Living The Question Quotes & Sayings

Two great questions are often posed about worthwhile living: Who has the good life? and Who is a good person? The first question gets addressed in ads, the second at funerals. Two — John Ortberg

For millennia, man remained what he was for Aristotle: a living animal with the additional capacity for a political existence; modern man is an animal whose politics places his existence as a living being in question — Michel Foucault

So I won't trap myself into quantifying which matters more, race, or gender, or class. Race, gender, and class are basic elements of one's living. Basic as utensils and clothing; always in use; always needing repairs and updates. Basic as body and breath, justice and reason, passion and imagination. So the question isn't "Which matters most?," it's "How does each matter?" Gender, race, class; class, race, gender - your three in one and one in three. — Margo Jefferson

The question is not ... if art is enough to fulfill my life, but if I am true to the path I have set for myself, if I am the best I can be in the things I do. Am I living up to the reasons I became a singer in the first place? — Kathleen Battle

This book by Dr. Yasuda, while ostensibly about haiku, in reality penetrates deeply into the totality of this living spirit of Japan. It deals with those aspects which have produced and maintained haiku into the present day. The important key to understanding comes with the realization that in Japanese art one strives always for the absolute. Of the absolute there is no question of degree; it is either attained or lost. Most often, to be sure, it is not attained, but it is the constant striving toward and awareness of that high goal which gives strength and vitality to this living aesthetic spirit which has so impressed me in Japan.

(Robert B. Hall, Foreword, p. x) — Kenneth Yasuda

At those critical junctures, the question is not simply whether to live or die but what kind of life is worth living. — Paul Kalanithi

We do not take democracy for granted. We feel it grow in our working together - many millions of us working toward a common purpose. If it took us several decades of sacrifice to arrive at this faith, it is because it took us that long to know what part of America is ours.
Our faith has been shaken many times, and now it is put to question. Our faith is a living thing, and it can be crippled or chained. It can be killed by denying us enough food or clothing, by blasting away our personalities and keeping us in constant fear. Unless we are properly prepared the powers of darkness will have good reason to catch us unaware and trample our lives. — Carlos Bulosan

Is there an answer to the question of why bad things happen to good people? ... The response would be ... to forgive the world for not being perfect, to forgive God for not making a better world, to reach out to the people around us, and to go on living despite it all ... no longer asking why something happened, but asking how we will respond, what we intend to do now that it has happened. — Harold S. Kushner

New Orleans is a city whose basic industry is the service industry. That's why it makes its money. That's - it brings people to the city. People come to the city and experience the wonders of this extraordinary city and everything else. The question is that, how do we create jobs which are the jobs that have pay, that - living wages? — Danny Glover

How was she able to imagine a world like this one, when all she had experienced was ice and sunlight and blood? There is no good answer to this question. Maybe the world was somehow implicit in the monster's body and her parents' organs. Maybe the Goddess could see into the future. Her abilities are many and not well understood. If so, she was able to use the world-that-came-into-existence as a model for the world-not-yet-made; and we, living and acting now, may be shaping the world at its moment of origin. In — Eleanor Arnason

Those externalized costs have always included labor. It is only the decline over time of the minimum wage in real dollars that's made the fast food industry possible, along with feedlot agriculture, pharmaceuticals on the farm, pesticides and regulatory forbearance. All these things are part of the answer to the question: Why is that crap so cheap? Our food is dishonestly priced. One of the ways in which it's dishonestly priced is the fact that people are not paid a living wage to process it, to serve it, to grow it, to slaughter it. — Michael Pollan

The teacher asks a question.
You know the answer, you suspect
you are the only one in the classroom
who knows the answer, because the person
in question is yourself, and on that
you are the greatest living authority,
but you don't raise your hand.
You raise the top of your desk
and take out an apple.
You look out the window.
You don't raise your hand and there is
some essential beauty in your fingers,
which aren't even drumming, but lie
flat and peaceful.
The teacher repeats the question.
Outside the window, on an overhanging branch,
a robin is ruffling its feathers
and spring is in the air. — Mary Ruefle

He tries not to give offense. He likes to think of himself by nature as reasonable and conciliatory. He can duck out, prevaricate, evade the issue. He can smile enigmatically and refuse to come down on either side. He can quibble, and stand on semantics. It's a living, he thinks; but it isn't. For there comes the bald question, the one choice out of two: do you want a revolution, M. de Robespierre? Yes, damn you, damn all of you, I want it, we need it, that's what we're going to have. — Hilary Mantel

We accept the responsibility to preach the gospel to every person on earth. And if the question is asked, you mean you are out to convert the entire world? The answer is, 'yes'. We will try to reach every living soul. — Boyd K. Packer

To answer your question as honestly as I can, I've wanted since I was very little to not have to worry about money. I've never been poverty-level poor (I mean, there's been years where I've been officially beneath the poverty line, but that wasn't poverty: that was being a student and living the Student Lifestyle), but I've been in a place where you know you can't afford a better-quality food, where you can't do certain things because of money, and I'd prefer not to have those problems if I can. I sort of have troubles with money in general, with how it determines so much of our lives but with how we all try to ignore it, but I would like to be (and stay) in a place where I can pick up some new comics and games and not worry about how much they cost.
This is terrible; you're asking me where I want to be in the future, what I want my life to be like, and the only thing I can tell you is Man, all I know is I don't want to be POOR. — Ryan North

So this, I believe, is the central question upon which all creative living hinges: Do you have the courage to bring forth the treasures that are hidden within you? — Elizabeth Gilbert

Indeed, the biggest winners in the world are those who answer yes to the question, Am I living the life I choose? — Jack Welch

The most important question anyone can ask is: What myth am I living? — Carl Jung

First of all, I must make it clear that this girl does not know herself apart from the fact that she goes on living aimlessly. Were she foolish enough to ask herself 'Who am I?', she would fall flat on her face. For the question 'Who am I?' creates a need. And how does one satisfy that need? To probe oneself is to recognize that one is incomplete. — Clarice Lispector

Climate change is the 800-pound gorilla in the living room that the media dances around. But in the scientific community, it's a settled question: 95 percent of scientists believe this is happening with 100 percent confidence temperatures are rising. — Michio Kaku

Sparta has no philosophers. That's because the job of a philosopher is to understand things better, which is a form of change, so they don't want it. Another difference: they don't honour living poets, only dead ones. Why? Because dead poets don't write anything new, but live ones do. A third difference: their education system is insanely harsh; ours is famously lax. Why? Because they don't want their kids to dare to question anything, so that they won't ever think of changing anything. How — David Deutsch

I'm so grateful for Living the Questions. These progressive voices offer less rigid and more expansive approaches to Christian faith, and make room for people who practice critical thinking and question the gatekeepers. They help us see that questioning the gatekeepers is exactly what Jesus was all about. — Brian D. McLaren

Talking is great, but don't ignore the value of listening. Pay attention to the words being spoken. Some people just love the sound of their own voice. And, when another person speaks, they are only anticipating to compete, challenge, or question what is being said. You can miss out on some important wisdom always running your mouth. — Amaka Imani Nkosazana

We applaud the great strides made through genetic identification research, however, we do not condone the use of such information for eugenics and related purposes" ... "The question of what lives are worth living is now answered in doctors' offices instead of in Nazis' T-4 programme. The forces of normalisation seem to be gaining ground. — Andrew Solomon

He felt at times that he was a kind of vegetable, and he longed for something - even pain - to pierce him, to bring him alive. He had come to that moment in his age when there occurred to him, with increasing intensity, a question of such overwhelming simplicity that he had no means to face it. He found himself wondering if his life were worth the living; if it had ever been. It was a question, he suspected, that came to all men at one time or another; he wondered if it came to them with such impersonal force as it came to him. — John Williams

People have reflected on the quality of time ever since they've been writing. I suppose I have thought about and written about the question of living in the present - but it only lasts for an instant, and then everything becomes the past. The future, you know nothing about, except for some anticipations you have. — James Salter

You have everything within you to do great things in this world. Maybe, you are inspired to sing a song, write a book or poems, create art in various forms. Or you may decide to find a cure for disease, end world hunger, prevent abuse, or take a stand politically. The question is how to begin the process of fulfilling your vision. Start where you are and use the resources you have to build from there. Inspiration is what motivates you to achieve your remarkable ideas. Also it takes time and dedication to excel to the next level. — Amaka Imani Nkosazana

Why one writes is a question I can answer easily, having so often asked it of myself. I believe one writes because one has to create a world in which one can live. I could not live in any of the worlds offered to me - the world of my parents, the world of war, the world of politics. I had to create a world of my own, like a climate, a country, an atmosphere in which I could breathe, reign, and recreate myself when destroyed by living. That, I believe, is the reason for every work of art. — Anais Nin

When we recognise that unity of all living things, then at once arises the question - how can we support this life of ours with least injury to the lives around us; how can we prevent our own life adding to the suffering of the world in which we live? — Annie Besant

If I were going to give my life as a servant of the King, I had to know that King. What was he like? In what could I trust him? In the same way I could trust a set of impersonal laws? Or could I trust him as a living leader, as a very present commander in battle? The question was central. Because if he were a king in name only, I would rather go back to the chocolate factory. I would remain a Christian, but I would know that my religion was only a set of principles, excellent and to be followed, but hardly demanding devotion. — Brother Andrew

Some Things, Say the Wise Ones Some things, say the wise ones who know everything, are not living. I say, you live your life your way and leave me alone. I have talked with the faint clouds in the sky when they are afraid of being left behind; I have said, Hurry, hurry! and they have said: thank you, we are hurrying. About cows, and starfish, and roses, there is no argument. They die, after all. But water is a question, so many living things in it, but what is it, itself, living or not? Oh, gleaming generosity, how can they write you out? As I think this I am sitting on the sand beside the harbor. I am holding in my hand small pieces of granite, pyrite, schist. Each one, just now, so thoroughly asleep. — Mary Oliver

Germany will regard the Jewish question as solved only after the very last Jew has left the greater German living space ... Europe will have its Jewish question solved only after the very last Jew has left the continent. — Alfred Rosenberg

Next caller. Betty, you're on the air. What's your question ?"
"Hi, Kitty. I just wanted to know, are you going out with that Cormac guy from last month?"
My jaw dropped. "What?"
"Are you going out with that Cormac guy?"
"We are talking about the same Cormac who tried to kill me on the air, yes? the guy who hunts werewolves for a living ?"
"Uh-huh."
"And you want to know if I'm dating him ? Why on earth do you think that's a good idea? — Carrie Vaughn

But the higher our standard of living, the higher our levels of education, the further people will look around. And we can see which level of openness other societies enjoy. We are no different - we too want more freedom. The question is: How much freedom will be allowed? — Zhang Xin

The story of a man who saw three fellows laying bricks at a new building:
He approached the first and asked, What are you doing?
Clearly irritated, the first man responded, What the heck do you think I'm doing? I'm laying these darn bricks!
He then walked over to the second bricklayer and asked the same question.
The second fellow responded, Oh, I'm making a living.
He approached the third bricklayer with the same question, What are you doing?
The third looked up, smiled and said, I'm building a cathedral.
At the end of the day, who feels better about how he's spent his last eight hours? — Bill Vaughan

The stranger in ancient Israel did not serve as a judge, although he received all the benefits of living in the land. The political question is this: By what biblical standard is the pagan to be granted the right to bring political sanctions against God's people? We recognize that unbelievers are not to vote in Church elections. Why should they be allowed to vote in civil elections in a covenanted Christian nation? Which judicial standards will they impose? By what other standard than the Bible? — Gary North

As we come to know the seriousness of the situation, the war, the racism, the poverty in our world, we come to realize that things will not be changed simply by words or demonstrations. Rather, it's a question of living one's life in a drastically different way. — Dorothy Day

Is it better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all...
But is it? Is it really better to know a thing you love only to lose it?
If I'd known then what I know now...
But that's the thing, isn't it? When you're living a thing...you don't know. You take it for granted, like a dog being petted, assuming it will somehow go on forever.
If I'd known what I know now...
I'd have touched everything in sight, everything I could get my hands on. I'd have grabbed the nearest girl I could find and not even caring how crazy she thought me, touched my hands to her face just to know what that feels like.
Is it better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all?
I, never having loved before, have no real answer to that question. — Lauren Baratz-Logsted

We seemed to share certain ideas about what happens in childhood, when you have to place yourself under the sign of your own name, your face, your voice, your outward reality. When you become a fixed position, a thing to others and to yourself. There were times, I told him, at the age of five, six, seven, when it was a shock to me that I was trapped in my own body. Suddenly I would feel locked into an identity, trapped inside myself, as if the container of my person were some kind of terrible mistake. My own voice and arms, my name, seemed wrong. As if I were a dispersed set of nodes that had been falsely organized into a form, and I was living in a nightmare, forced to see from out of this limited and unreal "me." I wasn't so sure I occupied one place, one person, and Sandro said this made sense, this instinct of a child, to question the artificial confines of personhood. — Rachel Kushner

It is not a question of living dangerously. That formula is too arrogant, too presumptuous. I don't care much for bull-fighters. It's not the danger I love. I know what I love. It is life itself. — Antoine De Saint-Exupery

In Gnosticism, man belongs with God against the world and the creator of the world (both of which are crazy, whether they realize it or not). The answer to Fat's question, "Is the universe irrational, and is it irrational because an irrational mind governs it?" receives this answer, via Dr. Stone: "Yes it is, the universe is irrational; the mind governing it is irrational; but above them lies another God, the true God, and he is not irrational; in addition that true God has outwitted the powers of this world, ventured here to help us, and we know him as the Logos," which, according to Fat, is living information. — Philip K. Dick

In a way, underdevelopment is a paradox. Many parts of the world that are naturally rich are actually poor and parts that are not so well off in wealth of soil and sun-soil are enjoying the highest standards of living. When the capitalists from the developed parts of the world try to explain this paradox, they often make it sound as though there is something "God-given" about the situation. One bourgeois economist, in a book on development, accepted that the comparative statistics of the world today show a gap that is much larger than it was before. By his own admission, the gap between the developed and underdeveloped countries has increased by at least 15 to 20 times over the last 150 years. However, the bourgeois economist in question does not give a historical explanation, nor does he consider that there is a relationship of exploitation which allowed capitalist parasites to grow fat and impoverished the dependencies. Instead he puts forward a biblical explanation! Pg. 21 — Walter Rodney

The reason we recoil from this is that we have in our day started by getting the whole picture upside down. Starting with the doctrine that every individuality is 'of infinite value,' we then picture God as a kind of employment committee whose business it is to find suitable careers for souls, square holes for square pegs. In fact, however, the value of the individual does not lie in him. He is capable of receiving value. He receives it by union with Christ. There is no question of finding for him a place in the living temple which will do justice to his inherent value and give scope to his natural idiosyncrasy. The place was there first. The man was created for it. He will not be himself till he is there. We shall be true and everlasting and really divine persons only in Heaven, just as we are, even now, coloured bodies only in the light. — C.S. Lewis

The individual in the ordinary circumstances of living may feel more unreal than real; in a literal sense, more dead than alive; precariously differentiated from the rest of the world, so that his identity and autonomy are always in question ... He may not possess an over-riding sense of personal consistency or cohesiveness. He may feel more insubstantial than substantial, and unable to assume that the stuff he is made of is genuine, good, valuable. And he may feel his self as partially divorced from his body. — R.D. Laing

You should be spreading the good word. You should be etching the good word onto the glass scanning beds of library photocopiers. You should be scraping the truth onto old auto parts and throwing them off bridges so that people digging in the mud in a million years will question the world, too. You should be carving eyeballs into tire treads and onto shoe soles so that your every trail speaks of thinking and faith and belief. You should be designing molecules that crystallize into poems of devotion. You should be making bar codes that print out truth, not lies. You shouldn't even throw away a piece of litter unless it has the truth stamped on it
a demand for people to reach a finer place!
... Your new life will be tinged with urgency, as though you're digging out the victims of an avalanche. If you're not spending every waking moment of your life living the truth, if you're not plotting every moment to boil the carcass of the old order, then you're wasting your day. — Douglas Coupland

We are resolved to protect individual freedom of belief. This freedom must include the child as well as the parent. The freedom for which we stand is not freedom of belief as we please, ... not freedom to evade responsibility, ... but freedom to be honest in speech and action, freedom to respect one's own integrity of thought and feeling, freedom to question, to investigate, to try, to understand life and the universe in which life abounds, freedom to search anywhere and everywhere to find the meaning of Being, freedom to experiment with new ways of living that seem better than the old. — Sophia Lyon Fahs

Why
should I, who have no need to work for food, spin? ' may be the question
asked. Because I am eating what does not belong to me. I am living on the
spoliation of my countrymen. Trace the source of every coin that finds its way
into your pocket, and you will realise the truth of what I write. Every one
must spin. — Mahatma Gandhi

Successful continual learning means maintaining a balance and variety of success-oriented attributes, the most prominent being awareness, confidence, persistence, determination, courage, and focus. But curiosity, ingenuity, and creativity may be even more important as it is these traits that fuel the desire to continue to question and challenge the status quo. — Lorii Myers

A Christian accepts responsibility whatever his environment. God has not grudged you intelligence
you are capable of answering the question, 'Am I or am I not responsible for my actions?' Therefore, there is no doubt that you are responsible. 'Temptation cannot but enter the world, but woe unto him through whom temptation cometh.' As to your transgression itself, well, many commit similar ones, but go on living in peace with their consciences and even consider such things as inevitable errors of youth. There are also odd men with the smell of the grave already about them who likewise still go on sinning, playfully shrugging off their responsibility and reassuring themselves. The world is full of such horrors. You, at least, have felt the full depth of your transgressions, and that's a very rare occurrence. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

the exploiter asks of a piece of land only how much and how quickly it can be made to produce, the nurturer asks a question that is much more complex and difficult: What is its carrying capacity? (That is: How much can be taken from it without diminishing it? What can it produce dependably for an indefinite time?) The exploiter wishes to earn as much as possible by as little work as possible; the nurturer expects, certainly, to have a decent living from his work, but his characteristic wish is to work as well as possible. The competence of the exploiter is in organization; that of the nurturer is in order - a human order, that is, that accommodates itself both to other order and to mystery. The exploiter typically serves an institution or organization; the nurturer serves land, household, community, place. The exploiter thinks in terms of numbers, quantities, "hard facts"; the nurturer in terms of character, condition, quality, kind. — Gregory Pence

Now wait a second ... " Kenneth butted in.
"Yeah, we haven't asked you the questions yet," Brandon finished for Kenneth.
"Yeah, like what are your intentions toward our little Ryan," Patrick added, smirking.
"What do you do for a living?" Brandon added.
"Can you support Ryan's shoe fetish?" Kenneth threw his question in too.
"Hmm, okay, here are my answers. I plan on feeding him, dancing with him and God willing fucking him until he can't walk straight. I help infertile chickens have baby chickens, and I think so. I'm hoping his feet are about my size. We can share shoes and everything," Phillip answered. — Crystal Rose

The urgent question; have you live a fuller life? — Lailah Gifty Akita

Symptomatic of this rural-urban identity crisis is our eager embrace of a recently imposed divide: the Red States and the Blue States. That color map comes to us with the suggestion that both coasts are populated by educated civil libertarians, while the vast middle and south are criss-crossed with the studded tracks of ATVs leaving a trail of flying beer cans and rebel yells. Okay, I'm exaggerating a little. But I certainly sense a bit of that when urban friends ask me how I can stand living here, "so far from everything?" (When I hear this question over the phone, I'm usually looking out the window at a forest, a running creek, and a vegetable garden, thinking: Define everything.) — Barbara Kingsolver

But is it an honest living?" Alec persisted, clinging to his last shred of resolve.
"Most of those who employ me are great lords or nobles."
"It sounds like a pretty dangerous line of work," Alec remarked, aware that once again Seregil had side-stepped the question.
"That's the spice of it, though," cried Seregil. "And you can end up rich!"
"Or on the end of a rope?"
Seregil chuckled. "Have it your way. — Lynn Flewelling

Some of us give up on life with only a resigned sigh. Others fight a little, then lose hope. Still others-and I am one of those-never give up. We fight and fight and fight. We fight no matter the cost of battle, the losses we take, the improbability of success. We fight to the very end. It's not a question of courage. It's something constitutional, an inability to let go. — Yann Martel

When I was younger I used to see the earth as a fundamentally stable and serene place, possessed of a delicate, nearly divine balance, which humans had somehow managed to upset. But as I studied trails more closely, this fantasy gradually evaporated. I now see the earth as the collaborative artwork of trillions of sculptors, large and small. Sheep, humans, elephants, ants: each of us alters the world in our passage. When we build hives or nests, mud huts or concrete towers, we re-sculpt the contours of the planet. When we eat, we convert living matter into waste. And when we walk, we create trails. The question we must ask ourselves is not whether we should shape the earth, but how. — Robert Moor

Rather than get hung up on historical details, we need to keep coming back to the question, 'What does God want to tell us?' If we hang our faith on the absolute historical accuracy of Scripture in every detail, we risk making Scripture a sort of 'magic' book that turns up the right answers to all sorts of rather irrelevant questions, instead of being a book that gives us, in the wonderful words of the Coronation service, 'the lively oracles of God'. The Bible is not intended to be a mere chronicle of past events, but a living communication from God, telling us now what we need to know for our salvation. — Rowan Williams

She was a nightmare of beauty and menace living right there above them, a being part raptor, part human, part divine. She knew without question that she could sweep down on them and inflict upon all of them a terrible vengeance if she wished. She had the capacity for violence within her, residing beside her heart. — David Anthony Durham

Creative Living, Defined So this, I believe, is the central question upon which all creative living hinges: Do you have the courage to bring forth the treasures that are hidden within you? Look, I don't know what's hidden within you. I have no way of knowing such a thing. You yourself may barely know, although I suspect you've caught glimpses. I don't know your capacities, your aspirations, your longings, your secret talents. But surely something wonderful is sheltered inside you. — Elizabeth Gilbert

My belief assumed a form that it commonly assumes among the educated people of our time. This belief was expressed by the word "progress." At the time it seemed to me that this word had meaning. Like any living individual, I was tormented by questions of how to live better. I still had not understood that in answering that one must live according to progress, I was talking just like a person being carried along in a boat by the waves and the wind; without really answering, such a person replies to the only important question-"Where are we to steer?"-by saying, "We are being carried somewhere. — Leo Tolstoy

When we start to realize how amazing God's story is, a question naturally arises: "Who am I that I should get to be a part of the greatest story ever told? — Michelle Anthony

We better get over to Beckett's if you want to see how my day goes - before his crowd gets too raunchy." Blake stood up and held out his hand.
"It's eight thirty in the morning. How raunchy could they be?"
Livia wondered what, exactly, Beckett did for a living. Her question was soon answered. Everything bad. — Debra Anastasia

Made to observe the vastness of our world, the greater breadth and depth of stars unfurled, the mind can grasp an order and a plan and ponder the deep question, "Who is man? — Mary Angeline Bell

Oliver, my professor, was a scientific bounder, a journalist by instinct, a thief of ideas, - he was always prying! And you know the knavish system of the scientific world. I simply would not publish, and let him share my credit. I went on working, I got nearer and nearer making my formula into an experiment, a reality. I told no living soul, because I meant to flash my work upon the world with crushing effect and become famous at a blow. I took up the question of pigments to fill up certain gaps. And suddenly, not by design but by accident, I made a discovery in physiology. — H.G.Wells

Our actions in the present build the staircase to the future. The question is whether that staircase is going up or down. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

A nagging focus on time management makes us want to increase the speed of our lives. Maintaining a focus on priority management helps us recognize the need to slow down. When our use of time is built around well-defined priorities, life is less a question of how much we can get done and more a question of whether something is worth doing at all. — Joe Jordan

THE KEY TO A WONDERFUL LIFE

The key to a wonderful life
Is to never stop wandering into wonder.
Because to live a predictable life,
Only fills a person with strife,
And such a person will always be wondering:
'What a limitless life could be lived beyond the lines?'
Such is a question a curious spirit would never sit and ponder.
So always pursue new ventures in your life,
And be willing to open doors to different light;
This is the only way to keep it magical and always filled with wonder.
Days will feel shorter, but your happiness will grow stronger --
Because living a life without curiosity and adventure,
Is a stale life where days only feel longer and
Longer.

Poetry by Suzy Kassem — Suzy Kassem

There's this thing you're supposed to be part of in London. But what is it? That's the million-dollar question. Everyone's there because they're searching, aspiring. A very small percentage is actually living the dream. Ill, tired, unhappy, the rent is fucking loads, what is it you're getting? The idea of it, or something. — Craig Taylor

At the heart of each spiritual tradition is the question of how to be in the world without losing what matters, and whether living an awakened life is of any use if we don't bring what matters to bear on the world. — Mark Nepo

The heat of the incinerator wrapped around Inej like a living thing, a desert dragon in his den, hiding from the ice, waiting for her. She knew her body's limits, and she knew she had no more to give. She'd made a bad wager. It was as simple as that. The autumn leaf might cling to its branch, but it was already dead. The only question was when it would fall. — Leigh Bardugo

We face the question whether a still higher "standard of living" is worth its cost in things natural, wild, and free. — Aldo Leopold

Let anyone who believes that a high standard of living is the achievement of labor unions and government controls ask himself the following question: If one had a "time machine" and transported the united labor chieftains of America, plus three million government bureaucrats, back to the tenth century - would they be able to provide the medieval serf with electric light, refrigerators, automobiles, and television sets? — Ayn Rand

Never question yourself to satisfy the comfort of those living blindly by the false masks of life. — Nikki Rowe

A lot of life boils down to the question of whether a person is going to be able to realize his fantasies, or else end up surviving only through compromises he can't face up to. The way I figure it, Heaven and Hell are right here on Earth. Heaven is living in your hopes and Hell is living in your fears. It's up to each individual which one he chooses. - Bonanza Jellybean — Tom Robbins

My feeling is that you should try to do the things you enjoy most in life. I chose acting as a career because I enjoyed it then as I do now. The only question for me then was, 'Can I make a living at it?' — Bradford Dillman

Though we were all taught to be proud of living in this great parliamentary democracy the civil servants who ran it were a fearsome bunch - a nameless mass of people with jobs (police, social workers, record-keepers, teachers, councilmen) whose sole purpose was to keep everyone shuffling from birth to death in a nice orderly queue. Surely some social-service record had been passed to the local constabulary bearing a huge black question mark beside the name Finn and the scrawled words, Why isn't this boy in school — Meg Rosoff

The Animal does not question lif. It lives. It's very reason for living is life; it enjoys and relishes life. — Ray Bradbury

(on teaching writing)
So many writers come to class with one question dominant in their mind, 'How do I make a living from this?' It's a fair enough question and one I always try to answer well - but it saddens me that it so often overshadows the more relevant questions of 'why am I writing' and 'what am I saying' and 'how do I keep it honest. — Celine Kiernan

When a family is broken by death, there is no clear way forward out of despair. It is easy to mistake grief for proof of love, and so refuse to relinquish it. For the first year or longer, there is a constant, grinding question that hands over you: Stay or go? You fixate on the fantasy of willing time to roll backward. You find the precise moment before they were taken, and plant your flag there. Death becomes the territory where our love lives, a dangerous place for the living to stay for very long. — Galadrielle Allman

How can God allow such abominations to flourish unchecked in this world?
The answer came in a question, Ruby.
God, in reply, asked, "How can you? — Lisa Wingate

It's too easy only to blame the militarists, racists, sexists and other pushers of violence for the mess we're in. What is harder is self-examination, moving beyond caring by looking inward to ask the personal question: What more should I be doing everyday to bring about a peace and justice based world, whether across the ocean or across the living room? — Colman McCarthy

It is far more difficult to ask the right question than it is to find the correct answer. — Neil E. Clement

Much of the Constitution is remarkably simple and straightforward - certainly as compared to the convoluted reasoning of judges and law professors discussing what is called 'Constitutional law,' much of which has no basis in that document ... The real question [for judicial nominees] is whether that nominee will follow the law or succumb to the lure of 'a living constitution,' 'evolving standards' and other lofty words meaning judicial power to reshape the law to suit their own personal preferences. — Thomas Sowell

When the Rabbis stated that obedience or disobedience to the commandments depends not on the will of Hashem but on man's free will, they echoed Jeremiah, who said, "Out of the mouth of the Most High there comes neither the bad nor the good" (Lamentations 3:38). By the bad he meant vice, and by the good he intended virtue, meaning that Hashem does not predetermine any person as bad or good. Since this is so, a person owes it to himself to mourn his sins and transgressions, since he has committed them of his own free will, as Jeremiah says, "For what should a living man mourn? Let every man mourn because of his sins" (Lamentations 3:39). Jeremiah answers his question positively, telling us that the remedy for our disease lies with us. Just as our failings stemmed from our own free will, so do we have the power to repent of our evil deeds. — Maimonides

There is no life without the conditions of life that variably sustain life, and those conditions are pervasively social, establishing not the discrete ontology of the person, but rather the interdependency of persons, involving reproducible and sustaining social relations, and relations to the environment and to non-human forms of life, broadly considered. This mode of social ontology (for which no absolute distinction between social and ecological exists) has concrete implications for how we re-approach the issues of reproductive freedom and anti-war politics. The question is not whether a given being is living or not, nor whether the being in question has the status of a "person"; it is, rather, whether the social conditions of persistence and flourishing are or are not possible. Only with this latter question can we avoid the anthropocentric and liberal individualist presumptions that have derailed such discussions. — Judith Butler

If we are living under the assumption that we are only one way or another, inside a limited spectrum of human qualities, then we would have to question why more of us aren't wholly satisfied with our lives right now. Why do we have access to so much wisdom yet fail to have the strength and courage to act upon our good intentions by making powerful choices? And most important, why do we continue to act out in ways that go against our value system and all that we stand for? We will assert that it is because of our unexamined life, our darker self, our shadow self where our unclaimed power lies — Deepak Chopra

If the imagination is to transcend and transform experience it has to question, to challenge, to conceive of alternatives, perhaps to the very life you are living at the moment. — Adrienne Rich

There is a very real danger present when we suppress our feelings to act on inspiration in exchange for the "safety" of the status quo. We risk sacrificing the opportunity to live a more fulfilling and purpose driven life. We risk sacrificing the opportunity to make a difference in the lives of others. We risk sacrificing the beautiful blessing of finding a greater sense of meaning in our own lives.
In short, we run the very real risk living a life of regret. — Richie Norton

As Neil Postman said about the scientific view: In the end, science does not provide the answers most of us require. Its story of our origins and our end is, to say the least, unsatisfactory. To the question, "How did it all begin?", science answers, "Probably by an accident." To the question, "How will it all end?", science answers, "Probably by an accident." And to many people, the accidental life is not worth living. (Science and the Story That We Need) — John Eldredge

The animals themselves are incapable of demanding their own liberation, or of protesting against their condition with votes, demonstrations, or bombs. Human beings have the power to continue to oppress other species forever, or until we make this planet unsuitable for living beings. Will our tyranny continue, proving that we really are the selfish tyrants that the most cynical of poets and philosophers have always said we are? Or will we rise to the challenge and prove our capacity for genuine altruism by ending our ruthless exploitation of the species in our power, not because we are forced to do so by rebels or terrorists, but because we recognize that our position is morally indefensible? The way in which we answer this question depends on the way in which each one of us, individually, answers it. — Peter Singer

It was so different than kissing Dancer. Dancer's kiss was sweet and dreamy and exciting. Ryodan's kiss had razor edges, sharp and dangerous as the man. Being in Dancer's arms was like living on the edible planet. Being in Ryodan's was like stepping into the eye of a cyclone. Dancer was easy laughter and a normal future (sans abrupt death). Ryodan was endless challenge and a future that was impossible to imagine.
Dancer accepted me any way I wanted to be without question. Ryodan made me question myself and pushed me to be the most I could be. — Karen Marie Moning

Folks, who don't know the Lord, have asked the question: "Why can't religions accomplish world peace?" It took me a while to come up with the answer, and it is biblical. "When He opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature saying, 'Come and see.' Another horse, fiery red, went out. And it was granted to the one who sat on it to take peace from the earth, and that people should kill one another; and there was given to him a great sword," Revelation 6:3-4, NKJV. — Gaynell E. Hickman

Who are we? That is the first question. It is a question almost impossible to answer. But we all agree that the busy self occupied in our daily activities is not quite the real self. We are quite sure we have lost something in the mere pursuit of living. — Lin Yutang

Now I can broach the notion of suicide. It has already been felt what solution might be given. At this point the problem is reversed. It was previously a question of finding out whether or not life had to have a meaning to be lived. It now becomes clear, on the contrary, that it will be lived all the better if it has no meaning. Living an experience, a particular fate, is accepting it fully. Now, no one will live this fate, knowing it to be absurd, unless he does everything to keep before him that absurd brought to light by consciousness. — Albert Camus

Only if we die, or are threatened with death, do we question and whine about how all this time we wasted the gift of living. — Cameron Jace

Education is something which should be apart from the necessities of earning a living, not a tool therefor. It needs contemplation, fallow periods, the measured and guided study of the history of man's reiteration of the most agonizing question of all: Why? — John D. MacDonald

I'VE ALWAYS BEEN AN ANTI-ESTABLISHMENT KIND OF PERSON. HAVING BEEN A PART OF THE HARD CORE PUNK SCENE AS A KID AND LIVING MY WHOLE LIFE IN VARIOUS UNDERGROUND OR OUTSIDER SCENES, I'VE LONG BEEN EXPOSED TO "QUESTION AUTHORITY" TYPES OF THINKING. IT'S REALLY MORE THAT I FELT THIS WAY TOWARDS SOCIETY THAT DROVE ME TO VEGANISM THAN THE OTHER WAY AROUND. — Anji Bee

What am I living for and what am I dying for are the same question. — Margaret Atwood

An adult female orang-utan cannot defeat an adult male spotted hyena. That is the plain empirical truth. Let it become known among zoologists. Had Orange Juice been a male, had she loomed as large on the scales as she did in my heart, it might have been another matter. But portly and overfed though she was from living in the comfort of a zoo, even so she tipped the scales at barely 110 pounds. Female orang-utans are half the size of males. But it is not simply a question of weight and brute strength. Orange Juice was far from defenseless. What it comes down to is attitude and knowledge. What does a fruit eater know about killing? Where would it learn where to bite, how hard, for how long? An orang-utan may be taller, may have very strong and agile arms and long canines, but if it does not know how to use these as weapons, they are of little use. The hyena, with only its jaws, will overcome the ape because it knows what it wants and how to get it. — Yann Martel

But would you kindly ponder this question: What would your good do if
evil didn't exist, and what would the earth look like if all the shadows
disappeared? After all, shadows are cast by things and people. Here is the
shadow of my sword. But shadows also come from trees and living beings.
Do you want to strip the earth of all trees and living things just because
of your fantasy of enjoying naked light? You're stupid. — Mikhail Bulgakov