Quotes & Sayings About Making Life Great

I think movies are great and I have a great time making them but they're not what keeps you warm at night, or what's ultimately the most important thing in anyone's life journey. — Reese Witherspoon

The Roman Empire invented snacks, right after the aqueducts. Irrigation flowed, food plentiful, people munching between meals in the city-states. They ate these little, sun-dried meaty things, highly distasteful and falling out of favor until olive oil. I just made all that up. The key to life is making shit up. Everyone does it or society would unravel, like, Gee, your hair looks great! Or: God told me you're wrong — Tim Dorsey

Never give way to melancholy: nothing encroaches more; I fight against it vigorously. One great remedy is, to take short views of life. Are you happy now? Are you likely to remain so till this evening? or next week? or next year? Then why destroy present happiness by a distant misery, which may never come at all, or you may never live to see it? For every substantial grief has twenty shadows, and most of them shadows of your own making. — Sydney Smith

I'm a great believer in life to saying yes and not saying no, and hopefully making people smile and just having fun in life. — Richard Branson

Because of people like that guy in San Francisco who told me it changed his life, 'Teen Witch' is my most favorite thing I've ever done. I see how happy it makes people, and that makes me happy. The great thing is that no one realized it was going to become all these things when we were making it. We thought we were making a very serious movie. — Robyn Lively

I had never felt great about my modelling career anyway. All of it was so fake, so make-believe. But look at the people here. How warm they are. How genuine. I have never had any of this before. I feel wealthier than when I was making all that money modelling in Mumbai, You are right about your observation. This life does give me my peace. — Preeti Shenoy

I don't drink anymore myself, I'm moving on. And that's not to say I won't drink again. I'm not making any promises, but I don't think I was a great drinker. Some folks are great drinkers; they drink and tell jokes and laugh their asses off, and they are funny as hell. We buried one of those last week. Life is just a big test, and if you try hard, you fail. If you don't try too hard and fail a little but have a good time, maybe that is success. — Neil Young

It was only when we brought Will back home, once the annex was adapted and ready, that I could see a point in making it beautiful again. I needed to give my son something to look at. I needed to tell him, silently, that things might change, grow, or fail, but that life did go on. That we were all part of some great cycle, some pattern that it was only God's purpose to understand. I couldn't say that to him, of course - Will and I have never been able to say much to each other - but I wanted to show him. A silent promise, if you like, that there was a bigger picture, a brighter future. — Jojo Moyes

You are now fixed at the mercy of no governor that comes to make his fortune great; you shall be governed by laws of your own making and live a free, and if you will, a sober and industrious life. I shall not usurp the right of any, or oppress his person. God has furnished me with a better resolution and has given me his grace to keep it. — William Penn

People assume I'm out there having this great life, but money doesn't erase the pain. When you're young you barrel through life, making choices without thinking of repercussions. A few years down the line, you wake up in a certain place and wonder how the hell you got there. — Jennifer Lopez

One of the great joys of life, now that you can afford a nice suit, is getting one for free. That's why I like to do press tours - I always say making movies is just an excuse to get free clothing. — Eli Roth

For each of us, then, the challenge and opportunity is to cherish all life as the gift it is, envision it whole, seek to know it truly, and undertake -with our minds, hearts, and hands- to restore its abundance. It is said that where there's life there's hope, and so no place can inspire us with more hopefulness than that great, life-making sea -that singular, wondrous ocean covering the blue planet. — Carl Safina

We're halfway through another great time of the year. You should start to make little improvements to your lifestyle and thinking, your late. Start making a change now. — Auliq Ice

That's what so great about making movies. It's that you get to do stuff you never would be able to do in real life. You get to go to a recording studio, you get to go to Navy ships and fly all over the world for press. And it's just a great job. — DJ Qualls

Those who are weak have great difficulty finding their place in our society. The image of the ideal human as powerful and capable disenfranchises the old, the sick, the less-abled. For me, society must, by definition, be inclusive of the needs and gifts of all its members. How can we lay claim to making an open and friendly society where human rights are respected and fostered when, by the values we teach and foster, we systematically exclude segments of our population? I believe that those we most often exclude from the normal life of society, people with disabilities, have profound lessons to teach us. When we do include them, they add richly to our lives and add immensely to our world. — Jean Vanier

The almost-35-year-old Terry Schmidt had very nearly nothing left anymore of the delusion that he differed from the great herd of the common run of men, not even in his despair at not making a difference or in the great hunger to have an impact that in his late twenties he'd clung to as evidence that even though he was emerging as sort of a failure the grand ambitions against which he judged himself a failure were somehow exceptional and superior to the common run's - not anymore, since now even the phrase Make A Difference had become a platitude so familiar that it was used as the mnemonic tag in low-budget Ad Council PSAs for Big Brothers/Big Sisters and the United Way, which used Make a Difference in a Child's Life and Making a Difference in Your Community respectively, with B.B./B.S. even acquiring the telephonic equivalent of DIF-FER-ENCE to serve as their Volunteer Hotline number in the metro area. — David Foster Wallace

Try to see the world as a great education in Love and do not quarrel with your lot in life. Do not complain because of your unending cares and anxieties, your mean surroundings, the small and sordid souls you are obliged to live with. That is God's way of making you practise. — Paulo Coelho

I was deeply moved by Richard Blanco's reading of his inaugural poem-a timely and elegant tribute to the great diversity of American experience. And now comes this fine meditation on his experience of coming to poetry, of making the poem and the months surrounding its making-a testament to the strength and significance of poetry in American culture, something not always seen or easily measured. Today Is For All of Us, One Today is a necessary intervention into the ongoing conversation about the role of poetry in public life. — Natasha Trethewey

I'm not close to him." He looked at me defiantly. "But he's put his whole life into this. He's no Freud or Jung or Pavlov or Watson, but he's doing something important and I respect his dedication - maybe even more because he's just an ordinary man trying to do a great man's work, while the great men are all busy making bombs. — Daniel Keyes

All I cared about then was catching a glimpse of Chairman Mao. I turned my eyes quickly away from Liu to the front of the motorcade. I spotted Mao's stalwart back, his right arm steadily waving. In an instant, he had disappeared. My heart sank. Was that all I would see of Chairman Mao? Only a fleeting glimpse of his back? The sun seemed suddenly to have turned gray. All around me the Red Guards were making a huge din. The girl standing next to me had just pierced the index finger of her right hand and was squeezing blood out of it to write something on a neatly folded handkerchief. I knew exactly the words she was going to use. It had been done many times by other Red Guards and had been publicized ad nauseam: "I am the happiest person in the world today. I have seen our Great Leader Chairman Mao!" Watching her, my despair grew. Life seemed pointless. A thought flickered into my mind: perhaps I should commit suicide? — Jung Chang

Future generations, if there is a livable world for them,
will look back at the epochal transition we are making to a life-sustaining society.
And they may well call this
the time of the Great Turning. — Joanna Macy

I just rely on the text to speak for itself and then speak it as I believe it to interpret it, and then just know that the rules of the world that we're creating allow for things to come to life, and then just trust in the process of making a film. Hopefully we'll make a sequel, because if we do, we had such a great time as an ensemble, I think the best thing to do would be to just take the whole cast back. This is Iain's idea and I agree with it. Just reincarnate all the characters and put them back into the world. There's no rules. Why couldn't we do that? — Brendan Fraser

Can we actually suppose that we are wasting, polluting, and making ugly this beautiful land for the sake of patriotism and the love of God? Perhaps some of us would like to think so, but in fact this destruction is taking place because we have allowed ourselves to believe, and to live, a mated pair of economic lies: that nothing has a value that is not assigned to it by the market; and that the economic life of our communities can safely be handed over to the great corporations. (from 'Compromise, Hell!' published in the November/December 2004 issue of ORION magazine) — Wendell Berry

The need for security and power riding on energies that should be making life better and easier for the masses remains a great error in leadership focus. Why should the discovery of uranium's potential become a curse instead of a blessing? I am sure any type of power (nuclear and leadership included) in the wrong hands has the unfortunate potential to become a curse. A lot more is involved, including greed that causes the wealthy to sponsor violence and chaos. All, in order to profit from conflict, yet disregarding the harm caused to the vulnerable majority. — Archibald Marwizi

If you are thinking of making everyone happy, you are going to be a great prostitute. — M.F. Moonzajer

All his life Robert Grainier would remember vividly the burned valley at sundown, the most dreamlike business he'd ever witnessed waking - the brilliant pastels of the last light overhead, some clouds high and white, catching daylight from beyond the valley, others ribbed and gray and pink, the lowest of them rubbing the peaks of Bussard and Queen mountains; and beneath this wondrous sky the black valley, utterly still, the train moving through it making a great noise but unable to wake this dead world. — Denis Johnson

- If Francis has really made up his soul [...], what lies ahead of him? Hasn't he achieved the great end of life?
- [...] Having got his soul under his eye, so to speak, Francis must now begin to understand it and be worthy of it [...]. Making up a soul isn't an end; it's the new beginning in the middle of life. — Robertson Davies

I'm talking about just as an ongoing, everyday matter of daily life, one of the most destructive things if not the most is radical liberalism, leftism. And it is clear that they are making great strides in corrupting once-great institutions and once-great traditions. — Rush Limbaugh

What is to prevent a daily newspaper from being made the greatest organ of social life? Books have had their day-the theaters have had their day-the temple of religion has had its day. A newspaper can be made to take the lead of all these in the great heaven , and save more from Hell, than all the churches and chapels in New York-besides making money at the same time" "Shakespeare is the great genius of the drama, Scott of the novel, Milton and Byron of the poem, and I mean to be the genius of the newspaper press." James Gordon Bennett, editor ot he New York Herald in 1841 — Daniel Stashower

Lyra learns to her great cost that fantasy isn't enough. She has been lying all her life, telling stories to people, making up fantasies, and suddenly she comes to a point where that's not enough. All she can do is tell the truth. She tells the truth about her childhood, about the experiences she had in Oxford, and that is what saves her. True experience, not fantasy - reality, not lies - is what saves us in the end. — Philip Pullman

Adventure is important in life. Making memories matters. It doesn't have to be a secret sea plane and an historic sports moment. But to have a great life, you need great memories. Grab any intriguing offer. Say yes to a challenge, and to the unknown. Be creative in adding drama and scope to your own life. Work at it, like a job. Money from effort comes and goes. But effort from imagination and following adventure creates stories that you keep forever. And anyone can do it. — Rob Lowe

Writing is not about how well you can write the next "Great American Novel," using flawless grammar and snooty punctuation; sometimes, it's only about making someone smile, or laugh out loud. Sometimes, its sharing a fun thought, or putting a vivid life experience on paper so others' can share a great moment that had an impact on you, the author. — T. Hammond

You should feel good about making your home nicer for your family and your friends. You should feel great about cooking a good dinner and making a dress for a granddaughter, creating a beautiful birthday party. It's all part of life. — Martha Stewart

I think if you sing a song for the first time to your mom and dad, or your friends, and they go, 'That's pretty cool'-if you're playing at the local bar somewhere, or the coffee shop, singing songs, or if you have a gig somewhere and you're singing your own songs, I think that's some version of making it ... It's not just about having commercial success; it's about having a great life. — Dierks Bentley

I like the idea of making some friends, of going to the same school for more than a few months, of maybe actually having a life. I started to do it in Florida. It was sort of great, and for the first time since we've been on Earth, I almost feel normal. I want to find somewhere and stay somewhere. — Pittacus Lore

I understood from a very young age that school was important and that my parents were making great sacrifices for me. Every morning I saw my father get up and go to a job that he didn't really like. They came to France for the same reasons all immigrants move to another country - so their kids could have a better way of life. — Omar Sy

How is one to live a moral and compassionate existence when one is fully aware of the blood, the horror inherent in life, when one finds darkness not only in one's culture but within oneself? If there is a stage at which an individual life becomes truly adult, it must be when one grasps the irony in its unfolding and accepts responsibility for a life lived in the midst of such paradox. One must live in the middle of contradiction, because if all contradiction were eliminated at once life would collapse. There are simply no answers to some of the great pressing questions. You continue to live them out, making your life a worthy expression of leaning into the light. — Barry Lopez

The whole point of being in love with someone is to make sure their life is the best life it can be. It's not about being selfish. It's not about how great that person makes you life, It's about making their life wonderful. — Cherie M. Hudson

It happens that over a long period you are promised a great success, in which from the very start you do not believe, so dissimilar is it from the rest of fate's offering, and if from time to time you do think of it, then you do so as it were to indulge your fantasy - but when, at last, on a very ordinary day with a west wind blowing, the news comes - simply, instantaneously and decisevely destroying any hope in it - then you are suddenly amazed to find that although you did not believe in it, you had been living with it all this time, not realizingt he constant, close presence of the dream, which had long since grown fat and independent, so that now you cannot get it out of your life without making a hole in that life. — Vladimir Nabokov

Whatever's got you down is causing a great deal of stress. Pick yourself up and reflect on the positive things about your life. You'd be surprised at how one slingshot of optimism can overturn the deep dark thoughts affecting your mood and making you vulnerable. — Bianca McCormick-Johnson

Mathematical study and research are very suggestive of mountaineering. Whymper made several efforts before he climbed the Matterhorn in the 1860's and even then it cost the life of four of his party. Now, however, any tourist can be hauled up for a small cost, and perhaps does not appreciate the difficulty of the original ascent. So in mathematics, it may be found hard to realise the great initial difficulty of making a little step which now seems so natural and obvious, and it may not be surprising if such a step has been found and lost again. — Louis J. Mordell

For the Puritans, the God-centered life meant making the quest for spiritual and moral holiness the great business of life. — Leland Ryken

People often seem to think that when you're following the Lord and trying to do His will, your path will always be clear, the decisions smooth and easy, and life will be lived happily ever after and all that. Sometimes that may be true, but I've found that more often, it's not. The muddled decisions still seem muddled, bad things still happen to believers, and great things can happen to nonbelievers. When it comes to making our decisions, the key that God is concerned with is that we are trusting and seeking Him. God's desire is for us to align our lives with His Word and His will. — Tim Tebow

Making 'Coraline' was one of the great filmmaking experiences of my life. — Henry Selick

You don't have to know a lot of things for your life to make a lasting difference in the world. But you do have to know the few great things that matter, perhaps just one, and then be willing to live for them and die for them. The people that make a durable difference in the world are not the people who have mastered many things, but who have been mastered by one great thing. — John Piper

Although I have known sorrow and great sadness, as is everybody's lot, I don't think that I have had an unhappy hour as a philosopher since we returned to England. I have worked hard, and I have often got deep into insoluble difficulties. But I have been most happy in finding new problems, in wrestling with them, and in making some progress. This, or so I feel, is the best life. It seems to me infinitely better than the life of mere contemplation (to say nothing of divine self-contemplation) which Aristotle recommends as the best. It is a completely restless life, but it is highly self-contained/autark in Plato's sense, although no life, of course, can be fully autark. — Karl R. Popper

It is Jesus that you seek when you dream of happiness; He is waiting for you when nothing else you find satisfies you; He is the beauty to which you are so attracted; it is He who provoked you with that thirst for fullness that will not let you settle for compromise; it is He who urges you to shed the masks of a false life; it is He who reads in your heart your most genuine choices, the choices that others try to stifle.
It is Jesus who stirs in you the desire to do something great with your lives, the will to follow an ideal, the refusal to allow yourselves to be ground down by mediocrity, the courage to commit yourselves humbly and patiently to improving yourselves and society, making the world more human and more fraternal. — Pope John Paul II

Strong Mercy:
My desires are many and my cry is pitiful,
but ever didst thou save me by hard refusals;
and this strong mercy has been wrought into my life through and through.
Day by day thou art making me worthy of the simple,
great gifts that thou gavest to me unasked
this sky and the light, this body and the
life and the mind
saving me from perils of overmuch desire.
There are times when I languidly linger
and times when I awaken and hurry in search of my goal;
but cruelly thou hidest thyself from before me.
Day by day thou art making me worthy of thy full acceptance by
refusing me ever and anon, saving me from perils of weak, uncertain desire. — Rabindranath Tagore

The foolish idea that my music can actually make a difference in someone's life - that right there is proof that it's working. It makes me feel great, it really does. — Jason Mraz

Architecture isman'sgreat sense of himself embodied in a world of his own making. It may rise as high in quality only as its source because great art isgreat life. — Frank Lloyd Wright

Our lives are marked by the people who choose to matter more: the teacher who encouraged our curiosity, the neighbor who lent a helping hand in time of need, the great leaders and perceptive thinkers whose vision and innovation improve the quality of our lives. And that's what it means to matter more. It's not about pursuit of riches or fame. It's about making a difference in people's lives. Remembered or not, lived out in a small town or on the world stage, the journey of relevance matters. — Marian Deegan

I love, first of all, reading and discovering what the common perception is and then trying to figure out ... well, how does your life cross over into that character, or what's an angle on this that might challenge the status quo? It's just a great journey as well as an education. You're constantly being educated - it's like I'm back at school and making up for lost time. — Andy Serkis

By seeing the multitude of people around it, by being busied with all sorts of worldly affairs, by being wise to the ways of the world, such a person forgets himself, in a divine sense forgets his own name, dares not believe in himself, finds being himself too risky, finds it much easier and safer to be like the others, to become a copy, a number, along with the crowd.
Now this form of despair goes practically unnoticed in the world. Precisely by losing oneself in this way, such a person gains all that is required for a flawless performance in everyday life, yes, for making a great success out of life. Here there is no dragging of the feet, no difficulty with his self and its infinitizing, he is ground smooth as a pebble, as exchangeable as a coin of the realm. Far from anyone thinking him to be in despair, he is just what a human being ought to be. Naturally, the world has generally no understanding of what is truly horrifying. — Soren Kierkegaard

Thankfully, our disappointments matter to God, and He has a way of taking even some of the bitterest moments we go through and making them into something of great significance in our life. It's hard to understand it at the time. Not one of us wants that thread when it is being woven in. Not one of us says, 'I can hardly wait to see where this is going to fit.' We all say at that moment, 'This is not the pattern I want. — Ravi Zacharias

Day by day thou art making me worthy of the simple, great gifts that thou gavest to me unasked - this sky and the light, this body and the life and the mind - saving me from perils of overmuch desire. — Rabindranath Tagore

There is nothing I love more than helping someone realize how corrupt our food system is and them making great changes in their own life because of it. — Kristin Cavallari

Literature is love. I think it went like this: drawings in the cave, sounds in the cave, songs in the cave, songs about us. Later, stories about us. Part of what we always did was have sex and fight about it and break each other's hearts. I guess there's other kinds of love too. Great friendships. Working together. But poetry and novels are lists of our devotions. We love the feel of making the marks as the feelings are rising and falling. Living in literature and love is the best thing there is. You're always home. — Eileen Myles

I have great friends around me that are positive and I think that's the key to life is making your own path. Set your own rules because there is no set rule, there is no set look, there is no set anything. You make your own rules in your life. You make your own decisions. — Amber Riley

While they read these stories, moreover - and this is a comforting thought for those who believe that the best way for anyone to become a lover of real literature is to be exposed to it early and often - boys and girls are not only gratifying their love for a
stirring tale, they are making the acquaintance of the great story-tellers of the past, taking them into their lives as companions. This early contact gives children an experience which will keep their horizon in after life from being entirely circumscribed by the mediocre and ephemeral. If a boy has sailed the wine dark Aegean, or climbed a height whence he could watch Roland's last heroic stand in the Pass of Roncevaux, some gleam remains, and there is far less likelihood that his adult reading will be entirely commonplace. — Anne Thaxter Eaton

But I will admit, that most of my life has been with the thought of the reaper pacing behind me. I know he's there. He's not freaking me out or anything, but he's reminding me to grab at life with joy. I get a lot of joy from my writing.

And I hope the other writers are too, because it's a great thing to create a world of your own making. We'll beat back the reaper just a little while longer and enjoy the ride in the meantime. — Jamie Freveletti

My life is too short, and God's work is too great for me to think of making a home for myself in this world. — George Eliot

Making words rhyme for a living is one of the great joys of my life ... That's a superpower I've been very conscious of developing. I started at the same level as everybody else, and then I just listened to more music and talked to myself until it was an actual superpower I could pull out on special occasions. — Lin-Manuel Miranda

I Have Loved Hours at Sea
I have loved hours at sea, gray cities,
The fragile secret of a flower,
Music, the making of a poem
That gave me heaven for an hour;
First stars above a snowy hill,
Voices of people kindly and wise,
And the great look of love, long hidden,
Found at last in meeting eyes.
I have loved much and been loved deeply
Oh when my spirit's fire burns low,
Leave me the darkness and the stillness,
I shall be tired and glad to go. — Sara Teasdale

My imagination was a great place to escape from all the anxiety and disapproval of my life ... I had to live in my head ... art was a way of making myself feel better. — Philip Schultz

The feeling of longing for home is born into us. That wonderful dream cannot become real without great faith - enough for the Holy Ghost to lead us to repentance, baptism, and the making and keeping of sacred covenants with God. This faith requires enduring bravely the trials of mortal life. — Henry B. Eyring

The odds of not meeting in this life are so great that every meeting is like a miracle. It's a wonder that we don't make love to every single person we meet. — Yoko Ono

The art of not reading is a very important one. It consists in not taking an interest in whatever may be engaging the attention of the general public at any particular time. When some political or ecclesiastical pamphlet, or novel, or poem is making a great commotion, you should remember that he who writes for fools always finds a large public. A precondition for reading good books is not reading bad ones: for life is short. — Arthur Schopenhauer

Anything great is long in making. — Lao-Tzu

"If you are loyal you are successful," ruminated the company paper at one time. "All useful work is raised to the plane of art when love for the task-loyalty-is fused with the effort. Loyalty is the great lubricant of life. It saves the wear and tear of making daily decisions as to what is best to do. The man who is loyal to his work is not wrung nor perplexed by doubts, he sticks to the ship, and if the ship founders he goes down like a hero with colors flying at the masthead and the band playing." — Thomas Watson

Marriage, to women as to men, must be a luxury, not a necessity; an incident of life, not all of it. And the only possible way to accomplish this great change is to accord to women equal power in the making, shaping and controlling of the circumstances of life. — Susan B. Anthony

Pretty early on in making the first movie I realized that this is what I wanted to do. I felt like by that time I just found my niche, like this is what I was supposed to be doing. So I completely submerged myself into the world of watching movies, making my own movies, buying video cameras and lights. When I wasn't making a movie, I was making my own movies. When I wasn't making movies, I was watching movies. I was going back and studying film and looking back at guys that were perceived as great guys that I can identify with. It just became my life. — Mark Wahlberg

One day we shall domesticate him into a human being & then I shall be able to sketch him. For this is what we have done with ourselves & with God. The little boy will assist his own domestication; he is diligent & cooperative. He cooperates without knowing that the assistance we expect of him is for his own self-sacrifice. Recently, he has had much practice. And so he will go on progressing until little by little
because of essential goodness with which we achieve our salvation
he will pass from actual time to daily time, from meditation to expression, from existence to life. Making the great sacrifice of not being mad. I am not mad out of solidarity with thousands of people who, in order to construct the possible, have also sacrificed the truth which would constitute madness. — Clarice Lispector

When I did 'The Great Escape,' I kept thinking, 'If they were making a movie of my life, that's what they'd call it - the great escape.' — Steve McQueen

No problem of human making is too great to be overcome by human ingenuity, human energy, and the untiring hope of the human spirit. — William J. Clinton

The first element in a symmetrical life is work. Three-fourths of our time is probably spent in work. Of course the meaning of it is that our work should be just as religious as our worship, and unless we can work for the glory of God three-fourths of life remains unsanctified. The proof that work is religious is that most of Christ's life was spent in work. During a large part of the first thirty years of His life He worked with the hammer and the plane, making ploughs and yokes and household furniture. Christ's public ministry occupied only about two and a half years of His earthly life; the great bulk of His time was simply spent in doing common everyday tasks, and ever since then work has had a new meaning. — Henry Drummond

Moral values have been thrown out the window. Christianity is out the window. And that's wrong. Parents should be at home, teaching kids right from wrong, making sure they get a great education so they can be a success in life. — Albert Belle

We can no longer assume that our preaching takes place within a more or less 'Christian culture,' " Craig Loscalzo says. "The great narratives of Judeo-Christian belief, the pivotal stories of the Bible's characters, the epoch of the life and ministry of Jesus Christ, either are not known or do not carry the meaning-making significance they did to previous generations. — Graham M. Johnston

The point of the resurrection ... is that the present bodily life is not valueless just because it will die ... What you do with your body in the present matters because God has a great future in store for it ... What you do in the present - by painting, preaching, singing, sewing, praying, teaching, building hospitals, digging wells, campaigning for justice, writing poems, caring for the needy, loving your neighbor as yourself - will last into God's future. These activities are not simply ways of making the present life a little less beastly, a little more bearable, until the day when we leave it behind altogether (as the hymn so mistakenly puts it ... ). They are part of what we may call building for God's kingdom. — N. T. Wright

With God's help, I've not had a drink in nine and a half years. That's my whole story right there. And because of that, I'm doing this. I'm making records, I'm touring. I was so involved in just getting brain damaged, I wasn't doing anything. I had great ideas, many notebooks filled with notes, some of them I can read and some of them I just can't read, but I really didn't do anything constructive, it was all just good ideas. Now I'm trying to lead a constructive life a day at a time. — Ringo Starr

In any organization of which I have played a leadership role, our trump card has never been great numbers but the way we worked with neighborhood people in conjunction with professionals in suits and ties. I want the Obama generation to try to understand this concept, and use it as a real yardstick for their ability to make change. My life personifies the straddling of two cultures: the world of Amherst and Yale and the world of Newark, New Jersey. As you will see, it is the power of the streets combined with the power of the suites that is the most effective mix for making things happen. Anybody who comes to you and says "we want change," without addressing the intersection of these two powerful forces in combination, is just whistling status quo. — Junius Williams

Within this Christian vision for marriage, here's what it means to fall in love. It is to look at another person and get a glimpse of the person God is creating, and to say, "I see who God is making you, and it excites me! I want to be part of that. I want to partner with you and God in the journey you are taking to his throne. And when we get there, I will look at your magnificence and say, 'I always knew you could be like this. I got glimpses of it on earth, but now look at you!'" Each spouse should see the great thing that Jesus is doing in the life of their mate through the Word, the gospel. Each spouse then should give him- or herself to be a vehicle for that work and envision the day that you will stand together before God, seeing each other presented in spotless beauty and glory. — Timothy Keller

Making others better is a core value of a great life. — Todd Stocker

People who achieve great things are people who make choices. Far too many people today let life dictate their future instead of the other way around. Choices are hard - that's why so few actually make them. But as the saying goes - not to make a choice is to make a choice. When it comes to choices, The question is - what choices will you make today? The world doesn't care about your problems, or what's holding you back. They don't care about your past failures, or any other obstacles you face. Stop making excuses and start making choices. — Phil Cooke

There is no employment in the world so laborious as that of making to one's self a great name; life ends before one has scarcely made the first rough draught of his work. — Jean De La Bruyere

Material possessions and honors of the world do not endure. But your union as wife, husband, and family can. No sacrifice is too great to have the blessings of an eternal marriage. By making and keeping sacred temple covenants, we evidence our love for God, for our companion, and our real regard for our posterity-even those yet unborn. Our family is the focus of our greatest work and joy in this life; so will it be throughout all eternity. — Russell M. Nelson

I've always loved watches my whole life. When I was growing up, I always thought of having a great watch as that next step - of making it, of a rite of passage. — James Marsden

Neil Young is my hero, and such a great example. You know what that guy has been doing for the past 40 years? Making music. That's what that guy does. Sometimes you pay attention, sometimes you don't. Sometimes he hands it to you, sometimes he keeps it to himself. He's a good man with a beautiful family and wonderful life. — Dave Grohl

I never want movie theaters go away. It is the greatest time out on the town. You go out, it's a great place to go, great location, great hang, great date, good place to be with friends. But as an actor who works hard at making movies, I am glad that no matter what people can see your movie on. It's hard to keep a theater for long time; there are so many movies, so when you leave a theater, you're just glad there's a life for your movie. — Adam Sandler

Homosexuality is the most beautiful aspect of humanity. For its existence is proof that altruism is natural; it is to demonstrate that the theory of the "survival of the fittest" can only apply to the species as a whole, and that reproduction is insufficient to secure our place in the great jungle of life, which means being nice is a more stable evolutionary strategy than making kids; and if the homosexual is attracted to religion or to art - or, in smaller societies, to shamanism or caring for other people's children - is this not due to his or her search for purpose? If so, then what we call purpose must be something that encompasses all modes of life. What we call love must be greater than child rearing or caring for a mate. — Anthony Marais

be much more friendly to such things that matter most .Things that will propel your vision and ambition to higher heights. Things that will help you enlarge your tentacles. Do not look down on small things however — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

The mind is a great and powerful thing, bisected with hallways of darkness and corners of light. Memories can alternately fill your life with joy and happiness and cloud every moment with nightmares and fear, making you second-guess all of the good things and wonder if they were ever real. — Tara Sivec

I want an avowed atheist in the White House. When time comes to push that button, I want whoever's making the decision to understand that once it's pushed, it's over. Finito. They're not gonna have lunch with Jesus. Won't be deflowering 72 virgins on the great shag carpet of eternity, or reincarnated as a cow. I want someone making that decision who believes life on this Earth isn't just a dress rehearsal for something better
but the only shot we get. — Quentin R. Bufogle

All that Ruby said was so horribly true, she was leaving everything she cared for. She had laid up her treasures on earth only. She had lived solely for the little things of life, the things that pass, forgetting the great things that go onward into eternity bridging the gulf between the two lives and making of death a mere passing of one dwelling to the other. From twilight to unclouded day ... it was no wonder her soul clung in blind helplessness to the only things she knew and loved. — L.M. Montgomery

Books have been vastly important in my life - as both a reader and a writer. I've learned that the great gift of literature is that someone else's tale becomes a chapter of your story. And I still feel books are the best art form for making contact with another consciousness, which is why reading a good book by yourself never feels lonely. — Bob Smith

The habit of thinking of ourselves as sublime, or having a lofty conception of our possibilities, of imagining ourselves as being commanded by the Almighty to do a great work on this earth, of thinking of ourselves as not only human but divine, gods in the making, because we are a product of Divinity, will help us wonderfully to grasp the higher meaning of life and do the thing worth while. — Orison Swett Marden

He had known a great deal about her before she knew he had any real interest in her, and that was just the way Tom wanted it. He had been looking for someone like Beverly Marsh all his life, and he moved in with the speed of a lion making a run at a slow antelope. Not that her vulnerability showed on the surface - you looked and saw a gorgeous woman, slim but abundantly stacked. — Stephen King

I'm making a great effort because sometimes life is not enjoyable. Sometimes it's painful and sometimes it's stressful, sometimes it's agonizing even, so I think once you get around those humps: strive for pleasure and peace. — Morgan Freeman

Gibran says: Once I asked such a scarecrow, "I can understand the farmer who made you - he needs you. I can understand the poor animals - they don't have great intelligence to see that you are bogus. But in the rain, in the sun, in the hot summer, in the cold winter, you remain standing here: for what?" And the scarecrow said, "You don't know my joy. Just to make those animals afraid is such a joy that it is worth suffering rain, suffering sun, suffering heat, winter, everything. I am making thousands of animals afraid! I know I am bogus, there is nothing inside me, but I don't care about that. My joy is in making others afraid." I want to ask you: Would you like to be just like this bogus man - nothing inside, making somebody afraid, making somebody happy, making somebody humiliated, making somebody respectful? Is your life only for others? Will you ever look inside? — Osho

I'm compelled to paint nearly every day. I just felt like making a painting, went out and bought paints and a canvas. Now it fulfills me creatively when I'm not doing music: it's something you can do by yourself and it's totally yours. It's a great adjunct to my life. — David Johansen

In order that the concept of substance could originate
which is indispensable for logic although in the strictest sense nothing real corresponds to it
it was likewise necessary that for a long time one did not see or perceive the changes in things. The beings that did not see so precisely had an advantage over those who saw everything "in flux." At bottom, every high degree of caution in making inferences and every skeptical tendency constitute a great danger for life. No living beings would have survived if the opposite tendency
to affirm rather than suspend judgment, to err and make up things rather than wait, to assent rather than negate, to pass judgment rather than be just
had not been bred to the point where it became extraordinarily strong. — Friedrich Nietzsche