Quotes & Sayings About Lives Well Lived

Left to themselves, humans have always managed their own affairs creatively and well. Indeed, for most of human evolution and history people have lived peaceful, co-operative lives without rulers, leaders, politicians, soldiers, policemen and taxmen. — Peter Marshall

Kahneman's evidence shows that we suck at remembering and predicting our own well-being. We as a culture still ignore this empirical evidence, recommending to live our lives so as to avoid deathbed regrets. Deathbed regrets are like Hollywood films: they stir passions for a couple hours, but are poorly connected to reality. They are not good criteria for a well-lived life. — Nick Winter

We are communities in time and in a place, I know, but we are communities in faith as well - and sometimes time can stop shadowing us. Our lives are touched by those who lived centuries ago, and we hope that our lives will mean something to people who won't be alive until centuries from now. It's a great "chain of being," someone once told me, and I think our job is to do the best we can to hold up our small segment of the chain connected, unbroken. Our arms are linked - we try to be neighbors of His, and to speak up for his principles. That's a lifetime's job. — Dorothy Day

Each of us has to blaze our own trail and figure out the best path for our own lives. Every so often, I think it's important to stop and look around to see that we're still on the trail that we once embarked upon some time ago. If somewhere along along the way we look up and the trailhead is nowhere to be found and we seem to have gone painfully off track - that's okay too. Every single day we have a choice to get back on track and when it's all said and done, it's abundantly clear that there is more than one way to get to the finish line of a life well lived. — Chris Hill

After Arran died we could've fallen apart. But we didn't. Because you held it together. "Arran Lives" - you remember that?"
"I remember."
"He lived in you, Max. You done well. I like you. You're cool. — Charlie Higson

The line between private and public lives is a fertile one for me. I've lived quite a public life, and it's the reason I have used well-known people in my work. I'm interested in what's going on beneath the facades they present to the world, taking them to a place which is uncomfortable. — Sam Taylor-Johnson

The journey of life is much about connections! One thing connects with another to bring another thing! When things get connected well, things work well! The right connections between all the things we do during the day show what we did with our lives at the end of the day and how we lived our entire days on earth to leave worthy and indelible footprints or an otherwise footprint! Mind your connections! — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

If, as the dowager had said, we are nothing but gene carriers, why do so many of us have to lead such strangely shaped lives? Wouldn't our genetic purpose - to transmit DNA - be served just as well if we lived simple lives, not bothering our heads with a lot of extraneous thoughts, devoted entirely to preserving life and procreating? Did it benefit the genes in any way for us to lead such intricately warped, even bizarre, lives? — Haruki Murakami

It is my wish and most cherished hope that God would be pleased with my legacy, that lives would be changed by it, and that the world would be immeasurably better because I was privileged to leave a legacy at all. And if perchance I am fortunate enough to have these things come to pass, I can then rest in the fact that I have lived well. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

I looked more widely around me, I studied the lives of the masses of humanity, and I saw that, not two or three, or ten, but hundreds, thousands, millions, had so understood the meaning of life that they were able both to live and to die. All these people were well acquainted with the meaning of life and death, quietly labored, endured privation and suffering, lived and died, and saw in all this, not a vain, but a good thing. — Leo Tolstoy

I believe that if we have lived our lives fully and well, and have accomplished, at least in part, the things we were put here to do, we will be prepared - mentally, physically and spiritually - for our separation from this world. — Loretta Young

She was right: school was lonely. The eighteen and nineteen year olds didn't socialize with the younger kids, and though there were plenty of students my age and younger [ ... ] their lives were so cloistered and their concerns so foolish and foreign-seeming that it was as if they spoke some lost middle-school tongue I'd forgotten. They lived at home with their parents; they worried about things like grade curves and Italian Abroad and summer internships at the UN; they freaked out if you lit a cigarette in front of them; they were earnest, well-meaning, undamaged, clueless. For all I had in common with any of them, I might as well have tried to go down and hang out with the eight year olds at PS 41. — Donna Tartt

What is the use of beauty? i have lived my life surrounded by painters, and still I do not know the answer. But i suspect, some days, that beauty helps protect the spirit of mankind, swaddle it and succor it, so that we might survive. Beauty is no end in itself, but if it makes or lives less miserable so that we might be more kind-well, then, lets have beauty, painted on our porcelain, hanging on our walls, ringing through our stories. — Gregory Maguire

Socrates famously said that the unconsidered life is not worth living. He meant that a life lived without forethought or principle is a life so vulnerable to chance, and so dependent on the choices and actions of others, that it is of little real value to the person living it. He further meant that a life well lived is one which has goals, and integrity, which is chosen and directed by the one who lives it, to the fullest extent possible to a human agent caught in the webs of society and history. — A.C. Grayling

The good doctor reassured John these were people who put their psychopathy to good use. They lived productive, well-adjusted lives as surgeons, CEOs and ambulance drivers. The light bulb went on. The CSC [Correctional Service of Canada] doesn't have to go through all these gyrations to reprogram anyone, they just have to find every inmate the right job! — Stephen Reid

Well, I think it's real important that people understand, first and foremost, those of us that have lived in Arizona or in southern California, we have a very diverse population. The Hispanic population has been part of all of our lives since we've been born here or since we've grown up here. — Jan Brewer

Although I had nothing to offer in return, I came to understand that there was something beneficially reciprocal happening to the people who were blessing me. For a few minutes, they suspended their normal egocentric lives, placed a fellow human being in higher priority than themselves, and expressed their hopes for the other's peace and well-being. In so doing, they inevitably lived life on a higher plane, if only for a few moments. It always smelled like the kingdom of God to me. — David Brazzeal

You know full well that it was past time for you to come out in the open. And by admitting the truth, there are no more secrets, for either of us." She smiled. "That means we're able to discontinue playing the parts we've been playing for far too long and begin living our lives as they were meant to be lived - you as an author, and me as . . . well, I haven't figured that out exactly yet, but I have a few ideas in mind." Bram smiled. "I have to hope that I figure in somewhere with those few ideas, but . . ." He nodded to the shoreline. "We're almost to Ravenwood, so now is hardly the time to discuss such matters." Knowing he was right but finding herself unable to keep from smiling at the idea of having Bram Haverstein as part of her future plans - although what part he would play in her life it was certainly too soon to tell - Lucetta set her sights on the shore, anxious to see Ravenwood from the vantage point of the Hudson. "Do — Jen Turano

People? They usually ask only stupid questions, forcing you to reply with equally stupid answers. For instance, they ask you what you do, not what you would have liked to do. They ask you what you own, not what you've lost. They ask about the woman you married, not about the one you love. About your name, but not if it suits you. They ask your age, but not how well you've lived those years. They ask about the city you live in, not about the city that lives in you. And they ask if you pray, not if you fear God.
So I've gotten used to answering these questions with silence. You know, when we shut up, we force others to reconsider their mistakes. — Ahlam Mosteghanemi

If you find yourself criticizing other people, you're probably doing it out of Resistance. When we see others beginning to live their authentic selves, it drives us crazy if we have not lived out our own.
Individuals who are realized in their own lives almost never criticize others. if they speak at all, it is to offer encouragement. Watch yourself. Of all the manifestations of Resistance, most only harm ourselves. Criticism and cruelty harm others as well. — Stephen Pressfield

I started writing my original scripts replete with kings and queens who lived in the cities and did not want their children to marry servants. They had enough money to throw around and their lives never ended well. — S.A. David

As a young man, I was very interested in how people lived in earlier times; how they got from place to place, lighted their homes, cooked their meals and so on. So I went to the history books. Well, I could find out all about kings and presidents; but I could learn nothing of their everyday lives. So I decided that history is bunk. — Henry Ford

Anyone can make a positive impact on the lives of other people. All we have to do is live our ordinary lives extraordinarily well. Be happy and positive. Do what you love and love your work. Reach out not only by using your hands, but with your heart as well. Life is lived wonderfully that way. — Kcat Yarza

To the degree that each part of our life will support and complement every other and all are ordered to our ultimate goal, our lives will be beautiful. According to St. Thomas Aquinas, one of the essential attributes of beauty is due proportion, which means that all parts are in harmony with each other. Another attribute of beauty is integrity, which means that the overall purpose of the thing is in harmony with what it is meant to be, which for the Christian is the love of God. The final attribute is clarity - it must be radiant and perceptible by others. When people see a life well lived, they are drawn by its beauty and then beyond to the source to which it points, and to which that life is ordered: God. — David Clayton

Rome the crucible, but also the furnace, the boiling metal, the hammer, and the anvil as well, visible proof of the changes and repetitions of history, one place in the world where man will have most passionately lived. The great fire of Troy from which a fugitive had escaped, taking with him his aged father, his young son, and his household goods, had passed down to us that night in this flaming festival. I thought also, with something like awe, of conflagrations to come. These millions of lives past, present, and future, these structures newly arisen from ancient edifices and followed themselves by structures yet to be born, seemed to me to succeed each other in time like waves; by chance it was at my feet that night in this flaming festival. — Marguerite Yourcenar

When I was young - really young - I used to think that the kids who had money, who were popular at school and who did well at things must have had horrible home lives - abusive parents or nasty siblings or lived in cupboard under stairs.
It's kind of sick when you think about it, but what I figured was that life should be fair - everyone had to have good and bad things in their lives, and no one could have a wholly good life or a wholly bad life because that would upset the balance of things.
I know now that I was wrong. — Steph Bowe

Studies of people who report high well-being in their fifties and sixties indicate that they have lived lives that involved personal risks. They are not people whose lives have been calm and predictable. A life under tight control sometimes produces quiet desperation. High well-being is a life that has depth and quality. Risks, losses, problems, and tragedy add pain to a life. That pain becomes a teacher. We learn; the pain gives us no choice. — Jennifer James

Merchant: 'So you have lived on the possessions of others?'
Saddhartha: 'Apparently. The merchant also lives on the possession of others.'
Merchant: 'Well spoken ... — Hermann Hesse

I am convinced that it is not the fear of death, of our lives ending that haunts our sleep so much as the fear ... that as far as the world is concerned, we might as well never have lived. — Harold S. Kushner

You can open to God through sex. By learning to open your heart and body while embracing and trusting all energies from rough ravishment to sublime gentleness, you can open to be lived by the mystery that lives the entire universe. You can open to be lived by love with no limits, so you are alive as love, offering the deepest gifts of your heart spontaneously and without hesitation, in every moment, at work, with your family and friends, as well as in bed with your lover. — David Deida

unspoken bond existed between the residents of Chapel Isle. The island was the same as the nets its fishermen cast at sea, a tight lattice of people tied by lives lived closely, knotted by friendship. Being here meant Abigail could become a part of that net as well, which was — Ellen Block

The truth is that History, with its imposing capital H, is simply the amalgamation of many quotidian lives lived in very ordinary ways. History is always personal. If you read Holocaust survivor or American slavery survivor narratives, you realize all too well that these great Historical moments were personal to someone at some time. — Chris Abani

Dean took out other pictures. I realized these were all the snapshots which our children would look at someday with wonder, thinking their parents had lived smooth, well-ordered, stabilized-within-the-photo lives and got up in the morning to walk proudly on the sidewalks of life, never dreaming the raggedy madness and riot of our actual lives, or actual night, the hell of it, the senseless nightmare road. — Jack Kerouac

Looking at my patients and their families, I have a remarkable view not just of lives well lived, but of deep commitment and love. I wouldn't trade that for the world. Sure, sometimes I'm caring for people at their worst, but I'm also blessed to be with them at their best. — David Dosa

In fact no one recognizes the happiest moment of their lives as they are living it. It may well be that, in a moment of joy, one might sincerely believe that they are living that golden instant "now," even having lived such a moment before, but whatever they say, in one part of their hearts they still believe in the certainty of a happier moment to come. Because how could anyone, and particularly anyone who is still young, carry on with the belief that everything could only get worse: If a person is happy enough to think he has reached the happiest moment of his life, he will be hopeful enough to believe his future will be just as beautiful, more so. — Orhan Pamuk

How well do you know the people who raised you? Look around your dining room table. Look around at your loved ones, especially the elders. The grandparents and the aunts and uncles who used to give you shiny new quarters and unvarnished advice. How much do you really know about their lives. Perhaps you've heard that they served in a war, or lived for a time in a log cabin, or arrived in this country speaking little or no English. Maybe they survived the Holocaust or the Dust Bowl. How were they shaped by the Depression or the Cold War, or the stutter-step march towards integration in their own community? What were they like before they married or took on mortgages and assumed all the worries that attend the feeding, clothing, and education of their children? If you don't already know the answers, the people who raised you will most likely remain a mystery, unless you take the bold step and say: Tell me more about yourself. — Michele Norris

There are certain people in whom you can detect the seeds of madness - seeds that have remained dormant only because the people in question have lived relatively comfortable, middle class lives. They function perfectly well in the world, but you can imagine, given a nasty parent, or a prolonged bout of unemployment, how their potential for craziness might have been realized. — Zoe Heller

I know well that I have it in me to make my name famous. No man lives or has ever lived who has brought the same amount of study and of natural talent to the detection of crime which I have done. — Arthur Conan Doyle

I realized these were all the snapshots which our children would look at someday with wonder, thinking their parents had lived smooth, well-ordered lives and got up in the morning to walk proudly on the sidewalks of life, never dreaming the raggedy madness and riot of our actual lives, our actual night, the hell of it, the senseless emptiness. — Jack Kerouac

In most books, the I, or first person, is omitted; in this it will be retained; that, in respect to egotism, is the main difference. We commonly do not remember that it is, after all, always the first person that is speaking. I should not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well. Unfortunately, I am confined to this theme by the narrowness of my experience. Moreover, I, on my side, require of every writer, first or last, a simple and sincere account of his own life, and not merely what he has heard of other men's lives; some such account as he would send to his kindred from a distant land; for if he has lived sincerely, it must have been in a distant land to me. Perhaps these pages are more particularly addressed to poor students. As for the rest of my readers, they will accept such portions as apply to them. I trust that none will stretch the seams in putting on the coat, for it may do good service to him whom it fits. — Henry David Thoreau

And two more tiresome examples of blameless lives lived well I have rarely had the misfortune to examine. — Andrea K. Host

Fellow Englishman. Ladies and gentleman. You gather here today to see a live man become a dead one, and for my part you shall have satisfaction. But I would offer you a moral lesson to commemorate my passing; otherwise it might as well be bull baiting you witness here today. However I shall not deliver a warning that crime does not pay, for it pays very well; nor that a life of drink and debauchery leads inevitably to destruction, for I haven't led such a life. Here's what this little life of mine has taught me. There is only one reason to live, and there is only one reason to die, and that is love. If you have not known love, you have not lived. But if, when death comes to take your soul, you have loved someone dearly, then your soul is safe; for it lives in the bosom of your sweetheart, and death can make no claim upon it. That is all I know, and it is enough. Farewell. — Ben Tripp

Because it has lived its life intensely
the parched grass still attracts the gaze of passers-by.
The flowers merely flower,
and they do this as well as they can.
The white lily, blooming unseen in the valley,
Does not need to explain itself to anyone;
It lives merely for beauty.
Man, however, cannot accept that 'merely'.

If tomatoes wanted to be melons,
they would look completely ridiculous.
I am always amazed
that so many people are concerned
with wanting to be what they are not;
what's the point of making yourself look ridicuolous?

You don't always have to pretend to be strong,
there's no need to prove all the time that everything is going well,
you shouldn't be concerned about what other people are thinking,
cry if you need to,
it's good to cry out all your tears
(because only then will you be able to smile again). — Mitsuo Aida

No matter what stage of illness we are in, whether we've just been diagnosed or we have lived with chronic migraines for decades, there are adjustments we can make to increase joy in our lives and to live more fully. — Sarah Hackley

There are no crimes and no criminals in these days. What is the use of having brains in our profession? I know well that I have it in me to make my name famous. No man lives or has ever lived who has brought the same amount of study and of natural talent to the detection of crime which I have done. And what is the result? There is no crime to detect, or, at most, some bungling villainy with a motive so transparent that even a Scotland Yard official can see through it. — Arthur Conan Doyle

It never occurred to me that I'd be typecast, although I was. And I never thought of the role as a commercial product, because I was ... well, I was playing this slightly messianic alien. He isn't violent, he doesn't get his leg over the girl, he doesn't steal, and he's rather wry, and adorable, and mysterious. He's lived for 900 years or something. He lives the life of the old patriarchs of the Old Testament. That's not commercial. He's special. — Tom Baker