes much effort for him to get up and dressed. My body is still creaky and sound, but with every labor of his breath, I think that my heart will not endure. Enduring were Hammer's gift, not mine, and I will not endure a life in which he does not laugh by my side and touch my hand, wish for the best things for me, and rejoice when I have them. My sturdy, blessed, stoic Hammer - how can life be, without him? — Amy Lane

Too bad!' the feisty poet responded.
'Yes, too bad!' the stranger agreed, his eye flashing, and went on: 'But here is a question that is troubling me: if there is no God, then, one may ask, who governs human life and, in general, the whole order on earth?'
'Man governs it himself' Homeless angrily hastened to reply to this admittedly none-too-clear question.
'Pardon me,' the stranger responded gently, 'but in order to govern, one needs, after all, to have a precise plan for a certain, at least somewhat decent, length of time. Allow me to ask you, then, how can man govern, if he is not only deprived of the opportunity of making a plan for at least some ridiculously short period -well, say, a thousand years- but cannot even vouch for his own tomorrow? — Mikhail Bulgakov

There are a lot of public figures who, before they take a stand on a issue, they talk about it with their publicist and they figure out how it's going to affect record sales. Life is really too short to worry about that sort of thing. — Moby

Reminding me how fragile this life is and how easily it can be lost. Compelling me to live and to live well, while I still can.
Because sooner or later, we must all face eternity. — Jessica Khoury

It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives. The act of dying is not of importance, it lasts so short a time. — James Boswell

Softly and kindly remind yourself, 'I cannot own anything.' It is a valuable thought to keep in mind as you struggle to improve your financial picture, worry about investments, and plan how to acquire more and more. It is a universal principle which you are part of. You must release everything when you truly awaken. Are you letting your life go by in frustration and worry over not having enough? If so, relax and remember that you only get what you have for a short period of time. When you awaken you will see the folly of being attached to anything. — Wayne Dyer

Here's the core problem we have with the Sermon on the Mount: it isn't that Jesus' teachings are absurd; it's that we don't see the world that Jesus sees. We see a world of injustice and anger and hatred and violence--a world where everything good is in short supply and life itself is fragile. But Jesus saw a world in which his father was in control, in which justice was guaranteed, in which goodness was breaking forth, and in which life itself is without end. And if you see that world through the lens of the gospel, then what Jesus tells us to do and how he informs us to live makes perfect sense. — Skye Jethani

The sight of snow made her think how beautiful and short life is and how, in spite of all their enmities, people have so very much in common; measured against eternity and the greatness of creation, the world in which they lived was narrow. That's why snow drew people together. It was as if snow cast a veil over hatreds, greed, and wrath and made everyone feel close to one another.
Snow pg 119 — Orhan Pamuk

This life is short, and you never know how many chapters you have left in your novel, Graham. Live each day as if it's the final page. Breathe each moment as if it's the final — Brittainy C. Cherry

Yet how strange a thing is the beauty of music! The brief beauty that the player brings into being transforms a given period of time into pure continuance; it is certain never to be repeated; like the existence of dayflies and other such short-lived creatures, beauty is a perfect abstraction and creation of life itself. Nothing is so similar to life as music. — Yukio Mishima

We live in a terrible world, "happiness" is defined by how lucky you are in society, let me say this; out of life experiences spanning throughout my 19-20 years of my life, I learned that life is unfair, but ironically, every time I TRY to do something right, it gets spit back in my f###### face. In short, even though it may sound depressing or negative, in life, it is desperately not fair, nothing will be happy or normal and if something happens that you thought shouldn't or cant, it's going to happen anyway, the truth is the truth, and the truth hurts, deal with it, and sometimes nothing will ever get better from there ever again, deal with it. — C.J. Butler

And what nags me about this is that the source of my anxiety was exactly what Kierkegaard says the source of anxiety is, and what he praised in direct proportion to the volume any person possesses: possibility. The awareness that life is a series of choices any one of which could be either aggrandizing or disastrous. That this happens to be true I have no trouble signing on to. Any who has lived past the age of ten knows that even piddling actions can wind up having big consequences, and that even when you are super-conscious of your behaviors you can't know how things are going to turn out in the short- or the long-run. That's the drama of it all. On the one hand, your very existence means you can and will change things in your life and others. On the other hand, you aren't God, so everything is always going to be drenched in uncertainty and doubt. — Daniel Smith

Another example is the modern political order. Ever since the French Revolution, people throughout the world have gradually come to see both equality and individual freedom as fundamental values. Yet the two values contradict each other. Equality can be ensured only by curtailing the freedoms of those who are better off. Guaranteeing that every individual will be free to do as he wishes inevitably short-changes equality. The entire political history of the world since 1789 can be seen as a series of attempts to reconcile this contradiction. Anyone who has read a novel by Charles Dickens knows that the liberal regimes of nineteenth-century Europe gave priority to individual freedom even if it meant throwing insolvent poor families in prison and giving orphans little choice but to join schools for pickpockets. Anyone who has read a novel by Alexander Solzhenitsyn knows how Communism's egalitarian ideal produced brutal tyrannies that tried to control every aspect of daily life. — Yuval Noah Harari

Life is short, and that's why, I don't test people; because we all fail tests sometimes, but that is supposed to be okay! I don't play games with people; because people aren't toys. And I don't risk what I don't want to lose; because if I do lose it, it's definitely my loss and not theirs! How short is life, you ask me. Well, life is as short as one drop in eternity. I swim in a single drop in this basin of eternal waters, and after that drop evaporates, it's gone! But then you could argue that if life is just a drop, then why even bother? Well, yes it is a drop, but it's a meaningful drop, an unforgettable drop, and a beautiful one! It's so unforgettable, that when you come back again, if you choose to, you will remember it in your dreams at night! So you see, I don't test people, I don't play games, and I don't risk who and what I don't want to lose. — C. JoyBell C.

Life is short and the older you get, the more you feel it. Indeed, the shorter it is. People lose their capacity to walk, run, travel, think, and experience life. I realise how important it is to use the time I have. — Viggo Mortensen

I felt in my heart that the further one ventures the better one understands how everything in our life is common, short, and empty; that it is in seeking the unknown in our sensations that we discover how mediocre are our attempts and how soon defeated! — Joseph Conrad

Life is too short to plan it, and worse than all, no idea of how short — M.F. Moonzajer

There is a relentless search for the factual and this quest often lacks warmth or reverence. At a certain stage in our life we may wake up to the urgency of life, how short it is. Then the quest for truth becomes the ultimate project. We can often forage for years in the empty fields of self-analysis and self-improvement and sacrifice much of our real substance for specks of cold, lonesome factual truth. The wisdom of the tradition reminds us that if we choose to journey on the path of truth, it then becomes a sacred duty to walk hand in hand with beauty. — John O'Donohue

There's pathos in this familiar routine, in the sounds of homely objects touching surfaces. And in the little sigh she makes when she turns or slightly bends our unwieldy form. It's already clear to me how much of life is forgotten even as it happens. Most of it. The unregarded present spooling away from us, the soft tumble of unremarkable thoughts, the long-neglected miracle of existence. When she's no longer twenty-eight and pregnant and beautiful, or even free, she won't remember the way she set down the spoon and the sound it made on slate, the frock she wore today, the touch of her sandal's thong between her toes, the summer's warmth, the white noise of the city beyond the house walls, a short burst of birdsong by a closed window. All gone, already. — Ian McEwan

Life's like a book: What matters is the hook.
Be it short or long, just live it strong.
Whether it's five stars, or how near or far, just soar! — Ana Claudia Antunes

The solution which I am urging is to eradicate the fatal disconnection of subjects which kills the vitality of our modern curriculum. There is only one subject-matter for education, and that is LIfe in all its manifestations. Instead of this single unity, we offer children
Algebra, from which nothing follows; Geometry, from which nothing follows; Science, from which nothing follows; History, from which nothing follows; a Couple of Languages, never mastered; and lastly, most dreary of all, Literature, represented by plays of Shakespeare, with philological notes and short analyses of plot and character to be in substance committed to memory. Can such a list be said to represent Life, as it is known in the midst of living it? The best that can be said of it is, that it is a rapid table of contents which a deity might run over in his mind while he was thinking of creating a world, and has not yet determined how to put it together — Alfred North Whitehead

Don't let your problems push you. Let your dreams lead you! The lens you choose to view the world determines how you feel about yourself and everything around you. Optimism attracts goodness into our lives and gives us strength to overcome obstacles. You can't live a positive life with a negative attitude. Heaven on earth is not a place we must find, it is a choice we must make. Let every day be a love you can feel. Let every day be a dream you can touch. Let every day be a reason to live. Life is too short to be anything but positive! — Anonymous

Is that what we come into the world for, to hurry to an office, and work hour after hour till night, then hurry home and dine and go to a theatre? Is that how I must spend my youth? Youth lasts so short a time, Bateman. And when I am old, what have I to look forward to? To hurry from my home in the morning to my office and work hour after hour after hour till night, and then hurry home again, and dine and go to a theatre? That may be worthwhile if you make a fortune; I don't know, it depends on your nature; but if you don't, is it worth while then? I want to make more out of my life than that, Bateman. — W. Somerset Maugham

Relief is a short-lived emotion, passive and thin. The agony of doubt disappears, leaving little memory of how it really felt. Life aligns behind the new truth. — Ann Brashares

When people come to understand how big the Universe is and how short a human life is, their hearts cry out. Sometimes it's a shout of joy. But for most of us it's a cry of terror. The terror of extinction, the terror of meaninglessness. Our hearts cry out. Maybe to God, or maybe just to break the silence. — Robert Charles Wilson

What's love? Something that lasts a week or a month and that's all you can except? Or is it just that some loves have a short shelf life? You know, like yogurt: after a week or two they go bad.
And how do you recognize the other kind of love, the kind that isn't like yogurt? The kind that's more like ... I don't know, like peanut butter, that lasts forever and always tastes good? — Katherine Applegate

This lesson is, I suppose, a major reason I wrote this book: because along the way I've picked up the wisdom that bad things happen, and yet the sun still comes up the next day, and it's up to you to carry on living your life and keeping your setbacks in perspective. You also have to understand that on some level, these horrible and sad things happen to everyone; the mark of a man is not just how he survives it all but also what wisdom he's gained from the experience. — Martin Short

Perhaps the most important use of money - It saves time. Life is so short, and there's so much to do, one can't afford to waste a minute; and just think how much you waste, for instance, in walking from place to place instead of going by bus and in going by bus instead of by taxi. — W. Somerset Maugham