My Reason To Live Quotes & Sayings

There are many of us who live alongside others, less fortunate, watching them go through everyday suffering for one reason or another, and we're not moving even our little finger to help them. It's in human nature, unfortunately: for the most part, the only people we genuinely care about are ourselves. However, once in a while we encounter different species, different kind of human beings among us: full of compassion, willing and wanting to help, and doing so with joy and happiness. Those are a rarity. But you know what, my dear? Being one of them is not a special calling- it's a choice. So what will you choose, huh? — Yoleen Valai

My main goal is to stay alive. To keep fooling myself into hanging around. To keep getting up every day. Right now I live without inspiration. I go day to day and do the work because it's all I know. I know that if I keep moving I stand a chance. I must keep myself going until I find a reason to live. I need one so bad. On the other hand maybe I don't. Maybe it's all bullshit. Nothing I knew from my old life can help me here. Most of the things that I believed turned out to be useless. Appendages from someone else's life.
Everything I have I would give to not know what I know. To not feel emptiness as my constant companion. To not look into this room and be reminded why I'm in it. I'm not getting enough air. The room feels so small all of a sudden. It's pathetic to be this lonely and know it. To keep breathing. To be silent and alone. And to know. — Henry Rollins

I believe nothing happens by accident. My fame has happened for a reason. My fans are my kindred spirits in revolution. If anyone chooses to ignore the message or the messenger, they do so at their own risk. Believe it or not, there are many more people out there that understand what I am trying to do than society wants to admit. The way I live my life represents a much bigger part of America than anyone would care to imagine — Marilyn Manson

Her father said, "You know, my dears, the world has been abnormal for so long that we've forgotten what it's like to live in a peaceful and reasonable climate. If there is to be any peace or reason, we have to create it in our own hearts and homes." "Even at a time like this?" Meg asked. The call from Calvin, the sound of her husband's voice, had nearly broken her control. "Especially at a time like this," her mother said gently. — Madeleine L'Engle

I love you, Kitten."
How puny those words seemed compared to the feelings strafing mine, but his voice vibrated as he said them. Then he crouched beside me.
"I would never hurt you that way save for one reason: to keep you safe. I can live with your anger, your retribution ... bloody hell, despise me if you must, but don't expect me to behave as though you aren't the most important thing in my life. You are, and I will let no one, yourself included, bring you to harm. — Jeaniene Frost

217. "We're only given as much as the heart can endure," "What does not kill you makes you stronger," "Our sorrows provide us with the lessons we most need to learn": these are the kinds of phrases that enrage my injured friend. Indeed, one would be hard pressed to come up with a spiritual lesson that demands becoming a quadriparalytic. The tepid "there must be a reason for it" notion sometimes floated by religious or quasi-religious acquaintances or bystanders, is, to her, another form of violence. She has no time for it. She is too busy asking, in this changed form, what makes a livable life, and how she can live it. — Maggie Nelson

You, you buy into all this stuff about good guys and bad guys in the world. A loan shark breaks a guy's leg for not paying his debt, a banker throws a guy out of his home for the same reason, and you think there's a difference, like the banker's just doing his job but the loan shark's a criminal. I like the loan shark better because he doesn't pretend to be anything else, and I think the banker should be where I am sitting right now. I'm not going to live some life where I pay my fucking taxes and fetch the boss a lemonade at the company picnic and buy life insurance. Get older, get fatter, so I can join a men's club in Back Bay, smoke cigars with a bunch of assholes in a back room somewhere, talk about my squash game and my kid's grades. Die at my desk, and they'll already have scraped my name off the office door before the dirt's hit the coffin. — Dennis Lehane

By taking notice of those feelings and images that seemed to be in my blood and bones rather than in my head, I had found myself able to behave, not less reasonably, but more so. Apparently it was as much a false extreme to try and live by reason alone, leaving the passions out of count, as to ignore reason and put passion in its place as the guiding force of life. — Marion Milner

The people believe that those who do not think as they do are fools. For that reason, they take me for such, and I am grateful, because woe is me! The day the would wish to give me back my sanity, that day they'll deprive me of the little liberty that I have bought at the cost of my reputation as a rational being. And who knows if they are right? I neither think nor live according to their laws; my principles, my ideals are different. — Jose Rizal

I've been half dead for ten years, Gris, but then you walked back into my life, and I came alive again. You make me want to live. You make me want to be a better man.
I love you, and when I said that, I mean that you're my reason for breathing, for eating, for drinking, for sleeping, for living. I will never hurt you. I will never leave you. I will always protect you. There is no one more important to me than you, and as long as I live, there never will be. — Katy Regnery

LXXIX
When I die, I want your hands on my eyes.
I want the light and wheat of your beloved hands to pass their freshness over me once moreL
I want to feel the softness that changed my destiny.
I want you to live while I wait for you, asleep.
I want your ears still to hear the wind, I want you to sniff the sea's aroma that we loved together,
to continue to walk on the sand we walk on.
I want what I love to continue to live,
and you whom I love and sang above everything else.
to continue to flourish, full-flowered.
So that you can reach everything my love directs you to.
So that my shadow can travel along in your hair,
so that everything can learn the reason for my song. — Pablo Neruda

I, _, certify that by signing below I agree to abide by the rules outlined in the REACH Handbook. I understand the rules, which have been properly explained to me by a REACH staff member. I further acknowledge that if I disregard the rules for any reason I will be subject to disciplinary action which may include in-house detention, additional counseling, and/or expulsion from the REACH program.
What it really means: I, , sign my freedom over to REACH staff. By signing this piece of paper, I certify that my life will be dictated by other people and I'll live a miserable existence while I'm in Colorado. — Simone Elkeles

TVXQ is everything in my life. I want to live for TVXQ and die for TVXQ; it's the precious reason for my existence. If I hadn't become apart of TVXQ, I can't imagine what I would be like now. Without TVXQ, I wouldn't be like myself, who I am today. — Junsu

I don't live in the past. I don't play my old records for that reason. I make a statement, then move on to the next. — Prince

The reason I feel like I act is because you get to live a million different lives in one. I don't have to go about my life, just being easy-going New Zealander Rose. Sometimes I can inhabit a feisty, vicious character. Sometimes I can inhabit a painfully shy British girl, or whatever it might be. — Rose McIver

When I sing, I have to live in that moment, so my audience can feel that. That is my reason for doing art. — Jill Scott

I need to dream.
I need to believe.
I need to know that I have some control in my life.
That if I work hard, that I will be rewarded.
That life is not arbitrary.
I need to believe that bad things happen to good people, for a greater reason.
That dedication, sacrifice, hard work, discipline are all worthy attributes that will eventually produce extraordinary results.
That if I live a certain lifestyle, that my family will be better for that.
That there is a direct link between my actions and my results.
That If I prepare properly that I can face the insurmountable foe and look him in the eye and say "Bring it on, I can take whatever you can dish out."
I need to keep living in order to save my daughter from dying. — JohnA Passaro

There's only one reason we live. It's very simple. To find the creator. That's just my understanding. — Jon Anderson

I don't want to be kept safe! I don't want to have someone constantly trying to keep me from tripping on my own incompetence. I want to live in a world where I know the rules, where people are just people. Not one where they keep trying to eat me. That's the reason I left the city in the first place. I don't want to be kept, not by anyone. — Meagan Spooner

My experience with forgiveness is that it sort of comes spontaneously at a certain point and to try to force it it's not really forgiveness. It's Buddhist philosophy or something spiritual jargon that you're trying to live up to but you're just using it against yourself as a reason why you're not okay. — Pema Chodron

All of a sudden, life became too much to bear. Just like that, for no particular reason. Because there was a child's corpse in the fridge on rue Parthenais. Because I had to start all over again from scratch, one more time. Because I had rolled my rock to the top of the hill and now it was rolling back down again. The times before, I'd always managed to put on a brave face. But there comes a time when you just don't feel strong enough to look for another place to live and go shopping again for clothes and dishes and cutlery and scouring pads and toilet paper. This was one of those times. When I got back to the hotel, I asked the Barbie at reception for the key to the minibar. It burned in the palm of my hand. I slapped it back down on the counter and ran out. I had to find a meeting. — Bernard Emond

I grabbed the lapels of his coat, tears filling my eyes. "Don't tell me this is all happening for a reason ... Or that it's going to be okay. Don't tell me you're ready to die." ...
He met my gave, his blue eyes steady, "It's not going to be okay." He brushed hair back from my cheeks and cupped my face in his rough hands. "None of this is happening for a reason." He skimmed his lips over mine. "And Saints help me, Alina, I want to live forever."
He kissed me again, and this time, he didn't stop — Leigh Bardugo

As Hector walks to the balcony, he suddenly thought of his mother. He missed her dearly as he looked up, closed his eyes and felt Maria's warm breath behind his ears, whispering the same words of wisdom she never get tired of telling him over and over again, "You are born and destined to live in this place for a reason. I don't want to see you growing as a man who only thinks about and care for, is himself." And as tears start to fall, he whispered, "Yes, my dear mother. Now I undestand. — Juan Bautista

You said I should change my life and find a reason to want to live. I chose you. — Laurann Dohner

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

Oh, you don't know what this means to me," he said brokenly at last. "I hadn't any picture of him. And I'm not like other folks . . . I can't recall a face . . . I can't see faces as most folks can in their mind. It's been awful since the Little Fellow died. . . . I couldn't even remember what he looked like. And now you've brought me this . . . after I was so rude to you. Sit down . . . sit down. I wish I could express my thanks in some way. I guess you've saved my reason . . . maybe my life. Oh, miss, isn't it like him? You'd think he was going to speak. My dear Little Fellow! How am I going to live without him? I've nothing to live for now. First his mother . . . now him. — L.M. Montgomery

I suppose that's the reason I believe that as long as there is someone in charge of the household, someone who can maintain order among its members, someone who is clearly mature and established as a person, someone, in other words, like my mother, then eventually all who live under the same roof, despite blood ties or lineage, will at one point become family. Such a simple idea, but one that took a while for me to catch on to.

Oh, and another thing.

If the same people don't spend enough time in a home, even if they are connected by blood, their bonds will slowly fade away like a familiar landscape. — Banana Yoshimoto

The Importance of Receiving
Receiving often is harder than giving. Giving is very important: giving insight, giving hope, giving courage, giving advice, giving support, giving money, and, most of all, giving ourselves. Without giving there is no brotherhood and sisterhood.
But receiving is just as important, because by receiving we reveal to the givers that they have gifts to offer. When we say, "Thank you, you gave me hope; thank you, you gave me a reason to live; thank you, you allowed me to realise my dream," we make givers aware of their unique and precious gifts. Sometimes it is only in the eyes of the receivers that givers discover their gifts. — Henri J.M. Nouwen

I'll bet she's beautiful, that girl he talks about, and she's got everything that I have to live without ... He's the reason for the teardrops on my guitar, the only one who's got enough of me to break my heart. He's the song in the car I keep singing; don't know why I do. — Taylor Swift

How all occasions do inform against me,
And spur my dull revenge! What is a man,
If his chief good and market of his time
Be but to sleep and feed? a beast, no more.
Sure, he that made us with such large discourse,
Looking before and after, gave us not
That capability and god-like reason
To fust in us unused. Now, whether it be
Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple
Of thinking too precisely on the event,
A thought which, quarter'd, hath but one part wisdom
And ever three parts coward, I do not know
Why yet I live to say 'This thing's to do;'
Sith I have cause and will and strength and means
To do't. Examples gross as earth exhort me:
Witness this army of such mass and charge
Led by a delicate and tender prince,
Whose spirit with divine ambition puff'd — William Shakespeare

I am afraid! It is not starving I fear, or talking to people, or even being alone. But I cannot bear to be useless and ineffectual. There must be some meaning to me, if not to my life; there must surely be some purpose that has my name written on it. If this is not so, if I am deceiving myself about this too, then why should I want to become real? What reason have I to live anywhere? — Peter S. Beagle

My reason teaches me that land cannot be sold. The Great Spirit gave it to his children to live upon. So long as they occupy and cultivate it, they have a right to the soil. Nothing can be sold but such things as can be carried away — Black Hawk

I decided that I want to live the rest of my life happy with what I'm doing. So when I play tennis again, I have to play it for the right reason. I don't want to play to get my No. 1 ranking back. I don't want to play for the attention, or to earn more. I don't even want to play because the world wants to see me do it, even though it's nice to know that the world is interested. I only want to play because I love the game, which is the reason I began to play at age seven in the first place. — Monica Seles

The reason some crime writers have a chip on their shoulder about the label is because their good books are shelved beside books about nuns and birdwatchers and cats who solve crimes. Overseas, my books are reviewed alongside those of authors like Robert Stone and Don DeLillo, and I have to live and die by that comparison. They don't ghettoize crime writers in other countries, and of course they shouldn't. — George Pelecanos

A Little Note to My Late Mother
Today is Sunday the 13th March 2016, it is a Mother's Day here in the UK and I'm missing you desperately ntombi kaMdyogolo, mamtipha, bhayeni, manzimade, yiwa. There is no day, no moment that goes by without thinking of you precious mother. Your priceless love carries me day in day out. Your voice of love whispers in my ears morning, noon and night. Your teachings are giving me the reason to live and I'm so proud and blessed to be the seed of your blessed womb. I wish you were here to see your grandchildren who make me proud to be a mother too and a proud grandmother. Your great grandchildren are beautiful and graceful. Happy Mothersday mama and your precious soul may rest in peace my beautiful mother. I love you forever. — Euginia Herlihy

All of my favourite quotes to live by are in my book, I wrote it for a reason — Blake Joy

Part of the reason I am not there sooner, is that I was not allowed to go to the United States. Now I am allowed. I am so thankful I have been given a second chance and I live there and already more has happened in six months for my career then in the last ten years. — Shane Bunting

And luckily, for whatever reason, I've found people who are interested in living with and owning and existing around the DNA of my mind, which is my visual work. I've found collectors who are willing to put money down to live with my work. So I can't criticize the whole mechanism. But I can criticize it as an artist, in spite of the fact that I benefit from it. And there are problems with it. — Wangechi Mutu

I lifted my chin, meeting the eyes of the woman who'd become the living embodiment of my totem, my bright phoenix, and forged ahead. "But I live with the wrong choices, the paths untraveled, the lives lost, and I never hold those regrets against anyone but myself. So, if you have some reason that you think I'll regret getting in that car or not getting in that car, then tell me. Because I won't have anything between us, either." My mind flashed to an hourglass, grains of sand trickling away, carrying my life with them. "At least, nothing that we can avoid...like the fear of unspoken words. — Marie Castle

I'm sure one reason I became an actor is my basic unwillingness to live one life. — Scott Glenn

version of Kurt Wise's manifesto: 'If all the evidence in the universe turned in favour of creationism, I would be the first to admit it, and I would immediately change my mind. As things stand, however, all available evidence (and there is a vast amount of it) favours evolution. It is for this reason and this reason alone that I argue for evolution with a passion that matches the passion of those who argue against it. My passion is based on evidence. Theirs, flying in the face of evidence as it does, is truly fundamentalist.' I'm an atheist myself, but religion is here to stay. Live with it. 'You want to get rid of religion? Good luck to you! You think — Richard Dawkins

My biggest regret is being naive enough in thinking that what happened is a big enough reason to miss out on each other's live. — Frank Warren

I was surprised to feel the tears running down my cheeks. Was this part of the reason fate had brought Arabella and I together all those years ago? Or was fate finally providing a way for our love to live on? — Rose Wynters

Loving you is not a choice,
It's who I am.
Loving you is not a choice
And not much reason to rejoice,
But it gives me purpose
Gives me voice to say to the world:
This is why I live
You are why I live.
Loving you is why I do
The things I do
Loving you is not in my control.
But loving you, I have a goal
For what's left of my life ...
I would live,
And I would die for you. — Stephen Sondheim

Real mystery - the very reason to read (and certainly write) any book - was to them a thing to dismantle, distill and mine out into rubble they could tyrannize into sorry but more permanent explanations; monuments to themselves, in other words. In my view all teachers should be required to stop teaching at age thirty-two and not allowed to resume until they're sixty-five, so that they can live their lives, not teach them away - live lives full of ambiguity and transience and regret and wonder, be asked to explain nothing in public until very near the end when they can't do anything else.
Explaining is where we all get into trouble. — Richard Ford

I no longer needed a reason for my existence, just a reason to live. And imagination, free will, love, humor, fun, music, sports, beer, and pizza are all good enough reasons for living. But living an honest life - for that you need the truth. — Ricky Gervais

If you've been exiled, why don't you send me word of yourself? People do send word. Have you stopped loving me? No, for some reason I don't believe that. It means you were exiled and died ... Release me, then, I beg you, give me freedom to live, finally, to breathe the air! ... ' Margarita Nikolaevna answered for him herself: 'You are free ... am I holding you?' Then she objected to him: 'No, what kind of answer is that? No, go from my memory, then I'll be free ... — Mikhail Bulgakov

I have no reverence for any book that teaches a doctrine contrary to my reason; no reverence for any book that teaches a doctrine contrary to my heart; and, no matter how old it is, no matter how many have believed it, no matter how many have died on account of it, no matter how many live for it, I have no reverence for that book, and I am glad of it. — Robert Green Ingersoll

I live in Selfridges because it has everything under one roof. Liberty's is great for the same reason - I'm so lazy, I hate walking from shop to shop. Powder in Crouch End always has great designer labels in, so when I walk past I have to put my blinkers on because every time I nip in I come out with too much stuff; it's dangerous. — Sheridan Smith

Enough," he pronounced resolutely and triumphantly. "I've done with fancies, imaginary terrors and phantoms! Life is real! haven't I lived just now? My life has not yet died with that old woman! The Kingdom of Heaven to her
and now enough, madam, leave me in peace! Now for the reign of reason and light ... and of will, and of strength ... and now we will see! We will try our strength!" he added defiantly, as though challenging some power of darkness. "And I was ready to consent to live in a square of space! — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

I firmly believe that the only reason why I'm on this planet, the only reason why I live, breathe, and exist is, that it's my duty to be as honest as possible in my art. — Alanis Morissette

I'm asking for you to save my life because with every breath in my body, I love you. I'll love you until my last. Without you, I am no longer someone with a reason to live. — B.B. Reid

To live factionless Is not just to live in poverty and discomfort; it is to live divorced from society, separated from the most important thing in life: community. My mother once told me that we can't survive alone,but even if we could, we wouldn't want to. Without a faction, we have no purpose and no reason to live. — Veronica Roth

My view [is] that what morality boils down to is, 'Don't harm, and do help.' And now the question is, 'Can creatures like chickens and cows be harmed?' And the answer is, 'Of course they can.' Consequently, I think it's immoral to harm them. And that seems to me to provide a very strong moral reason to be vegetarian, to not wear leather ... it seems to me that our treatment of animals is morally appalling ... and that we ought to radically revise the way we live, precisely because they feel pain, they can be hurt, and we're constantly hurting these creatures! — Shelly Kagan

I want her beyond reason. I need to own, consume, worship, devour. What I've made of her in my mind cannot live in flesh. — Mark Lawrence

Even if I could live forever," she said to the baby, "I still don't know which way I would teach you. I was once so free and innocent. I too laughed for no reason."
"But later I threw away my foolish innocence to protect myself. And then I taught my daughter, your mother, to shed her innocence so she would not be hurt as well. — Amy Tan

My chest tightens to the point I fear my heart will suffocate from the pressure of it. Society's standards are the total opposite from how I was raised. The boy who I thought to be so strikingly handsome has less than a year of his life to live, my new friend only a few more months beyond that. Yet they are living these uneventful lives in which they don't think there is a reason for anything. Will I ever see my mother again, or is this how I will be forced to live the rest of my life, as well? — Jen Naumann

My reasons to live Were my reasons to die But at least they were mine Now I've freedom unbound Cut the laces of life — Emilie Autumn

When I stand on stage, I get nervous, and because unexpected situations can occur, we need even more preparation. I must have confidence on top of that as well. The reason why I chose drama/theatre as my major is to act after learning all the theory first. You only live once, and I can only live as myself. I think I could learn a lot of things if I can live as others through acting. — Seohyun

What you did was to draw a conclusion from a descriptive sentence
That person
wants to live too'
to what we call a normative sentence: 'Therefore you ought not to kill them.' From the point of view of reason this is nonsense. You might just as well say 'There are lots of people who cheat on their taxes, therefore I ought to cheat on my taxes too.' Hume said you can never draw conclusions from is sentences to ought sentences. Nevertheless it is exceedingly common, not least in newspaper articles, political party programs, and speeches. — Jostein Gaarder

Let me guess. You think we're going to live happily ever after, like some stupid fairy tale?"
"Why not?" His stare dared me to laugh or, worse, to argue.
"Because the whole thing is ridiculous," I said. I despised the bitterness in my own voice. I sounded so damaged. Good. If he thought I was his soul mate for some mysterious reason he wouldn't let on, let him see the worst of me.
"It's not ridiculous to me. Perhaps that's the difference between predators and prey, love. I'll never stop hunting. But I expect that one day, you'll stop running."
"Because I want to die?"
"Because you want to live. — Delilah S. Dawson

The offer of certainty, the offer of complete security, the offer of an impermeable faith that can't give way, is an offer of something not worth having. I want to live my life taking the risk all the time that I don't know anything like enough yet; that I haven't understood enough; that I can't know enough; that I'm always hungrily operating on the margins of a potentially great harvest of future knowledge and wisdom. I wouldn't have it any other way. — Christopher Hitchens

My eyes fix on my reflection in the mirror as the water warms up for my shower.
I'm not sure if it's just my perception, but I look older than my thirty-eight years.
I certainly feel older, too.
I feel like I've lived more than one lifetime, each of them lasting an eternity. An eternity of rage, and resentment, and wrongdoing ... it takes its toll on a man, that's for certain. But none of it had half as much effect on me as this past year. Something I learned was sentiment can take it out of you. I used to have no regard for myself - or anybody, for that matter. I had no reason to live anymore. But now that I care about what happens to her - and for her sake, me - I'm growing exhausted from the constant worry.
Worry my past will catch up to us.
Worry that she'll be the one to pay for those sins.
It's the consequence, I think, of loving me.
The consequence of being with someone who lived so carelessly. — J.M. Darhower

I bet if we all threw our problems in a huge pile and saw everyone else's, we'd grab ours back. Don't compare your life to others'. You have no idea what their journey is about. That's why I always give people the benefit of the doubt; it's one of my rules to live by. There may be a reason why someone is having a bad day, there's often something that we can't see. She is not necessarily a bad person, just someone facing a bad situation. — Robin Roberts

Do you want to die, Gabriel?" "No." His hand fell to cover hers, heated and rough. "I just want that moment when the choice to live or die isn't my responsibility. Not my life, or anyone else's." Pale eyes fixed on her. "More than anything, I want a reason to keep living. — Cole McCade

What people do isn't determined by where they live. It happens to be their damned fault. They decided to watch TV instead of thinking when they were in high school. They decided to blow-off courses and drink beer instead of reading and trying to learn something. They decided to chicken out and be intolerant bastards instead of being openminded, and finally they decided to go along with their buddies and do things that were terribly wrong when there was no reason they had to. Anyone who hurts someone else decides to hurt them, goes out of their way to do it ... The fact that it's hard to be a good person doesn't excuse going along and being an asshole. If they can't overcome their own fear of being unusual, it's not my fault, because any idiot ought to be able to see that if he just acts reasonably and makes a point of not hurting others, he'll be happier. — Neal Stephenson

My life would not be where I'm at without Jesus. He is the savior of my life, and he is the reason why I live, and why I breathe. If anybody wants to be blessed, you have to trust God. You have to live according to his standards. — Donovin Darius

We don't really want to get what we think that we want.
I am married to a wife and relationship with her are cold and I have a mistress. And all the time I dream oh my god if my wife were to disappear - I'm not a murderer but let us say- that it will open up a new life with the mistress.Then, for some reason, the wife goes away, you lose the mistress.
You thought this is all I want, when you have it there, you turn out it was a much more complex situation.
It was not to live with the mistress, but to keep her as a distance as on object of desire about which you dream.
This is not an excessive example, I claim this is how things function. We don't really want what we think we desire — Slavoj Zizek

My morality, the morality of reason, is contained in a single axiom: existence exists - and in a single choice: to live. — Ayn Rand

If morality is always relative to one's own society, then you, coming from your society, have your moral standards and I, coming from my society, have mine. It follows that when I criticize your moral standards, I am simply expressing the morality of my society, but it also follows that when you condemn me for criticizing the moral standards of your society, you are simply expressing the morality of your society. There is, on this view, no way of moving outside the morality of one's own society and expressing a transcultural or objective moral judgment about anything, including respect for the cultures of different peoples. Hence if we happen to live in a culture that honors those who subdue other societies and suppress their cultures, then that is our morality, and the relativist can offer no cogent reason why we should not simply get on with it. — Peter Singer

For the first time I was beginning to discern a God whom I actually wanted to live for. I was beginning to discover the motivation of Paul when he proclaimed, "Christ's love compels us" (2 Cor. 5: 14). All my life I'd tried to be good to avoid hell, or the ugly-stick flogging, or my stepmother's beatings with a two-by-four. But while most people would undoubtedly be better at behaving well with these frightful motivations than I ever was, no one could ever be transformed by these sorts of motivations. Threatening motivations address behavior, but they can never transform our identity. They motivate people to change as a means of protecting themselves, but for this reason they can never move us beyond ourselves to become someone fundamentally different from who we currently are. And threatening motivations can certainly never transform us into people with an other-oriented, self-sacrificial, loving character. Only a motivation that is anchored in love can do this. — Gregory A. Boyd

I've seen you do the most atrocious things, yet, for some reason I can't explain, I want you more than I want to live to see tomorrow. So don't you dare think you can take my life without giving me that. Without letting me see how much you wanted me too. — Ella Frank

How easy it is for me to live with you, Lord!
How easy it is for me to believe in You!

When my mind is distraught
and my reason fails,
when the cleverest people do not see further
than this evening and do not know
what must be done tomorrow -
You grant me the clear confidence,
that You exist, and that You will take care
that not all the ways of goodness are stopped.

At the height of earthly fame I gaze
with wonder at that path
through hopelessness -
to this point, from which even I have been able to convey
to men some reflection of the light which comes from You.

And you will enable me to go on doing
as much as needs to be done.
And in so far as I do not manage it -
that means that You have allotted the task to others. — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

I often think about this, that is, I imagine to myself that here is Vera, dead, totally motionless, lying on the table, in a coffin... and I too, of course can no longer live. But for some reason this gives me pleasure, a terrible amount of pleasure to imagine so the one I love: earlier I imagined grandmother and then my fiance in this manner, even my favorite animals, Sparky our cat with the fiery bursts of red on his gray-black fur.

("Thirty-Three Abominations") — Lydia Zinovieva-Annibal

The vampires took everything from me, but I'm looking into the eyes of one who has the power to give me back a reason to live, who can heal my gaping hole of sorrow. — J.A. London

To call ourselves a Microcosme, or little world, I thought it onely a pleasant trope of Rhetorick, till my neare judgement and second thoughts told me there was a reall truth therein: for first wee are a rude masse, and in the ranke of creatures, which only are, and have a dull kinde of being not yet priviledged with life, or preferred to sense or reason; next we live the life of plants, the life of animals, the life of men, and at last the life of spirits, running on in one mysterious nature those five kinds of existence, which comprehend the creatures not onely of world, but of the Universe. — Thomas Browne

But are you finding monastic history a very compelling reason to live?"
"I'm not human," he said. "I don't require a reason to live. Living is my default condition."
I couldn't help it; I laughed, and teas weleld in my eyes. That answer was quintessentially Orma, distilled to his elemental Orma-ness. — Rachel Hartman

I can identify with other people and situations, but I tend not to. I would rather recall things from my own life, and I don't have to force myself ... Just being in certain environments triggers a response in my brain, a certain feeling I want to articulate. For some reason, I am attracted to self-destruction. I know that personal sacrifice has a great deal to do with how we live or don't live our lives. — Bob Dylan

My dear boy," said Lord Henry, smiling, "anybody can be good in the country. There are no temptations there. That is the reason why people who live out of town are so absolutely uncivilized. Civilization is not, by any means, an easy thing to attain to. There are only two ways by which men can reach it. One is by being cultured, the other by being corrupt. Country people have no opportunity of being either, so they stagnate. — Oscar Wilde

I couldn't catch my breath. I buried my face in his shirt. He was my reason for existing. It was his words that pulled me to the surface. His breath that saved me. And now, his arms that held me within this life, unable to give up. He was my strength, and the love I didn't have for myself. And I couldn't live without him more than he could let me go. — Rebecca Donovan

No, I was not involved with Blake. You are not just involved with the person that causes your world to make sense. You live for that person. You breathe for that person. So no, involved, is not the word I would use to describe my relationship with Blake.
Blake is everything to me. She's not somebody I'm involved with, she is my reason, my everything. — Claire Contreras

You gave me something ... no, someone ... to live for. There was no reason for my existence before you. — Shay Savage

I stopped in my tracks when that thought came into my mind, that hiking the PCT was the hardest thing I'd ever done. Immediately, I amended the thought. Watching my mother die and having to live without her, that was the hardest thing I'd ever done. Leaving Paul and destroying our marriage and life as I knew it for the simple and inexplicable reason that I felt I had to - that had been hard as well. But hiking the PCT was hard in a different way. In a way that made the other hardest things the tiniest bit less hard. — Cheryl Strayed

Therefore I begin to think, my Lord, you purposely allow us to be brought into contact with the bad and evil things that you want changed. Perhaps that is the very reason that we are here in this world, where sin and sorrow and suffering and evil abound, so that we may let you teach us so to react to them, that out of them we can create lovely qualities to live forever. That is the only really satisfactory way of dealing with evil, not simply binding it so that it cannot work harm, but whenever possible overcoming it with good. — Hannah Hurnard

That book taught me that by reading, I could live more intensely. It could give me back the sight I had lost. For that reason alone, a book that didn't matter to anyone changed my life. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Civic duty? Perhaps it would be a little naive to try to coerce me into voting. I assure you my basic standards of healthy living are very different from yours, which is the reason I do not vote. You should note that, as nonsensical a scenario, if forced to choose I would most definitely rather live in a failing, Christ-honoring, God-fearing nation than a flourishing one that mocks said Creator. Beware of my personal ambitions. — Criss Jami

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

Here I, for instance, quite naturally want to live, in order to satisfy all my capacities for life, and not simply my capacity for reasoning, that is, not simply one twentieth of my capacity for life. What does reason know? Reason only knows what it has succeeded in learning (some things, perhaps, it will never learn; this is a poor comfort, but why not say so frankly?) and human nature acts as a whole, with everything that is in it, consciously or unconsciously, and, even if it goes wrong, it lives. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

V jerked back to the present. And for some reason didn't lie. "I'm thinking about my tattoos."
"When did you get them?"
"Almost three centuries ago."
She whistled. "God, you live that long?"
"Longer. Assuming I don't get cracked dead in a fight and you fool humans don't blow up the planet, I'll be breathing for another seven hundred years. — J.R. Ward

I went through what I imagine thousands of other women have felt. I told myself to stay calm, to be strong, and that I had no reason to think I wouldn't live to see my children grow up and to meet my grandchildren. — Angelina Jolie

There is no reason in the world why we shouldn't fight for the preservation of a chance to live freely, no reason why we shouldn't suffer to uphold that which we want to endure. May God give me the courage to do my duty and not falter. — Nile Kinnick

A lot of my songs are about death and the fleetingness of life. It just feels good to remind myself about that a lot. For whatever reason. And it's a beautiful thing, actually. It seems to me like it's a beautiful way to live in the world and to relate to things, with an awareness of temporality. — Phil Elvrum

The way for me to live is to have no way. My only habit should be to have none. Because I did it this way before is not sufficient reason to do it this way today. I — Hugh Prather

Everything makes sense when I'm with you, Tess. My life makes sense, after so many years of running scared in the dark. You are the light, the reason I live. I'm bonded to you deep, woman. For me, there will never be another. — Lara Adrian

Well, I'm half Australian, half English and I live in London. That is the only reason I came upon this story. My Australian mother, Meredith Hooper, was invited in late 2007 by some Australian friends to make up a token Australian audience in a tiny fringe theater play reading of an unproduced, unrehearsed play called 'The King's Speech.' — Tom Hooper

My philosophy is basically this. And this is something that I live by. And I always have. And I always will. Don't ever, for any reason, do anything to anyone, for any reason, ever, no matter what. No matter ... where. Or who, or who you are with, or where you are going, or ... or where you've been ... ever. For any reason, whatsoever. — Michael Scott

I will live by the standard of reason, and if thinking in accordance with reason takes me to perdition, then I will go to hell with my reason rather than to heaven without it. — Robert Green Ingersoll

But most important, I see me . . . or rather, the me I've become. Because I can finally see that all the terrible parts of my life, the embarrassing parts, the incidents I wanted to pretend never happened, and the things that make me "weird" and "different," were actually the most important parts of my life. They were the parts that made me me. And this was the very reason I decided to tell this story . . . to celebrate the strange, to give thanks for the bizarre, and to one day help my daughter understand that the reason her mother appeared mostly naked on Fox News (that's in book two, sorry) is probably the same reason her grandfather occasionally brings his pet donkey into bars: Because you are defined not by life's imperfect moments, but by your reaction to them. Because there is joy in embracing - rather than running screaming from - the utter absurdity of life. And because it's illegal to leave an unattended donkey in your car, even if you do live in Texas. — Anonymous

I had reclusive tendencies for a reason, I couldn't be trusted to live in the world and make decisions on my own. — Penny Reid

I sometimes stare into fire or into the night sky alone and wish for a girl or my situation to be different. I also then think why would god who created the beautiful Earth let Humans suffer and act the way they do. But I then realize that god has left you and everyone else a long time ago. This is the reason why I do not live my life for him. Because in the end, the only god who is always guaranteed to call for you by name, is Death. — J.D. Taylor