Mortal Life Quotes & Sayings

Show me a god that does not demand mortal suffering.
Show me a god that celebrates diversity, a celebration that embraces even non-believers, and is not threatened by them.
Show me a god that understands the meaning of peace. In life, not in death. — Steven Erikson

So all of these things are going on that make you wake up and realize you are a mortal person. You can choose to cruise through your life, but if you do, you're going to open your eyes at some point, and it's gone. — Kathy Mattea

The idea that life began with mortal birth is preposterous. There is no way to explain life if you believe that. — Boyd K. Packer

In my mortal life, I saw mainly those texts that the church sanctioned
the gospels and the Orthodox commentary on them, for example. These works were of no use to me, in the end. — Elizabeth Kostova

The brain is only three pounds of blood, dream, and electricity, and yet from that mortal stew come Beethoven's sonatas. Dizzie Gillespie's jazz. Audrey Hepburn's wish to spend the last month of her life in Somalia, saving children. — Diane Ackerman

I love you, and I will love you until I die, and if there's a life after that, I'll love you then. — Cassandra Clare

It's significantly more satisfying to kick a wall than it is to kick thin air. For the rebellious teen- or the teen who wants to feel like a rebel- a clearly defined law gives you something to define yourself against. — Robin Wasserman

Man is mortal. Everyone has to die some day or the other. But one must resolve to lay down one's life in enriching the noble ideals of self-respect and in bettering one's human life. We are not slaves. Nothing is more disgraceful for a brave man than to live life devoid of self-respect. — B.R. Ambedkar

we are all bound by this oath: "To bear the ills of mortal life, and to submit with a good grace to what we cannot avoid. — Seneca.

Before I loved Maara, life seemed filled with endless possibility, yet I knew even then what I was waiting for. Love was only an idea to me then, something to hope for, a promise of happiness, insubstantial and immortal, until it found the one to settle on. Now love and Maara were one and the same, and love had become as mortal as she was. — Catherine M. Wilson

My life is a tree, yoke fellow of the earth, pledged by roots too deep for remembrance. To stand hard against the storm. To fill my place. (But high in the branches of my green tree there is a wild bird singing. Wing-free are the wings of my bird; she hath built no mortal nest) — Karle Wilson Baker

It says something about the curious nature of film, that someone can be so alive on screen, when we're all too aware that they've passed. it underscores how we're mortal, and films are immortal (commenting on the death of Heath Ledger) — Leonard Maltin

Myth was regarded as primary; it was concerned with what was thought to be timeless and constant in our existence. Myth looked back to the origins of life, to the foundations of culture, and to the deepest levels of the human mind. Myth was not concerned with practical matters, but with meaning. Unless we find some significance in our lives, we mortal men and women fall very easily into despair. The mythos of a society provided people with a context that made sense of their day-to-day lives; it directed their attention to the eternal and the universal. — Karen Armstrong

It was strange to become a vampire ,to be presented with what could only be described as an eternal life, and then to die anyway when you're sixteen. — Cassandra Clare

Those who romanticize war often like to think of it, at least in areas of mortal peril, as nothing but "guts and glory." Those who are inclined to pacifism, by contrast, often think of it as an unbroken sequence of horrors. Actually, however, people in wartime still fall in love, do the laundry, worry about pimples, drink beer, and do most of the same things that they do in times of peace. The patterns of daily life may be mundane, but they are remarkably tenacious.
But, while people in wartime still go about their daily routines, the prospect of imminent death can give even quotidian chores a heightened intensity. When the first bombs were dropped on London in autumn of 1940, the population bore adversity better than almost anybody had expected. The danger was mixed with excitement, and the terror had a sort of apocalyptic magnificence. — Boria Sax

The aspect of the venerable mansion has always affected me like a human countenance, bearing the traces not merely of outward storm and sunshine, but expressive also, of the long lapse of mortal life, and accompanying vicissitudes that have passed within. Were these to be worthily recounted, they would form a narrative of no small interest and instruction, and possessing, moreover, a certain remarkable unity, which might almost seem the result of artistic arrangement. — Nathaniel Hawthorne

She couldn't pinpoint the exact moment she'd fallen in love with Jace, but there had always been something about him that reminded her of a lion, a wild animal unfettered by rules, the promise of a life of freedom. Never "I can't," but always "I can." Always the risk and the surety, never the fear or the question. — Cassandra Clare

This is the Great Theatre of Life. Admission is free, but the taxation is mortal. You come when you can, and leave when you must. The show is continuous. Goodnight. — Robertson Davies

It is the will of God and Nature that these mortal bodies be laid aside, when the soul is to enter into real life; 'tis rather an embrio state, a preparation for living; a man is not completely born until he be dead: Why then should we grieve that a new child is born among the immortals? — Benjamin Franklin

What avails it that indulgent Heaven
From mortal eyes has wrapt the woes to come,
If we, ingenious to torment ourselves,
Grow pale at hideous fictions of our own?
Enjoy the present; nor which needless cares
Of what may spring from blind misfortune's womb,
Appal the surest hour that life bestows.
Serence, and master of yourself, prepare
For what may come; and leave the rest to Heaven. — John Armstrong

Now come: that thou mayst able be to know
That minds and the light souls of all that live
Have mortal birth and death, I will go on
Verses to build meet for thy rule of life,
Sought after long, discovered with sweet toil. — Lucretius

The writings of latter-day prophets clearly teach that the sorrows and sufferings endured by Adam and Eve upon their leaving the Garden of Eden were ordained by God and were a necessary part of their-and our-earthly experience. President Howard W. Hunter, then a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, taught: "We came to mortal life to encounter resistance. It was part of the plan for our eternal progress. Without temptation, sickness, pain, and sorrow, there could be no goodness, virtue, appreciation for well-being, or joy." — Daniel K Judd

Being a vampire for him meant revenge. Revenge against life itself. Every time he took a life it was revenge. It was no wonder, then, that he appreciated nothing. The nuances of vampire existence weren't even available to him because he was focused with a maniacal vengeance upon the mortal life he'd left. Consumed with hatred, he looked back. Consumed with envy, nothing pleased him unless he could take it from others; and once having it, he grew cold and dissatisfied, not loving the thing for itself; and so he went after something else. Vengeance, blind and sterile and contemptible. — Anne Rice

Powder snow skiing is not fun. It is life, fully lived, life lived in a blaze of reality. What we experience in powder is the original human self, which lies deeply inside each of us, still undamaged in spite of what our present culture tries to do to us. Once experienced, this kind of living is recognized as the only way to live - fully aware of the earth and the sky and the gods and you, the mortal, playing among them. — Dolores LaChapelle

Planting nuts requires a vision for a future that goes beyond one's mortal reach. If we envision ourselves as participants in the same grand, complex web of interactions as the forest, then planting acorns is like planting part of ourselves. The morality that comes from such a vision of ecosystem-as-life is a common thread that, if taught and encouraged, could unite all of mankind. — Bernd Heinrich

A wicked mortal is not the idea of God. He is little else than the expression of error. To suppose that sin, lust, hatred, envy, hypocrisy, revenge, have life abiding in them, is a terrible mistake. Life and Life's idea, Truth and Truth's idea, never make men sick, sinful, or mortal. — Mary Baker Eddy

Being mortal, never pray for an untroubled life. Rather, ask the God to give you an enduring heart. — Menander

This mortal life decays apace How soon the bubble's broke Adam and all his numerous race Are Vanity and Smoke. — Nathaniel Philbrick

If you cannot find your way back to your original trod, purchase a way out by using the gift mentioned earlier in this guide. If you enter into this type of bargain, make sure to phrase things appropriately. "i'm lost and can't get home" is sure to lead to trouble. Try something different like" I'll pay two jars of honey to a fey who will take me to the mortal realm, alive and whole, with my mind and soul intact, neither physically or mentally harmed, to be placed on solid ground at an altitude and in an environment that can readily sustain human life, no farther than a mile from a human settlement, at a time not more than thirty minutes from now." even then , be careful — Julie Kagawa

Death is here and death is there,
Death is busy everywhere,
All around, within, beneath,
Above is death - and we are death.
Death has set his mark and seal
On all we are and all we feel,
On all we know and all we fear,
First our pleasures die - and then
Our hopes, and then our fears - and when
These are dead, the debt is due,
Dust claims dust - and we die too.
All things that we love and cherish,
Like ourselves must fade and perish;
Such is our rude mortal lot -
Love itself would, did they not. — Percy Bysshe Shelley

Only a woman can carry in her body an eternal being which bears the very image of God. Only she is the recipient of the miracle of life. Only a woman can conceive and nurture this life using her own flesh and blood, and then deliver a living soul into the world. God has bestowed upon her alone a genuine miracle - the creation of life, and the fusing of an eternal soul with mortal flesh. This fact alone establishes the glory of motherhood.
Despite the most creative plans of humanist scientists and lawmakers to redefine the sexes, no man will ever conceive and give birth to a child. The fruitful womb is a holy gift given by God to women alone. This is one reason why the office of wife and mother is the highest calling to which a woman can aspire.
This is the reason why nations that fear the Lord esteem and protect mothers. They glory in the distinctions between men and women, and attempt to build cultures in which motherhood is honored and protected. — Douglas W. Phillips

I grow aware of various forms of man and of myself. I am form and I am formless, I am life and I am matter, mortal and immortal. I am one and many
myself and humanity in flux. — Charles Lindbergh

If God were mortal and had but one life to give, he would have been more careful about how he created the world. — A.E. Samaan

God cries for us in the same way we cry for others. His tears most often spill over for the pain and suffering caused from the mortal misuse of a gift called agency. He will not revoke the gift. It was promised to us for the duration of our time on Earth. But He will hold each one of us accountable in the end for how we applied this power of agency. — Richelle E. Goodrich

But I was willing to embrace mortal life again, before chasing immortality. — J.K. Rowling

THALES. Maybe so. Still, I'll defend a life Lived worthily in its brief time on earth. PROTEUS. A life like yours, yes - it persists Well past the bounds of mortal days. Among the crowd of pale and drifting ghosts 8620 I've noticed you these many centuries. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

A wild angel had appeared to him, the angel of mortal youth and beauty, an envoy from the fair courts of life, to throw open before him in an instant of ecstasy the gates of all the ways of error and glory. — James Joyce

Ivan Iylich saw that he was dying, and was in continual despair.
At the bottom of his heart Ivan Ilyich knew that he was dying; but so far from growing used to the idea, he simply did not grasp it - he was utterly unable to grasp it.
The example of the syllogism that he had learned in Kiseveter's logic - Caius is a man, men are mortal, therefore Caius is mortal - had seemed to him all his life correct only as regards Caius, but not at all regards himself. In that case it was a question of Caius, a man, an abstract man, and it was perfectly true, but he was not Caius, and was not an abstract man; he had always been a creature quite, quite different from all the others. — Leo Tolstoy

Phury glanced at John and thought that sometimes it took only a hairbreadth between cars to avoid a mortal accident. Sometimes your whole life could hinge on a fraction of an inch. Or the beat of a nanosecond. Or the knock on a door. Kind of made a male believe in the divine. — J.R. Ward

If you think there's a god, then there is, and if you don't, then there isn't. At least while we stumble around in the dark during our mortal life, that is. We'll find out the answer for sure when it's over, and if we don't, well, we'll never know that we didn't. — Anthony Bjorklund

In the midway of this our mortal life,
I found me in a gloomy wood, astray,
Gone from the path direct. — Dante Alighieri

This is our one and only chance at mortal life-here and now. The longer we live, the greater is our realization that it is brief. Opportunities come, and then they are gone. I believe that among the greatest lessons we are to learn in this short sojourn upon the earth are lessons that help us distinguish between what is important and what is not. I plead with you not to let those most important things pass you by. As you plan for that illusive, nonexistent future when you will have time to do all that you want to do. Instead, find you in the journey now. — Thomas S. Monson

She lifted her hands and closed them around his head ... and it seemed to Catriana in that moment as if that newborn trialla in her soul began to sing. Of trials endured and trials to come, of doubt and dark and all the deep uncertainties that defined the outer boundaries of mortal life, but with love now present at the base of it all, like light, like the first stone of a rising tower. — Guy Gavriel Kay

If the world is to contain a public space, it cannot be erected for one generation and planned for the living only; it must transcend the life-span of mortal men ... . There is perhaps no clearer testimony to the loss of the public realm in the modern age than the almost complete loss of authentic concern with immortality, a loss somewhat overshadowed by the simultaneous loss of the metaphysical concern with eternity. — Hannah Arendt

For what wears out the life of mortal men? 'Tis that from change to change their being rolls; Tis that repeated shocks, again, again, Exhaust the energy of strongest souls And numb the elastic powers. — Matthew Arnold

The greatest mission of woman is to give life, earth-life, through honorable marriage, to the waiting spirits, our Father's spirit children who anxiously desire to come to dwell here in this mortal state. All the honor and glory that can come to men and women is but a dim thing whose luster shall fade in comparison to the high honor, the eternal glory, the ever-enduring happiness that shall come to the woman who fulfils the first great duty and mission that devolves upon her to become the mother of the sons and daughters of God — Melvin J. Ballard

A precept or command is a general teaching of God, obligating every man under pain of mortal sin - namely, in cases in which he has fallen away from the command. Hence, the saints who for a period of their life lived hypocritically sinned mortally for that period. So also the damned, by persistent false living, sin persistently in Hell. — Jan Hus

The personal eloquence of other people expressing aspects of nature and human condition inspire us, as do persons whom exhibit courage to gain strength when dealing with the hardships and struggles of a mortal life. — Kilroy J. Oldster

To purchase Heaven has gold the power?
Can gold remove the mortal hour?
In life can love be bought with gold?
Are friendship's pleasures to be sold?
No
all that's worth a wish
a thought,
Fair virtue gives unbribed, unbought.
Cease then on trash thy hopes to bind,
Let nobler views engage thy mind. — Samuel Johnson

My two greatest loves were, of course, Daphne and Hyacinthus, but when you're a god as popular as I am
Hold on. Did I just tell you who I liked? I did, didn't I? Gods of Olympus, forget I mentioned their names! I am so embarrassed. Please don't say anything. In this mortal life, I've never been in love with anyone!
I am so confused. — Rick Riordan

There is no pretending I love you and I will love you until you die. And if there is life after that, I will love you then. — Jace Wayland

To live in this world, you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and, when the time comes to let it go, to let it go. — Mary Oliver

My plea therefore is this: Let us get our instruments tightly strung and our melodies sweetly sung. Let us not die with our music still in us. Let us rather use this precious mortal probation to move confidently and gloriously upward toward the eternal life which God our Father gives to those who keep his commandments. — Spencer W. Kimball

Of all weapons in the world, I now know love to be the most dangerous. For I have suffered a mortal wound. When did I fall so deeply under your spell, Miss Bennet? I cannot fix the hour or the spot or the look or the words which lay the foundation. I was in the middle before I knew I began. But a proud fool I was. I have faced the harsh truth: that I can never hope to win your love in this life. — Seth Grahame-Smith

On this upward and sometimes hazardous journey, each of us meets our share of daily challenges. If we are not careful, as we peer through the narrow lens of self-interest, we may feel that life is bringing us more than our fair share of trials
that somehow others seem to be getting off more lightly.
But the tests of life are tailored for our own best interests, and all will face the burdens best suited to their own mortal experience. In the end we will realize that God is merciful as well as just and that all the rules are fair. We can be reassured that our challenges will be the ones we needed, and conquering them will bring blessings we could have received in no other way. — Jeffrey R. Holland

Because She Would Ask Me Why I Loved Her

If questioning would make us wise
No eyes would ever gaze in eyes;
If all our tale were told in speech
No mouths would wander each to each.

Were spirits free from mortal mesh
And love not bound in hearts of flesh
No aching breasts would yearn to meet
And find their ecstasy complete.

For who is there that lives and knows
The secret powers by which he grows?
Were knowledge all, what were our need
To thrill and faint and sweetly bleed?

Then seek not, sweet, the "If" and "Why"
I love you now until I die.
For I must love because I live
And life in me is what you give. — Christopher John Brennan

And what after all, is death?? 'Tis but a cessation from mortal life; 'tis but the finishing of an appointed course; the refreshing inn after a fatiguing journey; the end of a life of cares and troubles; and, if happy, the beginning of a life of immortal happiness. — Samuel Richardson

You're a Dark-Hunter."
He kissed her lightly on the lips. "What I am is a man in love with a woman. I want you, Amanda. For the rest of my blessedly short mortal life. I want to wake at dawn with you in my arms and watch our children play and fight. — Sherrilyn Kenyon

I'm not against the concept of Creators/God, I'm against the antiquated beliefs that there are evil things, which are merely axioms we concocted out of our inadequacy as mortal beings, primitive brain, and underdeveloped technology. — Andreas Laurencius

Comparatively, we are so much quicker to return favors and to pay our debts to mortals - and we should be responsive and grateful. But what of Him who gave us mortal life itself, who will ere long give us all immortality, and who proffers to the faithful the greatest gift of all, eternal life? We are poor bookkeepers, indeed! — Neal A. Maxwell

If I'm to die a mortal, why shouldn't the same fate be given to all, no matter how long they've lived or how important they think they are? All things must eventually come to an end. — Morgan Rhodes

When the years have all passed, there will gape the uncomfortable and unpredictable dark void of death, and into this I shall at last fall headlong, down and down and down, and the prospect of that fall, that uprooting, that rending apart of body and spirit, that taking off into so blank an unknown, drowns me in mortal fear and mortal grief. After all, life, for all its agonies of despair and loss and guilt, is exciting and beautiful, amusing and artful and endearing, full of liking and of love, at times a poem and a high adventure, at times noble and at times very gay; and whatever (if anything) is to come after it, we shall not have this life again. — Rose Macaulay

The moral and political principles that govern men are derived from three sources: revelation, natural law, and the artificial conventions of society. With regard to its main purpose, there is no comparison between the first and the others; but all three are alike in that they all lead towards happiness in this mortal life. — Cesare Beccaria

Moments ... there are always moments where a decision has to be made. In mortal life there is always a choice. One road or another? The ultimate choose your own adventure story. In the clans, there is only one option, and that is to do whatever your clan's oracle tells you to do. — Kim Cormack

Confusing being mortal with being threatened can occur in any realm. The fact that something could go wrong does not mean that we are in danger. It means we are alive. Mortality is the sign of life. In the most intimate and personal of arenas, many of us have love and trusted someone who violated that trust. So when someone else comes along who intrigues us, whose interests we share, who we enjoy being with, with whom there could b some mutual enrichment and understanding, that does not mean that we are being violated again. Experiencing anxiety does not mean that anyone is doing anything to us that is unjust. — Sarah Schulman

I am more famed in Heaven for my works than I could well conceive. In my brain are studies & chambers filled with books & pictures of old, which I wrote and painted in ages of Eternity before my mortal life; and whose works are the delight & study of Archangels. Why, then, should I be anxious about the riches or fame of mortality? — William Blake

Allowing beauty a place in the soul was a powerful antidote to the stress and strain of mortal life. — Susan Vreeland

Everybody in this life has their challenges and difficulties. That is part of our mortal test. The reason for some of these trials cannot be readily understood except on the basis of faith and hope because there is often a larger purpose which we do not always understand. Peace comes through hope. — James E. Faust

Separation by death must finally be choked down,
but separation in life is a long anguish,
Chiang-nan is a pestilential land;
no word from you there in exile.
You have been in my dreams, old friend,
as if knowing how much I miss you.
Caught in a net,
how is it you still have wings?
I fear you are no longer mortal;
the distance to here is enormous.
When your spirit came, the maples were green;
when it went, the passes were black.
The setting moon spills light on the rafters;
for a moment I think it's your face.
The waters are deep, the waves wide;
don't let the river gods take you. — Du Fu

He who walking on the sea could calm the bitter waves, who gives life to the dying seeds of the earth; he who was able to loose the mortal chains of death, and after three days darkness could bring again to the upper world the brother for his sister Martha: he, I believe, will make Damasus rise again from the dust. — Pope Damasus I

We have given you, O Adam, no visage proper to yourself, nor endowment properly your own, in order that whatever place, whatever form, whatever gifts you may, with premeditation, select, these same you may have and possess through your own judgement and decision. The nature of all other creatures is defined and restricted within laws which We have laid down; you, by contrast, impeded by no such restrictions, may, by your own free will, to whose custody We have assigned you, trace for yourself the lineaments of your own nature [ ... ]. We have made you a creature neither of heaven nor of earth, neither mortal nor immortal, in order that you may, as the free and proud shaper of your own being, fashion yourself in the form you may prefer. It will be in your power to descend to the lower, brutish forms of life; you will be able, through your own decision, to rise again to the superior orders whose life is divine. — Giovanni Pico Della Mirandola

Keep your words. This pain is no life." "You only feel pain because you're alive, boy!" the keeper thundered. "This is the mystery of it. Life is lived on the ragged edge of the cliff. Fall off and you might die, but run from it and you are already dead! — Ted Dekker

I could not even imagine any place of secondary importance for myself, and for that very reason I quite contentedly occupied the most insignificant one in real life. Either a hero or dirt - there was no middle way. That turned out to be my undoing, for while wallowing in dirt I consoled myself with the thought that at other times I was a hero, and the hero overlaid the dirt: an ordinary mortal, as it were, was ashamed to wallow in dirt, but a hero was too exalted a person to be entirely covered in dirt, and hence I could wallow in dirt with an easy conscience. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

In that way Vinteuil's phrase, like some theme, say, in Tristan, which represents to us also a certain acquisition of sentiment, has espoused our mortal state, had endued a vesture of humanity that was affecting enough. Its destiny was linked, for the future, with that of the human soul, of which it was one of the special, the most distinctive ornaments. Perhaps it is not-being that is the true state, and all our dream of life is without existence; but, if so, we feel that it must be that these phrases of music, these conceptions which exist in relation to our dream, are nothing either. We shall perish, but we have for our hostages these divine captives who shall follow and share our fate. And death in their company is something less bitter, less inglorious, perhaps even less certain. — Marcel Proust

In this mortal life, nothing is blessed throughout. — Francois Rabelais

On the day when it will be possible for woman to love not in her weakness but in her strength, not to escape herself but to find herself, not to abase herself but to assert herself
on that day love will become for her, as for man, a source of life and not of mortal danger. — Simone De Beauvoir

We are not perfect. The people around us are not perfect. People do things that annoy, disappoint, and anger. In this mortal life it will always be that way. Nevertheless, we must let go of our grievances. Part of the purpose of mortality is to learn how to let go of such things. That is the Lord's way. Remember, heaven is filled with those who have this in common: They are forgiven. And they forgive. — Dieter F. Uchtdorf

Unfortunately, mortal life is very fragile, and very short. Yours could be shorter than usual. — Rachel Caine

You are not to take it, if you please, as the saying of an ignorant man, when I express my opinion that such a book as ROBINSON CRUSOE never was written, and never will be written again. I have tried that book for years - generally in combination with a pipe of tobacco - and I have found it my friend in need in all the necessities of this mortal life. When my spirits are bad - ROBINSON CRUSOE. When I want advice - ROBINSON CRUSOE. In past times when my wife plagued me; in present times when I have had a drop too much - ROBINSON CRUSOE. I have worn out six stout ROBINSON CRUSOES with hard work in my service. On my lady's last birthday she gave me a seventh. I took a drop too much on the strength of it; and ROBINSON CRUSOE put me right again. Price four shillings and sixpence, bound in blue, with a picture into the bargain.
— Wilkie Collins

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

I did not imagine that the second half of my life would be spent on efforts to avert a mortal danger to humanity created by science. — Joseph Rotblat

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

Plato spoke of the Sisters of Fate on the last 3 pages of his book, "The Republic" when he said: "Then the Sisters of Fate take all of our choices and weave them on their loom into the fabric of destiny. Hear the word of Lachesis, the daughter of Necessity. Mortal souls, behold a new cycle of life and mortality. Your genius will not be allotted to you, but you will choose your genius; and let him who draws the first lot have the first choice, and the life which he chooses shall be his destiny. Virtue is free, and as a man honors' or dishonors her he will have more or less of her; the responsibility is with the chooser - God is justified" [Quote from Plato's Republic written 360BCE In the Public Domain] — D.M. Hoover

I would have been in mortal misery all my life for fear my wife might say, 'That's a pretty little thing,' after I had finished a picture. — Edgar Degas

To endure the cross is not a tragedy; it is the suffering which is the fruit of an exclusive allegiance to Jesus Christ. When it comes, it is not an accident, but a necessity. It is not the sort of suffering which is inseparable from this mortal life, but the suffering which is an essential part of the specifically Christian life. It is not suffering per se but suffering-and-rejection, and not rejection for any cause or conviction of our own, but rejection for the sake of Christ. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

An immense percentage of snobs, I believe, is to be found in every rank of this mortal life. — William Makepeace Thackeray

For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life. And yet the same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe
the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God. — John F. Kennedy

Liar! I know that you humans build your life in lies. It starts with your mortal lords and their fabricated gods. They use fictitious stories to impregnate the minds of people, and like herds of sheep they do as their told. With manipulation alone is enough to secure their reign. After all, is it not in your nature to be wanted and purposeful? It is such an easy game to play. I have observed this falsehood accepted by fathers and mothers over and over again. The idiocy becomes one with their children, and they become the infrastructure that not only sedates but corrodes the soul with instructed conformity. In the end, lies are all that you are. — H.S. Crow

See, Batman is different. He's mortal. He's got a real life to risk. Superman just has to avoid Kryptonite. Big deal. Superman fears nothing because outside a few very specific circumstances where he might encounter some stupid rock, nothing can possibly do him in. Batman has the same vulnerabilities as the rest of us, so he has the same fears as us. That's why he's the most courageous: because he can put those aside and fight on regardless. My point is this: the more you have to lose, the braver you re for standing up. That's why Batman is superior to Superman, and that's why I am infinitely smarter then you.'
I am a genius. I have won.
'Pffft! Whatever. I'll bet Batman won't be too loud about his superiority when Superman is belting seven shades of shit out of him. — Craig Silvey

For immediately in the beginning, after his original life of blessedness, the first man despised the command of God, and fell into this mortal and perishable state, and exchanged his former divinely inspired luxury for this curse-laden earth. His descendants having filled our earth, showed themselves much worse, with the exception of one here and there, and entered upon a certain brutal and insupportable mode of life. — Eusebius

He'd passed the longest night of his life locked in mortal combat with his ghosts, calling up and then disavowing twenty years of memories. He would banish that bitch from his heart if it meant cutting her out with his own dagger. And when at last he allowed himself to grieve, he did so silently and unwillingly, his tears hidden by the darkness, his rage congealing into a core of ice. — Sharon Kay Penman

Be your own master, and look at things as a man, as a human being, as a citizen, as a mortal creature. — Marcus Aurelius

My dear dear lord,
The purest treasure mortal times afford
Is spotless reputation: that away,
Men are but gilded loam or painted clay.
A jewel in a ten-times-barr'd-up chest
Is a bold spirit in a loyal breast.
Mine honour is my life; both grow in one:
Take honour from me, and my life is done:
Then, dear my liege, mine honour let me try;
In that I live and for that will I die. — William Shakespeare

Wake not the Dead: - they bring but gloomy night
And cheerless desolation into day
For in the grave who mouldering lay,
No more can feel the influence of light,
Or yield them to the sun's prolific might;
Let them repose within their house of clay -
Corruption, wilt thou vainly e'er essay
To quicken: - it sends forth a prest'lent blight;
And neither fiery sun, nor bathing dew,
Nor breath of Spring the dead can e'er renew.
That which from life is pluck'd, becomes the foe
Of life, and whoso wakes it waketh woe.
Seek not the dead to waken from that sleep
In which from mortal eye they lie enshrouded deep. — Ludwig Tieck

It's not easy to kill someone, Rowena. To stare at them, face to face, that moment when you both realize you've dealt them a mortal blow. There is something that passes between you. My father once told me it's a part of their soul that creeps into you. A part that will haunt you all of your life. (Stryder) — Kinley MacGregor

That the mortification of indwelling sin remaining in our mortal bodies, that it may not have life and power to bring forth the works or deeds of the flesh is the constant duty of believers. — John Owen

Is that the summit of earthly happiness, the end of life - to love? I don't think it is. It may be the extreme of mortal misery, it may be sheer waste of time, and fruitless torture of feeling. — Charlotte Bronte

We have been told mankind will be judged on the intent of the heart. No mortal can see into the depth of another. There is only One who can. His is the role of a judge-not ours. If you are prone to criticize or judge, remember, we never see the target a man aims at in life. We see only what he hits. — H. Burke Peterson

I'd accepted my judgment without question. Agreed to live a mortal life. I didn't know my memories would come with me; didn't know I'd relive them every day.
Death would have been more merciful. — Christine Fonseca

This I have always known - that if I did not live my life immersed in the one activity which suits me, and which also, to tell the truth, keeps me utterly happy and intrigued, I would come someday to bitter and mortal regret. — Mary Oliver