Quotes & Sayings About Living Life For Yourself Not Others

You know what I was thinking about on my way home? How different my life would be if you'd made that gash a little deeper. Or how different yours would be if I'd vaulted myself off a roof nine years ago. Do you ever think
about things like that? Like, if either you or I wouldn't have made it, where would the other one be right now? It was something I thought about all the time: how death changes every remaining moment for those still living. — Tiffanie DeBartolo

Obviously technologies that are sustainable are a logical first step to creating a just society, one that doesn't trample life in all its forms, whether it's other humans or other life forms on the earth, one that acknowledges that we're all sharing the space and that there needs to be room for every living thing somewhere. — John Lindsay

Oh, trebly hooped and welded hip of power! Oh, high aspiring, rainbowed jet! - that one strives, this one jettest all in vain! In vain, oh whale, dost thou seek intercedings with yon all-quickening sun, that only calls forth life, but gives it not again. Yet dost thou, darker half, rock me with a prouder, if a darker faith All thy unnamable imminglings float beneath me here; I am buoyed by breaths of once living things, exhaled as air, but water now. — Herman Melville

A writer can't just be well-educated or good at research; to build a living, breathing world with interesting characters, you have to write from the gut. I'm not saying you have to live your life like a fantasy adventure. The trick is the ability to synthesize your own everyday experiences into your fiction. Infuse your characters with believable emotions and motivations. Infuse your world with rich sensory detail. For that you have to be in touch with your own existence and your own soul, the dark and the light of it. — Lynn Flewelling

Having read the inscriptions upon the tombstones of the great and little cemeteries, Wang Peng advised the Emperor to kill all the living and resurrect the dead. — Paul Eldridge

If it were not for the Eucharist, if it were not for this marvelous manifestation of God's love, if it were not for this opportunity to place ourselves in the very real presence of God, if it were not for the sacrament that reminds us of His love, His suffering and His triumph, which indeed perpetuates for us His saving sacrifice on the cross, I am sure that I could never face the challenges of my life, my own weakness and sinfulness and my own need to reach out to the Living God. — Theodore Edgar McCarrick

Death gives a reason to our lives. More important then that, death creates a special value for time. If our time on earth was undetermined, life on its own wouldn't make any sense and probably we would still be living without clothes and with a spear on hand. Death is the most powerful agent in nature, it comes to take away the old and make space for the new. Our effort to avoid it and make our short stay here something slightly memorable is what motivates us. Life only exists because of death. — Marilena Chaui

The widespread assumption that ethical behavior takes the fun out of life is false. In actuality, living ethically ensures that relationships in our lives, including encounters with strangers, nurture our spiritual growth. — Bell Hooks

Gratitude opens overflowing of heavenly blessings. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Prisoner of Her Own Captivity — Brandalynn Davis

Don't worry, I plan on living a long time."
"Why are you making a bucket list, then?"
"Because if you wait until you're really dying, it's too late. — Gayle Forman

I've come to believe that all my past failure and frustration were actually laying
the foundation for the understandings that have created the new level of living I
now enjoy. — Anthony Robbins

We therapists often make inaccurate assumptions about people living with DID and DDNOS. They often appear to be "just like us," so we often assume their experience of life reflects our own. But this is profoundly untrue. It results in a communication gap, and, as a consequence, treatment errors. Because the dominant culture is one of persons with a single sense of self, most with multiple "selves" have learned to hide their multiplicity and imitate those who are singletons (that is, have a single, non-fragmented personality). Therapists who do not understand this sometimes describe their clients' alters without acknowledging their dissociation, saying only that they have different "moods." In overlooking dissociation, this description fails to recognize the essential truth of such disorders, and of the alters. It was difficult for me to comprehend what life was like for my first few dissociative clients. — Alison Miller

I believe in unconditional love ...
I believe in dangerous unselfishness ...
I believe in daring to achieve ...
I believe in making mistakes ...
I believe in helping others ...
I believe in moving on ...
I believe in passionate romance ...
I believe in living the fullness of this human experience ...
I believe in ME ... — Steve Maraboli

Accustom yourself to the belief that death is of no concern to us, since all good and evil lie in sensation and sensation ends with death. Therefore the true belief that death is nothing to us makes a mortal life happy, not by adding to it an infinite time, but by taking away the desire for immortality. For there is no reason why the man who is thoroughly assured that there is nothing to fear in death should find anything to fear in life. So, too, he is foolish who says that he fears death, not because it will be painful when it comes, but because the anticipation of it is painful; for that which is no burden when it is present gives pain to no purpose when it is anticipated. Death, the most dreaded of evils, is therefore of no concern to us; for while we exist death is not present, and when death is present we no longer exist. It is therefore nothing either to the living or to the dead since it is not present to the living, and the dead no longer are. — Epicurus

He sat in the living room in the dark, an expert at waiting, a nineteen-year veteran of it, waiting for people who failed to appear, missed court dates because they forgot or didn't care, and took off. Nineteen years of losers, repeat offenders in and out of the system. Another one, that's all Louis was, slipping back into the life. — Elmore Leonard

The woman who truly intends to live a good life is already living phenomenally since intent is part of the achievement. — Maya Angelou

To know you're going to die, and to be prepared for it at any time.
That's better. That way you can actually be more involved in your life
while you're living. — Mitch Albom

Why can't we all live together in love and in peace? — Lailah Gifty Akita

Don't be in a hurry to achieve your dreams. Take a day to play with your kids and relax - your dreams will still be there tomorrow. — Lindsey Rietzsch

Life is about living, and I intend to live it to the fullest, don't you? — Sam Crescent

Looking beyond life's imperfections allows one to be able to find happiness. Life is not perfect, ever. For me, remembering that life is flawed, people are flawed, and therefore relationships are flawed, allows me to look at the flaws and imperfections as part of life itself. A perfect life includes all of the flaws associated with what and who you surround yourself with. My life and my means of living it are no exception. I was, as all people are, flawed. I accepted myself as being flawed no differently than I accepted others as being so. — Scott Hildreth

You are never just living for the moment. You are living for eternity, and your life has the potential to prove fruitful not only for yourself, but also for many others. — Joe Thorn

Two things, generally, for me, is what life is about. And they're not funny. Living in the moment, is one. And No. 2 is getting out of yourself and helping other people. Because all of my suffering stems from thinking from myself. — Bobby Lee

Focussing on Karma than on the lessons needed to be learned is setting a trap for "what goes around comes around." Never wish for others what you will not wish for yourself. Do to others as you want done to you. That's what love is about! — Kemi Sogunle

If all you do is look out for yourself, then ... you're not really looking out for yourself.
Taking care of those that love and care about you is critical. Living just for yourself is not really living.
I'm a scientist. Its not only a beautiful and rewarding way to go through life, its also Darwinian! — Jose N. Harris

The career world is like an ecological system: People occupy particular fields within which they must compete for resources and survival. The more people there are crowded into a space, the harder it becomes to thrive there. Working in such a field will tend to wear you out as you struggle to get attention, to play the political games, to win scarce resources for yourself. You spend so much time at these games that you have little time left over for true mastery. You are seduced into such fields because you see others there making a living, treading the familiar path. You are not aware of how difficult such a life can be. — Robert Greene

There is nothing more powerful, more radical, more transformational than love. No other substance or force. And do not be deceived, for it is all of these things, and then far more than that. It can't be circumscribed by our desires or dictated by the whim of our moods. Not the Great Love of the Universe, as I like to call it. Not the Love that set everything in motion, keeps it in motion, which moves through all things and yet bulldozes nothing, not even our will. Try it. Just try it and you'll see. If you love that Great Love first, because It loved you first, and then love yourself as you have been loved, and love others from that love ... WOW! BAM! Life without that kind of faith-that's death. Therein lies the great metaphor ... Life without faith IS death. For life, as it was intended to be, is love. Start loving and you'll really start living. There is no other force in the universe comparable to that. — Carolyn Weber

The fear that we are going to fail in life is really the fear that we are not good enough for whatever we have to do. Be yourself and you will be able to do anything you want. Let the soul within you be itself and you will never fail. Don't boast, but understand that letting your light shine invites others to do the same. — Davis Carlson

Beware some people are just talking to you to gain information to use against you. Be careful with what you say around others because it may not be understood the way you expected. There are those who are waiting for the opportunity to spread rumors. And, with only a few words your life has been turned into a soap opera. — Amaka Imani Nkosazana

Daily walk promotes good health. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Life before toilet paper was not worth living. — Sherrilyn Kenyon

What better time to try something new than when you have nothing to lose. — Jules Barnard

People who simply live their life and care only about bearing children are under the influence of a misbelief that they are people — Sunday Adelaja

Instead of clinging to the only Lifeboat that can save, we have tossed overboard biblical truths in the name of [compromise], living on the edge of life, like the man who rides the parameter of a hurricane, daring it to sweep him away. — Billy Graham

This is a living planet. Look around. Mars, Venus, Jupiter. Look beyond our solar system. Where else is there a place that works, that is just right for the likes of us? It has not happened just instantly. It is vulnerable to our actions. But it's the result of four and a half billion years of evolution, of change over time. And it changes every day, all the time. It would be in our interest to try to maintain a certain level of stability that has enabled us to prosper, to not wreck the very systems that give us life. — Sylvia Earle

Too often, we put up with mediocrity, telling ourselves that later in life we'll do what we want. — Daniel Willey

I will not die an unlived life. I will not live in fear of falling or catching fire. I choose to inhabit my days, to allow my living to open me, to make me less afraid, more accessible; to loosen my heart until it becomes a wing, a torch, a promise. I choose to risk my significance, to live so that which came to me as seed goes to the next as blossom, and that which came to me as blossom, goes on as fruit. — Dawna Markova

Hate is infectious, but so is love, the difference between the two is one takes effort and the other one doesn't. — Dave Guerrero

We can find peace among ourselves, when we find peace with nature. — Lailah Gifty Akita

That's the thing about living vicariously; it's so much faster than actual living. — Audrey Niffenegger

Live by your own sacred standard. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Come, then, thou regenerate man, thou extravagant prodigal, thou awakened sleeper, thou all-powerful visionary, thou invincible millionaire,
once again review thy past life of starvation and wretchedness, revisit the scenes where fate and misfortune conducted, and where despair received thee. Too many diamonds, too much gold and splendor, are now reflected by the mirror in which Monte Cristo seeks to behold Dantes. Hide thy diamonds, bury thy gold, shroud thy splendor, exchange riches for poverty, liberty for a prison, a living body for a corpse! — Alexandre Dumas

Don't be so caught up in the noble cause of responsibility that you lose your passion for who you are living for. — Shannon L. Alder

Living your life constructs your soul, not a few seconds of daily prayer. — James Cook

They just change. Their body changes. Their abilities - the things they do that make them who they are - leave, sometimes temporarily, sometimes forever. Every day they wake up with that big what if?
And nothing is scarier than a life filled with what ifs - living by day without predictability and control. Some people end up losing feeling. Some have uncontrollable spasms. Some can't function. Some end up blind or in a wheelchair. Some end up bedridden and paralyzed.
It's hard to know who "some people" will be. — Lindsey Leavitt

No one grows old by living - only by losing interest in living. — Marie Beynon Lyons Ray

When you're living through them, events are nothing more than stuff that happens. You're not thinking about significance. Significance only comes when you look back at your life. — James Howe