Lives Our Reasons Quotes & Sayings

Life is suffering" is misleading for at least two reasons. First, the Buddha used an ancient Indian language similar to Sanskrit called Pali, and the word he used in Pali for the first noble truth, dukkha, is difficult to translate. Dukkha is too multifaceted and nuanced a term to be captured in the one-word translation "suffering." And second, the fact of dukkha in our lives doesn't mean that life is only dukkha. — Toni Bernhard

I mentioned early in this book the kind of rereading distinctive of a fan
the Tolkien addict, say, or the devotee of Jane Austen or Trollope or the Harry Potter books. The return to such books is often motivated by a desire to dwell for a time in a self-contained fictional universe, with its own boundaries and its own rules. (It is a moot question whether Austen and Trollope's first readers were drawn to their novels for these reasons, but their readers today often are.) Such rereading is not purely a matter of escapism, even though that is one reason for its attraction: we should note that it's not what readers are escaping from but that they are escaping into that counts most. Most of us do not find fictional worlds appealing because we find our own lives despicable, though censorious people often make that assumption. Auden once wrote that "there must always be ... escape-art, for man needs escape as he needs food and deep sleep." The sleeper does not disdain consciousness. — Alan Jacobs

I mean, in a way, I feel that one of the reasons for learning about Darwinian evolution is as an object lesson in how not to set up our values and social lives. — Richard Dawkins

It made me wonder if the reasons our lives seem so muddled is because we keep walking into scenes in which we, along with the people around us, have no clear idea what we want. — Donald Miller

One of the most critical reasons believers experience defeat is because we categorize only a few areas of our lives as Christ's arena. — Beth Moore

Aspiring only to second-place goals is a first-rate way to hedge our bets. Among the least appreciated reasons for doing superficial, second-rate work of any kind is the comfort of knowing that it's not our best that's on the line. Far more is at risk when we do what we really want to do rather than something less. I don't think we'll ever fully appreciate the role of not daring to risk a shattered dream in limiting people to second-choice careers and third-choice lives. — Ralph Keyes

We are victims of censorship within when we do not let ourselves think the thoughts which our flesh recoils from, or let conscience speak that which the heart feels to be unacceptable, or when we give ourselves excellent reasons for not participating in this grand drama of our interconnected lives. — Ben Okri

There are things in our lives that take up an enormous importance and that become very dominant effects in our biography. And that comes out of a variety of reasons, but fundamentally comes out of how that particular experience connects with your effective systems of response. — Antonio Damasio

There are reasons why it is often difficult to reach our dead. When we do, our lives and everything we believe to be true can be turned entirely upside down. — April Slaughter

You know, there is the intellect, and there is pure feeling - the pure feeling of loving something, of having great, generous emotions. The intellect reasons, calculates, weighs, balances. It asks, "Is it worthwhile? Will it give me benefit?" On the other hand, there is pure feeling - the extraordinary feeling for the sky, for your neighbor, for your wife or husband, for your child, for the world, for the beauty of a tree, and so on. When these two come together, there is death. Do you understand? When pure feeling is corrupted by the intellect, there is mediocrity. That is what most of us are doing. Our lives are mediocre because we are always calculating, asking ourselves whether it is worthwhile, what profit we will get, not only in the world of money, but also in the so-called spiritual world - "If I do this, will I get that? — Jiddu Krishnamurti

Most of us spend our time seeking happiness and security without acknowledging the underlying purpose of our search. Each of us is looking for a path back to the present: We are trying to find good enough reasons to be satisfied now. Acknowledging that this is the structure of the game we are playing allows us to play it differently. How we pay attention to the present moment largely determines the character of our experience and, therefore, the quality of our lives. Mystics and contemplatives have made this claim for ages - but a growing body of scientific research now bears it out. — Sam Harris

One day, an unusually exciting event interrupted the rhythm of our regular middle-class teenage lives. A Russian woman, the mother of a girl in our class, was run over by a New York City bound train right in the center of town. Our classmate left school in the middle of the semester. The gossip was that the woman must have thrown herself under the train. The adults whispered about reasons, usual ones, but my friends and I were too busy planning what to wear to the prom to wonder about the savagery of adult passion. — Inna Swinton

Some people said, "we don't want to risk astronauts lives anymore, we need to stop doing this". The astronauts don't feel that wayWe fly for our country, we fly for humanity, we fly for exploration, we fly for a variety of reasons, and we don't stop flying because we have accidents. — Eileen Collins

Who says they're all criminals? -he parried- some might actually be innocent. others may need someone to explain them. there are reasons why we become the way we are, which often aren't apparent on the surface of our lives — Richard North Patterson

In our lives in a lot of ways it's all about fake. You've got people wanting things for fake reasons. — Billy Corgan

For people in thrall to 'mortality', the good life means perpetual striving. For Taoists it means living effortlessly, according to our natures. The freest human being is not one who acts on reasons he has chosen for himself, but one who never has to choose. Rather than agonizing about alternatives he responds effortlessly to situations as they arise. He lives not as he chooses but as he must. — John Gray

It is in the knowledge of the genuine conditions of our lives that we must draw our strength to live and our reasons for living. — Simone De Beauvoir

Everyone knows that the Internet is changing our lives, mostly because someone in the media has uttered that exact phrase every single day since 1993. However, it certainly appears that the main thing the Internet has accomplished is the normalization of amateur pornography. There is no justification for the amount of naked people on the World Wide Web, many of whom are clearly (clearly!) doing so for non-monetary reasons. Where were these people fifteen years ago? Were there really millions of women in 1986 turning to their husbands and saying, 'You know, I would love to have total strangers masturbate to images of me deep-throating a titanium dildo, but there's simply no medium for that kind of entertainment. I guess we'll just have to sit here and watch Falcon Crest again. — Chuck Klosterman

Mom could have shared her suffering with her children, but she didn't. She could have succumbed to a world of pain and sorrow, but she didn't. Instead she loved each of us deeper, and found even more reasons to celebrate our lives together. — Ron Mayes

For reasons that are both fair and foul - but mostly for fair reasons - we have come under the domain of a scientific-management system whose ambitions are endless. They want to manage every second of our lives, every expenditure that we make. And the schools are the training ground to create a population that's easy to manage. — John Taylor Gatto

What will people remember us for? Are other people's lives better because we lived? Did we make a difference? Did we use to the fullest the gifts and abilities God gave us? Did we give our best effort, and did we do it for the right reasons? — Tony Dungy

Events," I say to the Captain, "events control our lives, although we have no understanding of them nor do they have any motivation. Everything is blind chance, happenstance, occurrence; in an infinite universe anything can happen. After the fact we find reasons. — Barry N. Malzberg

Because destiny had a different plan. They were supposed to meet later. People come into our lives at certain times for various reasons having to do with lessons to be learned. It is not a coincidence that they didn't meet at a much earlier age when they did not have other commitments. I think the reason people meet later is to learn about love in many different ways and about how to balance this with responsibility and commitment. They'll meet again in a different lifetime. They must be patient. — Brian L. Weiss

I believe we must do things in our lives for the right reasons, because we enjoy doing them, with no expectation of getting something back in return. Otherwise, we are constantly being disappointed." She moved her turquoise bracelet back and forth on her wrist. "So I had two sons, John and Richard, because I wanted to, not because I thought they would rescue me in old age. I got out of all social organizations and clubs in my fifties so I could spend time with my grandchildren, not because they would give something back to Jack and me later on, but because that was what I wanted to do
and I have loved doing it. Believe me, these have been selfish decisions. — Terry Tempest Williams

I think God speaks something meaningful into our lives and it fills us up and helps us change the world regardless of ourselves and our shortcomings. His name for us is His beloved. He hopes that we'll believe Him like I came to believe what the coach said about me. He hopes we'll start to see ourselves as His beloved rather than think of all of the reasons that we aren't. — Bob Goff

Our trials, our troubles, our demons, our angels - we reenact them because these stories explain our lives. Literature's lessons repeat because they echo from deeper places. They touch a chord in our soul because they're notes we've already heard played. Plots repeat because, from the birth of man, they explore the reasons for our being. Stories teach us to not give up hope because there are times in our own journey when we mustn't give up hope. They teach endurance because in our lives we are meant to endure. They carry messages that are older than the words themselves, messages that reach beyond the page. — Camron Wright

We wake up to be alive and to revive our lives; we don't wake up to keep sleeping! We wake up not just to be alive, but also to keep our works alive and mind the business of the day! When you wake up, revive your work! Sometimes you may just feel reluctant to do something when day breaks, but you must remember that there is always something that needs to be done when day breaks, for each day we meet as we journey in life comes with its own agenda! He who fails to know the real reasons why day breaks shall always abuse the real and true essence of each day, knowingly or unknowingly! Be alive when you wake up and do something with all your might when day breaks for you surely leave a footprint each day you wake up! When you wake up, wake up! — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

Our children form a large part of our Immortality Project. This is one of the reasons a child's death cuts so deep; some of the future dies with them. Through them and their descendants, part of us lives on forever, just as it does in the friends we touch and the ripples our actions cause in the world. All these effects are conscripts, earthwork defences against the finality of extinction. — John Dolan

But our lives are the reasons why we want to live another time — Robert Smith

There are very fundamental reasons we live our lives in social networks, and if we really understood the role they're playing in our society, we would take better care of social networks and find ways to take advantage of their power to improve our society. — Nicholas A. Christakis

What we do in every other area of our lives (other than religion), is, rather than respect somebody's beliefs, we evaluate their reasons. — Sam Harris

Cranmer says, 'We will try again with More. At least, if he refuses, he should give his reasons.'
He swears under his breath, turns from the window. 'We know his reasons. All Europe knows them. He is against the divorce. He does not believe the king can be head of the church. But will he say that? Not he. I know him. Do you know what I hate? I hate to be part of this play, which is entirely devised by him. I hate the time it will take that could be better spent, I hate it that minds could be better employed, I hate to see our lives going by, because depend upon it, we will all be feeling our age before this pageant is played out. And what I hate most of all is that Master More sits in the audience and sniggers when I trip over my lines, for he has written all the parts. And written them these many years. — Hilary Mantel

I'm just telling you, God permits things in our lives sometimes for reasons that we do not understand yet because of the spiritual level that we're on. We can't have any understanding of it, because we're not at a place of spiritual growth yet where we understand the deeper things of God. — Joyce Meyer

We no longer have political movement. While thousands of us may come together for a rally or march, we are bound together on such occasions by a single shared interest. Any effort to convert such interests into collective goals is usually undermined by the fragmented individualism of our concerns. Laudable goals - fighting climate change, opposing war, advocating public healthcare or penalizing bankers - are united by nothing more than the expression of emotion. In our political as in our economic lives, we have become consumers: choosing from a broad gamut of competing objectives, we find it hard to imagine ways or reasons to combine these into a coherent whole. We must do better than this. — Tony Judt

is the veil of our fleshly fallen nature living on, unjudged within us, uncrucified and unrepudiated. It is the close-woven veil of the self-life which we have never truly acknowledged, of which we have been secretly ashamed, and which for these reasons we have never brought to the judgment of the cross. It is not too mysterious, this opaque veil, nor is it hard to identify. We have but to look in our own hearts and we shall see it there, sewn and patched and repaired it may be, but there nevertheless, an enemy to our lives and an effective block to our spiritual progress. — A.W. Tozer

At various points in our lives, or on a quest, and for reasons that often remain obscure, we are driven to make decisions which prove with hindsight to be loaded with meaning. (225) — Swami Satchidananda

For many reasons, Dear," Delia said in a soothing voice. "We are tired of running , tired of traveling. It is time for us to be together in a world where your kind of evil does not exist." Lucan growled at her, but she continued, "And I could not let my daughter or my son feel responsible for the lives you planned to take today. They are good and strong, and they will rule this kingdom after they destroy you. They will restore our immortality; they will bring peace and life again. You may take my life today, I will grant you this, but soon, very soon they will take yours and my sacrifice will be for the greater good of my people. — Rachel Higginson

There are two main reasons why we may not be bringing forth the fruit we should. It may be because of ignorance, because we may never have been taught the meaning of the work of Christ for our present lives. — Francis Schaeffer

The book that simply demands to be read, for no good reason, is asking us to change our lives by putting aside what we usually think of as good reasons. It's asking us to stop calculating. It's asking us to do something for the plain old delight and interest of it, not because we can justify its place on the mental spreadsheet or accounting ledger (like the one Benjamin Franklin kept) by which we tote up the value of our actions. — Alan Jacobs

One of the reasons for learning about type is to recognize that we are constantly motivated, simply by the way we've established our neural networks, to shape reality along particular functional lines. Another is to recognize the possibilities for growth and change that exist within - and apart from - the framework we have created for ourselves. Even small changes in our usual way of doing things can make big differences in the way our brain is operating. We develop the ability to think in new ways, and this stimulates creative change in all areas of our lives. — Lenore Thomson

That's why travel is so important, among other reasons: to get far enough away from our everyday lives to see those lives with new clarity. When you're literally on the other side of the world, when you're under the silent sea, watching a bright, silent world of fish and coral, when you're staring up at a sky so bright and dense with stars it makes you gasp, it's in those moments that you begin to see the fullness of your life, the possibility that still prevails, that always prevails. — Shauna Niequist

Now here's somebody who wants to smoke a marijuana cigarette. If he's caught, he goes to jail. Now is that moral? Is that proper? I think it's absolutely disgraceful that our government, supposed to be our government, should be in the position of converting people who are not harming others into criminals, of destroying their lives, putting them in jail. That's the issue to me. The economic issue comes in only for explaining why it has those effects. But the economic reasons are not the reasons — Milton Friedman

What I know now is that we're all interconnected and that's a really beautiful thing. We have links to everyone else in our lives and in the world. Different people have different journeys for different reasons. You can't judge, but you can celebrate that there are connections everywhere. — Jane Seymour

Have you ever felt so at one with the world, with the universe, with everything that is, that you were overcome with love? That is reality. That is the truth. What we make of it is up to us, as the painting of the sunrise is up to the artist. In our world humanity has strayed from that love. It lives hatred and power struggles and manipulations of the earth itself for its own narrow reasons. Continue and no one will see the sunrise. The sunrise will always exist, of course, but people on earth will know nothing of it and finally even stories of its beauty will fade from our knowing. — Richard Bach

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

Forgiveness is essentially God's way of removing the great obstacle to our fellowship with him. By canceling our sin and paying for it with the death of his own Son, God opens the way for us to see him and know him and enjoy him forever. Seeing and savoring him is the goal of forgiveness. Soul-satisfying fellowship with our Father is the aim of the cross. If we love being forgiven for other reasons alone, we are not forgiven, and we will waste our lives. — John Piper

The gender stereotypes introduced in childhood are reinforced throughout our lives and become self-fulfilling prophesies. Most leadership positions are held by men, so women don't expect to achieve them, and that becomes one of the reasons they don't. — Sheryl Sandberg

I could easily understand why Lambert was bored with this peace which gave us back our lives without giving us back our reasons for living. — Simone De Beauvoir

There are many reasons why so many of us choose to share our lives with a pet
it's the perfect antidote for loneliness, providing an endless supply of smiles and the certainty of unwavering companionship, and many of us have seen the way a pet can make a family feel whole. — Nick Trout

The truth is, those people we feel drawn to most might not be intended as love interests, but rather as life-changing, life-altering presences that come into our lives for reasons we can't yet understand. — Tonya Hurley

We simplify, not just to be less busy, even though we may be right to pursue that. Rather, wesimplify to remove distractions from our pursuit of Christ. We prune activities from our lives, not only to get organized, but also that our devotion to Christ and service for His kingdom will be more fruitful. We simplify, not merely to save time, but to eliminate hindrances to the time we devote to knowing Christ. All the reasons we simplify should eventually lead us to Jesus Christ.'
DONALD S. WHITNEY — Cynthia Heald

Child, the good Lord got plans for all of us that we don't know-and he always got His reasons. He want us to learn and rejoice in the good that come from His design.
God's plan ain't a free pass. Uh-uh. He give us moments to make choices, and we make them. We accountable for those choices. God's job ain't to make our lives easier, it's to make us better souls by the lessons he give us. I tell you now, I wouldn't change one choice I made since I met you. No matter what. — Susan Crandall

Life is messy, and God knows that. One of the reasons He gave us the Bible is to equip us to live out our faith in the midst of our messy lives. — Wendy Blight

Certain coincidence is wonderful. Certain meetings are memorable. Sometimes you meet some people for just a moment and they leave indelible footprints on your mind. They give you the reasons to ponder over and over. They become your food for thought. Though they go, their presence is felt within the innermost of the heart and the soul; especially when such people were a reason for a smile, or they were a perfect fit for a vacuum or probably they were a heavenly sent or maybe they were an epitome of a great union; when their light could shine to brighten the dark side of our lives; when they knew how to arouse interest even in the face of dull atmosphere; when they did understand silence and know the value and power of words; when even their absence is felt more than their presence. You can't just forget about such people. Though they leave, they live within our hearts, mind, body and soul. — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

So there are countless reasons to remain on this Godforsaken planet that was long considered the only world, if for no other reason than to learn the end of our story: what the author of our lives has not yet taken the trouble to finish. — Filippo Bologna

Yes, it's unfortunate that we have been conditioned to see an alternative to motherhood as not normal. But you do all realise that some of the most brilliant women in the world don't have kids, right? Oprah, Gloria Steinem, Helen Mirren, Dolly Parton? Do you think their lives carry an air of tragedy because they never had children? I don't. I'm sure they all had different reasons for not doing it, some maybe couldn't, some didn't want to, but these women's lives are not empty because of that. I think it's important we take the lead from our heroes and for everyone to stop valuing women on whether they do, or do not, become mothers. The irony of yours and your listeners' opinions is that it is you boxing women in to these roles, not men. It's highly un-feminist of you.' She — Dawn O'Porter

Everybody has a weakness, and everybody has a strength! Let us not mar our lives just because of our differences! There shall surely be some differences; let us get understanding! When you think that somebody is so different because of certain reasons, mind such reasons, for sometimes, your own reasons can make you feel you are different, positively or negatively! — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

One of the reasons I decided to enter this profession," one of the Riot Librarrrians wrote, "was because I'm in love with information, and the library remains one of the few spaces in our lives where information is not a commodity ... There's a subversive element to librarianship that I adore. — Marilyn Johnson

Going back to the missed-disco opportunities or forgone pleasures argument, this would be entirely valid if we were discussing the reasons I've never had a dog. Whereas it's never even occurred to me to have a child, I would love to have a dog but am put off by the burden of responsibility involved. And while not having a child is a source of pleasure, not having a dog is a source of constant torment and endless anxiety for my wife and me. We keep wishing that we could arrange our lives in such a way that it was possible to have a dog, but we keep coming up empty-handed, empty-pawed. — Meghan Daum

I can't recite the chronology or elaborate on the facts. I can't explain the reasons or defend how we lived our lives. What I can tell you is how the events of 1933 sowed the seeds that fundamentally changed our future, that there was little hand-wringing or emotion, that circumstances were beyond control, that there was no recourse or appeal. I can tell you that events were incremental, that the unbelievable became the believable and, ultimately, the normal.

Ralph Webster, A Smile in One Eye: a Tear in the Other — Ralph Webster

But I'm not sure it actually matters what we read. Our lives continue along the straight lines that have been set out for us. Fiction merely allows us a glimpse of the alternative. Maybe that's one of the reasons we enjoy it. — Anthony Horowitz

Falling in love: how does it work? Over the years we gather the odd clue, but nothing adds up. We'd like to think we have a picture of our future partner projected in our mind, all their qualities recorded as if on film, and we just search the planet for that person until we find them, sitting in Casablanca waiting to be recognised. But in reality our love lives are blown around by career and coincidence, not to mention lack of nerve on given occasions, and we never have respectable reasons for anything until we have to make them up afterwards for the benefit of our curious friends. — Michel Faber

For example, the wind has its reasons. We just don't notice as we go about our lives. But then, at some point, we are made to notice. The wind envelops you with a certain purpose in mind, and it rocks you. The wind knows everything that's inside you. And not just the wind. Everything, including a stone. They all know us very well. From top to bottom. It only occurs to us at certain times. And all we can do is go with those things. As we take them in, we survive, and deepen. — Haruki Murakami

And then we turn 18 and even though we never had an original thought we have to make the most important decission of our lives. — Jay Asher

I distrust plot for two reasons: first, because our lives are largely plotless, even when you add in all our reasonable precautions and careful planning; and second, because I believe plotting and the spontaneity of real creation aren't compatible. It's best that I be as clear about this as I can - I want you to understand that my basic belief about the making of stories is that they pretty much make themselves. The job of the writer is to give them a place to grow (and to transcribe them, of course). If you can see things this way (or at least try to), we can work together comfortably. If, on the other hand, you decide I'm crazy, that's fine. You won't be the first. — Stephen King

A crowd whose discontent has risen no higher than the level of slogans is only a crowd. But a crowd that understands the reasons for its discontent and knows the remedies is a vital community, and it will have to be reckoned with. I would rather go before the government with two people who have a competent understanding of an issue, and who therefore deserve a hearing, than with two thousand who are vaguely dissatisfied.
But even the most articulate public protest is not enough. We don't live in the government or in institutions or in our public utterances and acts, and the environmental crisis has its roots in our lives. By the same token, environmental health will also be rooted in our lives. That is, I take it, simply a fact, and in the light of it we can see how superficial and foolish we would be to think that we could correct what is wrong merely by tinkering with the institutional machinery. The changes that are required are fundamental changes in the way we are living. — Wendell Berry