Life In Three Words Quotes & Sayings

On No Work of Words
On no work of words now for three lean months in the bloody
Belly of the rich year and the big purse of my body
I bitterly take to task my poverty and craft:
To take to give is all, return what is hungrily given
Puffing the pounds of manna up through the dew to heaven,
The lovely gift of the gab bangs back on a blind shaft.
To lift to leave from the treasures of man is pleasing death
That will rake at last all currencies of the marked breath
And count the taken, forsaken mysteries in a bad dark.
To surrender now is to pay the expensive ogre twice.
Ancient woods of my blood, dash down to the nut of the seas
If I take to burn or return this world which is each man's work. — Dylan Thomas

Philosophy has been described as thinking about thinking, and all Christians should do that. The term comes from two Greek words, philia ("love") and sophia ("wisdom"), thus "loving wisdom." Nothing anti-Christian appears in that definition. Problems arise if we seek wisdom apart from God, or elevate human reason above Him, but according to Proverbs 4:5-7, God's people should love and seek wisdom.
Formal philosophy is divided into three major areas-incidentally, all core Christian issues: (1) Metaphysics,
which asks questions about the nature of reality: "What is real?" "Is the basic essence of the world matter, or spirit, or something else?" (2) Epistemology, which addresses issues concerning truth and knowledge: "What do we know?" "How do we know it?" "Why do we think it's true?" (3) Ethics, which considers moral problems: "What is right and wrong?" "Are moral values absolute or relative?" "What is the good life, and how do we achieve it? — Rick Cornish

It would be nice if the story ended differently - if he had burst into tears and professed his love for me; if he had said the same three words back and hugged me; if he had given it thought and then asked if we could try a relationship.

But you know what? I said those three words to a boy who didn't love me back, at least not in that way. He casually dropped a "love you" later on, and in a platonic 'you have impacted my life' way, he was telling the truth. But I knew. He had given it thought, and we were not on the same page. I built up all this courage to say "I love you" for the very first time, and I said those words to a person that couldn't reciprocate them.

But guess what?

I don't regret any of it. — Stephen Lovegrove

Create your own permission slip for joy. Write three words: Accept. Adapt. Depend. Carry this permission slip with you. Tell your friends you're working on becoming more content, more joyful. Take a nap. Live with a messy house for a time. Order takeout. File an extension on your taxes. Stare out the window. Linger in the company of a friend. Breathe in the fullness of life. Use those words to fight back with joy. — Margaret Feinberg

I think my response to hearing that alarm would have been to grab an extinguisher and start fighting for my life, but over the past 21 years that instinct has been trained out of me and another set of responses has been trained in, represented by three words: warn, gather, work. "Working the problem" is NASA-speak for descending one decision tree after another, methodically looking for a solution until you run out of oxygen. We practice the "warn, gather, work" protocol for responding to fire alarms so frequently that it doesn't just become second nature; it actually supplants our natural instincts. — Chris Hadfield

In three words I can sum up the purpose of life: living, loving, and giving. — Debasish Mridha

Q: Where and when do you do your writing?
A: Any small room with no natural light will do. As for when, I have no particular schedules ... afternoons are best, but I'm too lethargic for any real regime. When I'm in the flow of something I can do a regular 9 to 5; when I don't know where I'm going with an idea, I'm lucky if I do two hours of productive work. There is nothing more off-putting to a would-be novelist to hear about how so-and-so wakes up at four in the a.m, walks the dog, drinks three liters of black coffee and then writes 3,000 words a day, or that some other asshole only works half an hour every two weeks, does fifty press-ups and stands on his head before and after the "creative moment." I remember reading that kind of stuff in profiles like this and becoming convinced everything I was doing was wrong. What's the American phrase? If it ain't broke ... — Zadie Smith

But they would have been amazed if he had the words to describe it - how delicate it had been, how it reached almost three quarters of the way from the top of the desk to the ceiling, a lacy construct of jacks and deuces and kings and tens and Big Akers, a red and black configuration of paper diamonds standing in defiance of a world spinning through a universe of incoherent motions and forces; a tower that seemed to 'Cimi's amazed eyes to be a ringing denial of all the unfair paradoxes of life. — Stephen King

Ife onye metalu' ['what a man commits'] - a statement unclear and menacing in its very inconclusiveness. What a man commits ... Follows him? Comes back to take its toll? Was that all? No, that was only part of it ... The real burden of that cryptic scripture seemed to turn the matter right around. Whatever we see following a man, whatever fate comes to take its revenge on him, can only be what that man in some way or another, in a previous life if not in this, has committed. That was it! So those three words wrapped in an archaic tongue and tucked away at the tail of the bus turn out to be the opening segment of a full-blooded heathen antiphony offering a primitive and quite deadly exposition of suffering. The guilty suffers; the sufferer is guilty. As for the righteous, those whose arms are straight, they will always prosper! — Chinua Achebe

In three simple words I can sum up all I have learned from life, Life Goes On. — Robert Frost

In dealing with many words and different cultures every day, I have come to realize that the essence of life can be reduced to the magic of three sentences, in the order of their strength: "I apologize", "I love you", "Hi". The use and the meaning you replenish them with become the mirror of yourself, eventually of an entire humanity. (Soar) — Soar

In ten phrases, the ten commandments express the essential of life. And these three words
liberty, equality, and fraternity
do just as much. Millions of people have died for those ideals. — Krzysztof Kieslowski

'You are your" "Past, Present," "& Future,' he said" " 'You divide into" "those components" "in this room' " " 'But I do not have" "components!' " "our three voices said," " 'My
secret name - " "Time's secret name" "is Oneness," "is One Thing' " "As I - the one" "in the middle - spoke," "the one of us in front - " "who was the Past - " "had already" "finished speaking" "& was awaiting" "his reply" "He said," " 'Don't we seem" "to experience" "things
somewhat this way?" "There is past, present" :& future' " "The Future then cried out," " 'Where is my life?" 'Where is my life?" "You have stolen" "my life!' " "There was a silence" "The man" "reached out &" "pressed a button" "on the cave wall - " "we three united" "into
one again" "while he wrote words on" "a clipboard" "Then he looked up & said," " 'Going forward?" "Going on?" "Death lies ahead, you know' " "Any woman" "may already" "be dead,' " "I said — Alice Notley

Your very best look, my queen, is the one you were born with. As far as I'm concerned, perfection can't be improved upon by either man nor God." Leaning in, he kissed her softly. "Just thought you'd want to know what your male's been thinking as I've been staring at you." Selena started to smile, especially as she realized that sometimes "I love you" could be said without those particular three words lined up in a row. "See?" she said softly. "I told you this was going to be the best night of my life. — J.R. Ward

Those were the three words seldom asked to her.
Yet, she knew they hold a healing power in them; For they bring a million thoughts to the mind and more to the soul; For the answer is far deeper than what is simply said on the face.
She understood, so she asked him what was seldom asked to her,
How are you? — Sanhita Baruah

You haven't," he repeated. "You're stewin' on it."
This was true too. If I had a dollar for every time his words in his voice popped into my head and made me flinch the last two days, I could move to the Riviera. They even woke me up in the middle of the night. Then again, I had insomnia and always did, even as a kid. I regularly thought of stuff in my life, stuff that embarrassed me or hurt me or worried me or freaked me out and I couldn't get to sleep. Then, when I did, I'd wake up three, four times a night sometimes tossing and turning for hours before finding sleep again. This beautiful man saying those horrible words when talking about me was not only fresh, it was the worst of all my nightly demons by far and it would be in a way I knew would last the rest of my life. — Kristen Ashley

For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them. MATTHEW 18:20 OCTOBER 14 Prayer can change your life. I strongly recommend that you learn the art or science of prayer and put it to work in your life. Now this may seem to you to be just one more religious idea, without much life or sparkle to it. But that is where you would be wrong. It is the way to life itself. When I say this of prayer I do not speak of the mere mumbling of words. I do not mean formal affirmations either, although formal prayers sometimes help and some formal prayers are touched with the glory of God. What I mean is a deep, fundamental, powerful relationship of the individual to God, whereby his whole mind and heart become changed and he receives power from God within himself. I have seen such prayer change the lives of many. God's peace deeply imbedded in your mind can often have a more tranquilizing and healing effect upon nerves and tension than medicine. God's peace is itself medicinal. — Norman Vincent Peale

When I throw back my head and howl
People (women mostly) say
But you've always done what you want,
You always get your way
- A perfectly vile and foul
Inversion of all that's been.
What the old ratbags mean
Is I've never done what I don't.

So the shit in the shuttered chateau
Who does his five hundred words
Then parts out the rest of the day
Between bathing and booze and birds
Is far off as ever, but so
Is that spectacled schoolteaching sod
(Six kids, and the wife in pod,
And her parents coming to stay)...

Life is an immobile, locked,
Three-handed struggle between
Your wants, the world's for you, and (worse)
The unbeatable slow machine
That brings what you'll get. Blocked,
They strain round a hollow stasis
Of havings-to, fear, faces.
Days sift down it constantly. Years.

--The Life with the Hole in It — Philip Larkin

He doesn't stop talking for most of the three-hour flight about his time in "'Nam." Finally the conversation slows, and I ask him what he's done since leaving the army.

He sums it up in three words: "I'm in insurance."

And that's it. That's all he has to say about the following forty years.

I think I may be in a similar situation with the whole marriage bit. Three words: "I got married. — Rick Springfield

Life, faculties, production-in other words, individuality, liberty, property-this is man. And in spite of the cunning of artful political leaders, these three gifts from God precede all human legislation, and are superior to it. — Frederic Bastiat

There are words in my life that I wish I'd never said. I wish I'd never told my wife that I loved her, because then I had to line up all my actions with those words. I had to always act like that was true. And those three words, I love you, should never be used if you don't mean them. My lying has meant I will never get to use them on anyone else. I went against my own truth, my own heart, and there is really no coming back from that. — Helen Humphreys

That's why your poems can never be no more than a description of life. The page is finite. Once you put the words down on paper, you've fossilized your thought. Bugs in amber, nigger. But music is life itself. Music is time. Played live, played at seventy-eight rpms, thirty-three and a third, backwards, looped, whatever. There's no need for translation. You understand or you don't. — Paul Beatty

Beatrix Adams," he said. "You know I trust you with everything. The anatomical representation of my heart, my life ... even my car."
"You must really love me," I said, matching my steps with his.
I knew he did, of course. We try not to say it casually too much, because we want it to mean something. Not just a throwaway phrase like "How's it going" or "See you later." But when I'm in his arms, when we're alone, he whispers "I love you," and those three words never stop amazing me. Never. — Jenn Bennett

So I kept reading, just to stay alive. In fact, I'd read two or three books at the same time, so I wouldn't finish one without being in the middle of another
anything to stop me from falling into the big, gaping void. You see, books fill the empty spaces. If I'm waiting for a bus, or am eating alone, I can always rely on a book to keep me company. Sometimes I think I like them even more than people. People will let you down in life. They'll disappoint you and hurt you and betray you. But not books. They're better than life. — Marc Acito

If written in the three-letter words of the four-letter alphabet,a human being is determined by a genetic narrative long enough to fill the equivalent of 500 Bibles.In the meantime human beings have discovered this for themselves. That's right. They have uncovered our profoundest concept
namely, that life is ultimately reading. They themselves are the Book of Books. — Harry Mulisch

How my life has been brought to undiscovered lands, and how much richer it gets - all from words printed on a page.... How a book can have 560 pages, but in only three pages change the reader's life. — Emoke B'Racz

When Scripture says, "As a man thinks, so is he," it is raw truth. How we approach life and react to its vagaries determines the bulk of our character. How we love is locked into how we think about it. What angers us is triggered by how we think. It is between our ears that we decide how easily offended we will be. When it comes to harsh words from others, whether my skin absorbs like cotton or deflects like Teflon is a decision I make. All of that happens in a three-pound organ five-and-a-half inches across called my brain. In a very real sense, my world begins and ends between my ears. I don't have to be brain-dead to be brain-defeated. — Richard Foth

This short interval was sufficient to determine d'Artagnan on the part he was to take. It was one of those events which decide the life of a man; it was a choice between the king and the cardinal - the choice made, it must be persisted in. To fight, that was to disobey the law, that was to risk his head, that was to make at one blow an enemy of a minister more powerful than the king himself. All this young man perceived, and yet, to his praise we speak it, he did not hesitate a second. Turning towards Athos and his friends, "Gentlemen," said he, "allow me to correct your words, if you please. You said you were but three, but it appears to me we are four." "But you are not one of us," said Porthos. "That's true," replied d'Artagnan; "I have not the uniform, but I have the spirit. My heart is that of a Musketeer; I feel it, monsieur, and that impels me on." "Withdraw, — Alexandre Dumas

Whether it is the wife, husband, girlfriend, boyfriend, family or friends, so often those closest to us are the ones who get the worst of us. It is as if we feel that they are the only ones we can be grumpy with, and we save our best for our guests or for work. But this is a recipe for struggle. The smart man and woman save the best for those they love. If we show our loved ones the most gratitude every day, then life will smile on us in return. Gratitude, gratitude, gratitude: three words to help you thrive. Trust me. — Bear Grylls

Still, through a complex combination of optimism and longing and bravado, you would round it up. While a cruder name for this process is lying , one could make a case that delusion is a variant of generosity. After all, you practiced rounding up on Kevin from the day he was born.

Me, I'm a stickler. I prefer my photographs in focus. At the risk of tautology, I like people only as much as I like them. I lead an emotional life of such arithmetic precision, carried to two or three digits after the decimal, that I am even willing to allow for degrees of agreeableness in my own son. In other words, Franklin: I leave the $17. — Lionel Shriver

God Is Great. If these three words together enshrine in our mind, heart and soul, then there is never worry, anxiety nor a fear of failure in our life. — Anuj

If there are three words that need to be used more in American journalism, commentary, politics, personal life ... it's the magic words 'I don't know.' — P. J. O'Rourke

Hester shook her head. 'Don't confuse what you do with who you are, dearie. Besides, there's no shame in humble work. Why, Aesop himself, the king of storytellers, was a slave his whole life. Never drew a free breath, yet he shaped the world with just three small words: there once was. And where are his great masters now, hmm? Rotting in tombs, if they're lucky. But Aesop - he still lives to this day, dancin' on the tip of every tongue what's ever told a tale.' She winked at Molly. 'Think on that, next time you're scrubbing floors. — Jonathan Auxier

The three monotheism share a series of identical forms of aversion: hatred of reason and intelligence; hatred of freedom; hatred of all books in the name of one book alone; hatred of sexuality, women,and pleasure; hatred of feminine; hatred of body, of desires, of drives. Instead Judaism, Christianity, and Islam extol faith and belief, obedience and submission, taste for death and longing for the beyond, the asexual angel and chastity, virginity and monogamous love, wife and mother, soul and spirit. In other words, life crucified and nothingness exalted. — Michel Onfray

He stares now at the three words he has written.They are ridiculous. Writing is ridiculous. A sentence, any sentence, is absurd. Just the idea of it; jam one word up against another, shoulder-to-shoulder, jaw-to-jaw; hem them in with punctuation so they can't move an inch. And then hand that over to someone else to peer at, and expect something to be communicated, something understood. It's not just pointless. It is ethically suspect. — Jo Baker

In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on. — Robert Frost

And thus they form a perfect group; he walks back two or three paces, selects his point of sight, and begins to sketch a hurried outline. He has finished it before they move; he hears their voices, though he cannot hear their words, and wonders what they can be talking of. Presently he walks on, and joins them.
'You have a corpse there, my friends?' he says.
'Yes; a corpse washed ashore an hour ago.'
'Drowned?'
'Yes, drowned; - a young girl, very handsome.'
'Suicides are always handsome,' he says; and then he stands for a little while idly smoking and meditating, looking at the sharp outline of the corpse and the stiff folds of the rough canvas covering.
Life is such a golden holiday to him young, ambitious, clever - that it seems as though sorrow and death could have no part in his destiny. ("The Cold Embrace") — Mary Elizabeth Braddon

Sometimes that's all you can do, I think. Hold hands. Because life gets so scary sometimes, so bleak, so cold, that you are beyond being able to be comforted by mere words.


'Men are for amusement only. They are treats. Like candy. Like ice cream on an Alabama afternoon. A dessert. They are not the main course. As soon as you have a man in your life who becomes the main course, that is the time, my sweet, when you should go on a diet. Right that second. Men are for dessert only.' Envision: honey.
'Yum, yum,' I told her.
'They are yummy.' She winked at me. 'But never take them seriously. A bite here and there is puh-lenty. All three of my husbands died, bless their pea-brained souls, but I never thought of them as the chicken and potatoes. They were always the flamin' cherries jubilee at the end of dinner.' She stared off into space. 'And there was many a time, darlin', that I wanted to set them on fire. — Cathy Lamb

Christians and Jews hold in common one theological basis for hospitality: Creation. Creation is the ultimate expression of God's hospitality to His creatures. In the words of on rabbi, everything God created is a "manifestation of His kindness. [The] world is one big hospitality inn." As Church historian Amy Oden has put it, "God offers hospitality to all humanity ... by establishing a home.. for all." To invite people into our homes is to respond with gratitude to the God who made a home for us.
In the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, we find another resource for hospitality. The trinity shows God in relationships with Himself. our Three-in-one God has welcomed us into Himself and invited us to participate in divine life. And so the invitation that we as Christians extend to one another is not simply an invitation into our homes or to our tables; what we ask of other people it that hey enter into our lives. — Lauren F. Winner

Suddenly there were all sorts of words crowding on Zane's tongue, and he couldn't get a single one out, much less three that would prove he knew the best thing to happen to him in his entire life lay right there in his arms. — Abigail Roux

Food is something I am going to have to face at least three times a day for the rest of my life. And I am not perfect. But one really bad day does not mean that I am hopeless and back at square one with my eating disorder. Olympic ice skaters fall in their quest for the gold. Heisman Trophy winners throw interceptions. Professional singers forget the words. And people with eating disorders sometimes slip back into an old pattern. But all of these individuals just pick themselves back up and do the next right thing. The ice skater makes the next jump. The football player throws the next pass. The singer finishes the song. And I am going to eat breakfast. — Jenni Schaefer

The second-sweetest set of three words in English is 'I don't know.' — Carol Tavris

Ove's wife sometimes jokes that the three worst words Ove knows in this life are "Batteries not included." People usually laugh when she says that. But Ove does not usually laugh. — Fredrik Backman

It was a clear autumn day Sunday in 1876; Vincent van Gogh, twenty-three years old, left the English boarding school where he was teaching to give a sermon at a small Methodist church in Richmond, a humble London suburb. Standing in front of the lectern, he felt like a lost soul emerging from the dark cave in which he had been buried.

The sermon, which survives among Vincent's collected letters, reiterates universal ideas and is not an outstanding example of the art of homiletics. Nevertheless, his words grew out of his tormented life and had an intense emotional charge. Preaching to the congregation, he was also preaching to himself -- and of himself. The images he used were the same as those that were to be given powerful expression in his pictures.

The text chosen for the sermon was Psalm 119:19, 'I am a stranger on the earth, hide not Thy commandments from me.' — Albert J. Lubin

There are three different types of men in this world: There are weak men- men who run and hide when life slaps them in the ass. Then, there are men- men who have a backbone, yet occasionally, then life slapps them in the ass, will rely on others. And then, there are real men- men who don't cry or complain, who don't just have a backbone, then are the backbone. Men who make their own decisions and live with the consequences and who accept responsiblity for their actions or words. Men who, when life slaps them in the ass, slap back and move on. — Madeline Sheehan

I have this theory that the more important and intimate the emotion, the fewer words are required to express it. For instance in dating: 'Will you go out with me?' Six words. 'I really care for you.' Five words. 'You matter to me' Four words. 'I love you.' Three words. 'Marry me.' Two words. Well, what's left? What's the one most important and intimate word you can ever say to somebody?
'Goodbye ... ' — J. Michael Straczynski

The economic boom that followed World War II had made them richer than their parents. Instead of a comfortable life with a husband they'd known since high school, they craved glamour and romance. "We all learned from the movie stars," says Loretta, who married three times and now lives in Lake Worth, Florida. "New York then was like long black gloves and little hats, and you met your sweetheart in New York for a drink, kind of thing. It was like Sinatra and stuff like that. The songs had words, and you closed your eyes. — Pamela Druckerman

Within the universe's intention and its unique design around relationship, we find that the focal point of the universe, the motive of the universe, is love. God created life so that we could know love. Everything God does is an expression of his love. It is neither trite nor superficial that the Scriptures summarize this in three simple words: "God is love." It is critical to understand this because, if we are to reclaim our role in the creative process and express our lives as masterful works of art, we, too, must be sure that our motivation is the expansion of love. — Erwin Raphael McManus

And I knew in my bones that Emily Dickinson wouldn't have written even one poem if she'd had two howling babies, a husband bent on jamming another one into her, a house to run, a garden to tend, three cows to milk, twenty chickens to feed, and four hired hands to cook for. I knew then why they didn't marry. Emily and Jane and Louisa. I knew and it scared me. I also knew what being lonely was and I didn't want to be lonely my whole life. I didn't want to give up on my words. I didn't want to choose one over the other. Mark Twain didn't have to. Charles Dickens didn't. — Jennifer Donnelly

The three men walked on and were met by ever more new saints. The saints were not exactly moving or even speaking, but the silence and immobility of the dead were not absolute. There was, under the ground, a motion that was not completely usual, and a particular sort of voices rang out without disturbing the sternness and repose. The saints spoke using words from psalms and lines from the lives of saints that Arseny remembered well from childhood. When they drew the candles closer, shadows shifted along dried faces and brown, half-bent hands. The saints seemed to raise their heads, smile, and beckon, barely perceptibly, with their hands. A city of saints, whispered Ambrogio, following the play of the shadow. They present us the illusion of life. No, objected Arseny, also in a whisper. They disprove the illusion of death. — Evgenij Vodolazkin

Are you a storyteller, Thomas Covenant?"
Absently he replied, "I was, once."
"And you gave it up? Ah, that is as sad a tale in three words as any you might have told me. But a life without a tale is like a sea without salt. How do you live?"
... Unconsciously, he clenched his fist over his ring. "I live."
"Another?" Foamfollower returned. "In two words, a story sadder than the first. Say no more
with one word you will make me weep. — Stephen R. Donaldson