Short Life Wise Quotes & Sayings

Alexander the Great once said that 'I would rather live a short life of glory than a long one of obscurity!' What a great illusion is this! Wise man is he who always chooses to live longer and he who blesses the obscurity! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

We are all, in the private kingdom of our hearts, desperate for the company of a wise, true friend. Someone who isn't embarrassed by our emotions, or her own, who recognizes that life is short and all that we have to offer, in the end, is love. — Steve Almond

Life is so short that it is not wise to take roundabout ways, nor can we spend much time in waiting ... We have not got half-way to dawn yet. — Henry David Thoreau

What is our experience, but the reflected truth of our misapprehensions and short-falls? And also the grace of our beauty and strength, and the wise choices that make up our character? — Janny Wurts

Foolish wise folk sneer at you; foolish wise folk would pull up the useless lilies, the needless roses, from the garden, would plant in their places only serviceable wholesome cabbage. But the Gardener knowing better, plants the silly short-lived flowers; foolish wise folk, asking for what purpose. — Jerome K. Jerome

Wisdom, in short, whose lessons have been represented as so hard to learn by those who never were at her school, only teaches us to extend a simple maxim universally known and followed even in the lowest life, a little farther than that life carries it. And this is, not to buy at too dear a price. Now, whoever takes this maxim abroad with him into the grand market of the world, and constantly applies it to honours, to riches, to pleasures, and to every other commodity which that market affords, is, I will venture to affirm, a wise man. — Henry Fielding

To be idle is a short road to death and to be diligent is a way of life; foolish people are idle, wise people are diligent. — Buddha

I create beautiful art, so I can look back on the life my body fell short of in such a way that it brings me peace. — Nikki Rowe

Life is short - while we speak it flies; enjoy, then, the present, and forget the future; such is the moral of ancient poetry, a graceful and a wise moral - indulged beneath a southern sky, and all deserving, the phrase applied to it - the philosophy of the garden. — Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

If you study Japanese art you see a man who is undoubtedly wise, philosophic and intelligent, who spends his time how? In studying the distance between the earth and the moon? No. In studying the policy of Bismarck? No. He studies a single blade of grass. But this blade of grass leads him to draw every plant and then the seasons, the wide aspects of the countryside, then animals, then the human figure. So he passes his life, and life is too short to do the whole. — Vincent Van Gogh

God receives none but those who are forsaken, restores health to none but those who are sick, gives sight to none but the blind, and life to none but the dead. He does not give saintliness to any but sinners, nor wisdom to any but fools. In short: He has mercy on none but the wretched and gives grace to none but those who are in disgrace. Therefore no arrogant saint, or just or wise man can be material for God, neither can he do the work of God, but he remains confined within his own work and makes of himself a fictitious, ostensible, false, and deceitful saint, that is, a hypocrite — Martin Luther

I endeavor to drink deep of philosophy, and to be wise when I cannot be merry, easy when I cannot be glad, content with what cannot be mended, and patient where there is no redress. The mighty can do no more, and the wise seldom do as much ... I am resolved to make the best of all circumstances around me, that this short life may not be half lost in pains ... Between the periods of birth and burial, I would fain insert a little happiness, a little pleasure, a little peace: to-day is ours, yesterday is past, and to-morrow may never come. — Elizabeth Montagu

All at once, because life's too short and it's always like magic when you find a good thing. All at once, because I'm much too wise to not know that lightning can't really hit the same spot twice when it comes. All at once because right now, surrendering to irrationality seems to be the only thing that makes sense. — Nessie Q.

We need books, and Cheryl's books in particular, because we are all, in the private kingdom of our hearts, desperate for the company of a wise, true friend. Someone who isn't embarrassed by our emotions, or her own, who recognizes that life is short and that all we have to offer, in the end, is love. Radical — Cheryl Strayed

Read a short story every day. By the end of the week you would have read volumes of stories. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Don't speak thoughtlessly.
Don't worry unnecessarily.
Don't work half-heartedly.
Don't spend recklessly.
Don't give begrudgingly.
Don't act self-centeredly.
Don't live short-sightedly. — Matshona Dhliwayo

Life is too short to listen to fools, and too important to ignore the wise. — Matshona Dhliwayo