Thinking Through Life Quotes & Sayings

Deep within the individual is a vast reservoir of untapped power awaiting to be used. no person can have the use of all this potential until he learns to know his or her own self. the trouble with many people is that they got through life thinking and writing themselves off as ordinary commonplace persons. having no proper belief in themselves they live aimless and erratic lives largely because they never realize what their lives really can be or what they can become — Norman Vincent Peale

I'm really not one to brag, but I think my job is one of the most important things someone can do with their life. I mean, it really gives people a chance to live outside their means through someone else's vision. And I think that's something really great that I can give back to the community. Sure I could be a doctor or a lawyer, but do they really help anyone? Sure you can save someone's life, but can you really change it for the better? I'm not saying their jobs aren't important, just not as important as mine. — Zach Braff

But you don't really think wearing a low-cut top to the boys' party will solve all your problems, do you?" she asked.
"Of course not. I think wearing a low-cut top to the boys' part will show Sean I'm ready for him."
"Lori, no girl is ever ready for a boy like Sean. How were finals?" Clearly she wanted to change the subject to impress upon me that boys were not all there was to a teenage girl's life. As if.
"Finals?" I asked.
"Yes, finals. To graduate from the tenth grade? You took them yesterday."
Wow, it was hard to believe I'd played hopscotch with the quadratic equation only twenty-seven hours ago. Thinking back, it seemed like I'd sleepwalked through the past nine months of school, compared with everything that had happened today.
Time flew when you were having Sean. — Jennifer Echols

Dead Butterflies
I sometimes think about the fragility of glass - of broken shards tearing against soft skin.When in truth, it is the transparency that kills you. The pain of seeing through to something you can never quite touch. For years I've kept you in secret, behind a glass screen. I've watched helplessly as day after day, your new girlfriend becomes your wife and then later, the mother of your children. Then realizing their only in thinking you were the one under glass when in fact it has been me - a pinned butterfly static and unmoving, watching while your other life unfolds. — Lang Leav

He was thinking of the endless array of symbols with which God, through His creatures, speaks to us of the eternal life. But the universe is even more talkative than Alanus thought, and it speaks not only of the ultimate things (which it does always in an obscure fashion) but also of closer things, and then it speaks quite clearly. — Umberto Eco

why has almost everyone done the calendar thing, but almost no one has moved everything else in their life into a similar zone, by capturing it all and creating the habit of assessing it all appropriately? Three reasons: First, the data that is entered onto a calendar has already been thought through and determined; it's been translated down to the physical action level. You agreed to call Jim at noon on Monday: there is no more thinking required about what the appropriate action is, or where and when you're going to do it. Second, you know where those kinds of actions need to be parked (calendar), and it's a familiar and available tool. — David Allen

But here's the biggest head-scratcher of all: Not only are atheists destroying our country, they're completely deluding themselves. There's simply no way to prove that there is no God. If I didn't hate them so much, I'd feel bad for these folks. Imagine going through life completely duped into thinking that there's no invisible, omniscient higher power guiding every action on Earth. It's just so arbitrary! Can't they see? — Stephen Colbert

You should not try to live without thinking and feeling, for then you are only a piece of machinery, not a human being. Even if it hurts. Even if the thing you have to think of are sad, think them through; live them through and write or tell me. Only when we completely work through our thinking and feeling do we live a full life. ~From a letter to Diet Eman from Hein Sietsma — Diet Eman

A warrior of light knows that certain moments are repeated.
You often see the same problems and situations that had already been faced; then he gets depressed, thinking that it is unable to progress in life, as hard times return.
"I went through this!" He complains to his heart.
"Really you're past it - the heart responds - but never surpassed it.".
The warrior then understands that repeated experiences have a single purpose: to teach you what you do not want to learn. — Paulo Coelho

I think we're fascinated by gangsters and that whole lifestyle and crossing the line. We get sort of stuck in our normal lives, if you will, and you want to be bigger than life and I think people somehow live through these sorts of characters. — Denzel Washington

Life a life of Spiritual Adventure. Much like a wild goose the Spirit of God cannot be tracked or tamed. An element of danger, an air of unpredictability surround Him. And while the name may sound a little sacrilegious, I cannot think of a better description of what it's like to pursue the Spirit's leading through life. — Mark Batterson

I actually grew fond of her in a nastily superior kind of way. For she was so completely artless and optimistic and clueless, she didn't care that she smelled bad or was fat or wore clothes unlike everyone else's, she had some weird disconnect with life that kept her constantly bubbling, and you knew she would go blithely through her long horribly boring life thinking every thing was just swell (the opposite of me). — Peter Cameron

I think that comedy is a good defense for a child. Because you know childhood is a nightmare as it is. And so why not use comedy and being funny as a defense to get through your life as opposed to drugs, alcohol and good looks? Because those things are dangerous when your young. — Joy Behar

The joke was thinking you were ever really in charge of your life. You pressed your oar down into the water to direct the canoe, but it was the current that shot you through the rapids. You just hung on and hoped not to hit a rock or a whirlpool. — Scott Turow

Perhaps I've been rushing my whole entire life, jumping into things headfirst without thinking them through. Running through the days without noticing the minutes. — Cecelia Ahern

Every film I have made has corresponded to a very special moment of my life. I like to think that if someone wanted to reconstruct the story of my life, they can just see my movies and know what I have been through. — Bernardo Bertolucci

I think most Coloradans would agree that our state is the most beautiful in the nation, and the water flowing through our borders is its life blood. — Wayne Allard

No one goes through life thinking that they're the best friend of the lead character. — Laura Carmichael

There was our old life, in the apartment, in which we had time to finish most of the tasks we started and took long showers and remembered to water our plants. And there was our new life, in the hospital a mile away, in which Shauna needed morphine and two babies needed to eat every three hours around the clock ... I remember thinking, we're going to have to figure out how to combine our old life with our new life ... Over a year later, we still have days of mind-crushing fatigue, midnights when I think I'm pouring milk into a bottle but am actually pouring it all over the counter. Yesterday I spent five minutes trying to remember my parents' zip code. But now there are mornings like this one, when we wake up and realize we've slept through the entire night, and we stroll through the gardens as if we are normal again, as if we are finally learning the syllables of this strange, new language. — Anthony Doerr

When something that occupies a giant space in your life comes to an end, then you have to go through a mourning period. I loved 'The Shield.' It was one of the hardest and one of the greatest experiences of my life. But having said that, I'm always thinking about what's next. — Michael Chiklis

fellow laborer in the gospel of Christ . . . ." 1 Thessalonians 3:2 After sanctification, it is difficult to state what your purpose in life is, because God has moved you into His purpose through the Holy Spirit. He is using you now for His purposes throughout the world as He used His Son for the purpose of our salvation. If you seek great things for yourself, thinking, "God has called me for this and for that," you barricade God from using you. — Oswald Chambers

Resource-poor schools in low-income neighborhoods often leave children with subpar language and critical-thinking skills. Those deficits will remain even if those children relocate to safe and prosperous neighborhoods later in life. To think of those school-conditioned speech patterns and belief systems as evidence of a "culture of poverty," the invention of poor families themselves, is to overlook the influence of broken cultural institutions through which low-income families pass. We — Matthew Desmond

I'm convinced that this anxiety running through my life is the tension between what I "should be" and what i am. My anxiety doesn't come from thinking about the future but from wanting to control it. It seems to begin whenever I smuggle into my mind an expectation about how I or others should be. It is the tension between my desire to control the world and the recognition that I can't. "I will be what I will be" - where is the anxiety in that ? Anxiety is the recognition that I might not reach the rung on the opinion ladder I have just set for my self. I fear death most when I am about to exceed what I believe others think of me; then death threatens to cut me off from myself, because "myself" is not yet. — Hugh Prather

I have sort of a Zen body philosophy, I'm sort of like: we're one weight one day, we're one weight another day, and some day our body just doesn't even exist at all! It's just a vessel I've been given to move through this life. I think about my body as a tool to do the stuff I need to do, but not the be all and end all of my existence. Which sounds like I spent a week at a meditation retreat, but it's genuinely how I feel. — Lena Dunham

As I started to pursue the subject more deeply I realized that walking was this wonderful meandering path through everything I was already interested in - gender politics, public space and urban life, demonstrations and parades and marches. The relationship between walking and thinking and between the mind and the body. — Rebecca Solnit

The same view you look at every day, the same life, can become something brand new by focusing on its gifts rather than the negative aspects. Perspective is your own choice and the best way to shift that perspective is through gratitude, by acknowledging and appreciating the positives. — Bronnie Ware

I say all the time that if you really want to feel alive, it's not through striving for yourself. If you really want to feel alive, it's not through trying to get more things or get more success or climbing a corporate ladder or getting to the top. Because, once you get there, you realize that you don't really find happiness in that. If you want to feel alive and if you want to feel peace and happiness, give your life away. Do something that is outside of yourself for someone else. I think that's the way to truly feel alive. — Natalie Grant

Love is the river of life in this world. Think not that ye know it who stand at the little tinkling rill, the first small fountain. Not until you have gone through the rocky gorges, and not lost the stream; not until you nave gone through the meadow, and the stream has widened and deepened until fleets could ride on its bosom; not until beyond the meadow you have come to the unfathomable ocean, and poured your treasures into its depths
not until then can you know what love is. — Henry Ward Beecher

It is the first day because it has never been before and the last day because it will never be again. Be alive, if you can, all through this day - today - of your life. What's to be done? What's to be done? Follow your feet. Put on the coffee. Start the orange juice, the bacon, the toast. Then go wake up your children and your spouse. Think about the work of your hands. Live in the needs of the day. — Frederick Buechner

We ride through life on the beast within us. Beat the animal, but you can't make it think. — Luigi Pirandello

This and other experiments prove that the brain makes its own decisions on a subconscious level, and people only later feel that "they" have performed a conscious decision. It means that we go through life thinking that, unlike the blessedly autonomous operations of the heart and kidneys, a lever-pulling "me" is in charge of the brain's workings. Libet concluded that the sense of personal free will arises solely from a habitual retrospective perspective of the ongoing flow of brain events. — Robert Lanza

I feel like humor is a part of life. I don't think it comes through as much in the novels as it does in my head. — Stephenie Meyer

The name Kyirong means "the village of happiness," and it really deserves the name. I shall never cease thinking of this place with yearning, and if I can choose where to pass the evening of my life, it will be in Kyirong. There I would build myself a house of red cedar wood and have one of the rushing mountain streams running through my garden, in which every kind of fruit would grow, for though its altitude is over 9,000 feet, Kyirong lies on the twenty-eighth parallel. When we arrived in January the temperature was just below freezing it seldom falls below -10 degrees Centigrade. The seasons correspond to the Alps, but the vegetation is subtropical. Once can go skiing the whole year round, and in the summer there is a row of 20,000-footers to climb. — Heinrich Harrer

I have always gone through public life and saying that with respect to political candidates, I always measure each candidate against what I think the country needs at that time, and I will vote for the person I think who is most qualified to serve the nation at that time. — Colin Powell

Most men think in a straight line,' he said, barely audible over the town's noise and the wind. 'They see only their own actions, like a single thread in the Norns' loom, knotted only when they thrust their life on others. They see through one set of eyes, hear through one set of ears, all their life.' He stared at me. 'To look at things through someone else's eyes is a rare thing, which cannot be learned. To those with the gift, it is not hard, nor complicated. But, to survive and be more than any others, it is essential. You have that gift, I am thinking.' I — Robert Low

Of course it may be argued that this is a fairly bleak view of life. It means, for instance, that we can stand in a room full of dear friends, knowing that nine-tenths of them, if the pack demands it, will become your enemies-will, as it were, throw stones through your window. It means that if you are a member of a close-knit community, you know you differ from this community's ideas at the risk of being seen as a no-goodnik, a criminal, an evil-doer. This is an absolutely automatic process; nearly everyone in such situations behaves automatically.
But there is always the minority who do not, and it seems to me that our future, the future of everybody depends on this minority. And that we should be thinking of ways to educate our children to strengthen this minority and not, as we mostly do now, to revere the pack. — Doris Lessing

[What's exciting is] the actual process of broadening yourself, of knowing there's now a little extra facet of the universe you know about and can think about and can understand. It seems to me that when it's time to die, there would be a certain pleasure in thinking that you had utilized your life well, learned as much as you could, gathered in as much as possible of the universe, and enjoyed it. There's only this one universe and only this one lifetime to try to grasp it. And while it is inconceivable that anyone can grasp more than a tiny portion of it, at least you can do that much. What a tragedy just to pass through and get nothing out of it. — Isaac Asimov

You can go through your whole life telling yourself that life is logical, life is prosaic, life is sane. Above all sane. And I think it is. I've had a lot of time to think about that. And what I keep coming back to is [her] dying declaration: 'So you understand that when we increase the number of variables, the axioms themselves never change.' — Stephen King

As a Freudian, I'm not supposed to use words like evil; my business is with instinct, memory, and desire. Nevertheless, I've been wondering, lately, whether evil might exist. If it does, I've been thinking, it might be like what Freud called the navel of the dream, the place where all the lines of meaning the analyst has so carefully traced through the patient's life vanish into the unknown. But where the navel of the dream is essentially harmless phenomenon, a point where the dream's meaning is sufficiently understood, and further interpretation would be pointless, evil is a mystery with power. It reaches up into the world and makes everything mysterious. — Paul La Farge

We must face the No. 1 critical issue of our day. It is youth crime in general and black-on-black crime in particular. There is nothing more painful to me at this stage in my life than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start thinking about robbery. Then look around and see somebody white and feel relieved. After all we have been through, just to think we can't walk down our own streets, how humiliating. — Jesse Jackson

I can remember watching large, tentative, individual flakes of snow falling and blowing around aimlessly in the wind generated by the train through the window of the CTA commuter line from Lincoln Park back up to Libertyville, and thinking, 'This is my crude approximation of a human life. — David Foster Wallace

Thinking about such a situation, one becomes aware of the human lack of detachment; our inexperience and immaturity in the complex problems of the human condition. But it should not be so. We have the 'breathing spaces' when we can take a detached point of view. If it was of life-or-death importance that we learned by these moments of insight, men would quickly become something closer to being godlike. But most of us can drift through life without making any great moral decisions. And so the human race has shown no advance in wisdom in three thousand years. — Colin Wilson

I've gone through most of my life not believing anything. Either I know or I don't know, or I think. — John Trudell

Apart from hypocrites, there are two categories of the deceived in the church: the superficial and the involved. The superficial are the ones who call themselves Christians because, when they were little, they went to church or Sunday school, they got confirmed, or they "made a decision" for Christ. You may have heard someone, when he is getting baptized, say, "I received Christ when I was twelve, but my life was a mess after that, and now I want to get back to the faith." The truth probably is that he never received Christ at all when he was twelve. He went through some superficial religious activity and was deceived into thinking he was saved as a result. The involved who are deceived are a much more subtle and serious group. They're immersed in the activities of the church, up to their necks. They know the gospel and biblical theology, but they don't obey the Word of God. — John F. MacArthur Jr.

I really got consumed with the idea of how people who are deemed crazy or insane often have a firmer grasp on reality than normal people. The average person goes through life thinking it will go on forever. — Youth Lagoon

There's blood pounding through the Duke's head.
Knighthood is glory, he's thinking, not just grace in the saddle and at swordplay, but courage enough to give your life to defend what you hold dear. A noble reward, for noble men. A badge of honour.
He'd never ennoble a merchant. Even Chaucer, whom he admires, but knows to be a fool on a battlefield. Not Chaucer's fault, that; just his merchant blood.
Knighthood's not for the likes of these people; for Madame Perrers' brood. He thought she knew her place. But she's overreached herself; she's as grasping as the rest of them, after all. Do these people think they can buy or steal everything? — Vanora Bennett

It's funny, isn't it?" you started quietly. "How you look up there and find a city, and I look at London and see a landscape?"

I frowned, glancing back at you. "What do you mean 'landscape'?"

"Just everything underneath, I guess." You rubbed your fingers against your beard, thinking. "All that earth and life, always just under the concrete, ready to push back through the pavement and take over the city at any time. All that life beneath the dead."

"London's more than just a pile of concrete," I said.

"Maybe." Your eyes glinted in the dark. "But without humans, the wild would take over. It would only need a hundred years or so for nature to win again. We're just temporary, really. — Lucy Christopher

You can walk through life believing in the goodness of the world, or walk through life afraid of anyone who thinks different than you and trying to convert them to your way of thinking. — Rosie O'Donnell

These days, I've been trying to classify my thoughts into two categories: "Things I can change," and "Things I can't." It seems to help me sort through what to really stress about. But there I go again, over-planning and over-organizing my over-thinking! I write songs about my adventures and misadventures, most of which concern love. Love is a tricky business. But if it wasn't, I wouldn't be so enthralled with it. Lately I've come to a wonderful realization that makes me even more fascinated by it: I have no idea what I'm doing when it comes to love. No one does! There's no pattern to it, except that it happens to all of us, of course. I can't plan for it. I can't predict how it'll end up. Because love is unpredictable and it's frustrating and it's tragic and it's beautiful. And even though there's no way to feel like I'm an expert at it, it's worth writing songs about
more than anything else I've ever experienced in my life. — Taylor Swift

All prevailing philosophies embody the fiction that human life can be altered at will. Better aim for the impossible, they say, than submit to fate. Invariably, the result is a cult of human self-assertion that soon ends in farce. The line of thinking that is traced in this book runs in an opposite direction - not only in questioning the idea of progress but also, and more fundamentally, in rejecting the idea that it is only through action that life can be meaningful. Politics is only a small part of human existence, and the human animal only a very small part of the world. Science and technology have given us powers we never had before, but not the ability to refashion our existence as we wish. Poetry and religion are more realistic guides to life. — John N. Gray

This conversation revealed to Odo a third conception of the religious idea. In Piedmont religion imposed itself as a military discipline, the enforced duty of the Christian citizen to the heavenly state; to the Duke it was a means of purchasing spiritual immunity from the consequences of bodily weakness; to the Bishop, it replaced the panem et circenses of ancient Rome. Where, in all this, was the share of those whom Christ had come to save? Where was Saint Francis's devotion to his heavenly bride, the Lady Poverty? Though here and there a good parish priest like Crescenti ministered to the temporal wants of the peasantry, it was only the free-thinker and the atheist who, at the risk of life and fortune, laboured for their moral liberation. Odo listened with a saddened heart, thinking, as he followed his host through the perfumed shade of the gardens, and down — Edith Wharton

I get a lot of parents coming up to me, telling me they are grooming their kids to be professional athletes. I'm really against that. I think it's a great life, and yeah, you can lead them in that direction. I think a lot of parents live their lives through the kids. Because they didn't make it, they want their kids to make it. It puts a lot of undue pressure on the kids. — Wayne Gretzky

We are life. We are the result of life's power, and we are the channels through which that power courses. We want truth, but we reach for more knowledge instead - and then we must defend what we believe. Knowledge makes a small impression on the world compared to the power of truth - even when it serves life, elevating awareness and creating dreams of impeccability. How can knowledge serve better? How can we stop it from doing harm and creating conflict? First, we can see knowledge for what it is - all the agreements we make about reality - and get some perspective. Then we can listen to ourselves. We can modify both our thinking and our emotional attachment to thought. We can win the war in our heads, one that has gone on long enough. We can nurture a belief in ourselves and drift away from the crowd. — Miguel Ruiz

Then, what's the matter?' I wonder, in fact, how many times I have said that or something equal to it to a woman passing palely through my life. What're you thinking? What's made you so quiet? You seem suddenly different. What's the matter? Love me is what this means, of course. Or at least, second best: surrender. Or at the very least, take some time regaling me with why you won't, and maybe by the end you will. — Richard Ford

I started to see human beings as little lonesome, water based, pink meat, life forms pushing air through themselves and making noises that the other little pieces of meat seemed to understand. I was thinking to myself, 'There's five billion people here but we've never been more isolated.' The only result of the aggressive individualism we pursue is that you lose sight of your compassion and we go to bed at night thinking, 'Is this all there is?' because we don't feel fulfilled. — Devin Townsend

I think on a day-to-day basis, what attracts us in coexisting with another living, evolving thing, is that you have a relationship that's different than with a piece of furniture. We experience the cycle of life through these other beings. — Susan Orlean

We have been conditioned since birth with the belief that satisfaction of these inner needs comes through our interaction with the world. We seek inner fulfillment through what we have or what we do, through the experiences the world provides, and through the ways others behave toward us. This is the meme that governs so much of our thinking and behavior: the meme that says whether or not we are content with life depends on what we have and what we do. Prevalent as this meme may be, it seldom provides any lasting satisfaction. A person may gather a great deal of wealth, but is he really more secure? More than likely, he will soon find new sources of insecurity. Are my investments safe? Will the stock market crash? Can I trust my friends? Should I employ "security" companies to protect my possessions? — Peter Russell

Fifty minutes, huh?" he muttered.
"Too long?" she managed with a teasing smile, knowing she longer had the strength to turn him away. She wanted Dalton to make love to her again. Needed him to.
He arched a brow. "You questioning my stamina?"
Laughing softly, she reached for his shirt, pulling him to her. "Not on your life. I know better. I was just thinking that for a man who spent years perfecting the eight second ride, fifty minutes might be quite a stretch."
Threading his fingers through her hair, he looked down at her. "The stretching part is no longer in question. Hell, much longer and it's gonna take a crow bar to get me out of these jeans."
"Then what are you waiting for? — Lindsey Brookes

As a child, I once suffered a bad fall that resulted in scratched palms and scraped knees. I remember how badly it stung, the cold air hitting my bleeding wounds; I felt that I couldn't stand up for the pain. Through a veil of tears, I recall a kind hand reaching for me and helping me to my feet. My knees and palms were washed clean, and I remember thinking that for the rest of my life, I wanted to help people stand back up. — Richelle E. Goodrich

Toward the end of his second decade in the airport, Clark was thinking about how lucky he'd been. Not just the mere fact of survival, which was of course remarkable in and of itself, but to have seen one world end and another begin. And not just to have seen the remembered splendors of the former world, the space shuttles and the electrical grid and the amplified guitars, the computers that could be held in the palm of a hand and the high-speed trains between cities, but to have lived among those wonders for so long. To have dwelt in that spectacular world for fifty-one years of his life. Sometimes he lay awake in Concourse B of the Severn City Airport and thought, "I was there," and the thought pierced him through with an admixture of sadness and exhilaration. — Emily St. John Mandel

A newly born genre never supplants or replaces any already existing genres. Each new genre merely supplements the old ones, merely widens the circle of already existing genres. For every genre has its own predominant sphere of existence, in which it is irreplaceable. Thus the appearance of the polyphonic novel does not nullify or in any way restrict the further productive development of monologic forms of the novel (biographical, historical, the novel of everyday life, the novel-epic, etc.), for there will always continue to exist and expand those spheres of existence, of man and nature, which require precisely objectified and finalizing, that is monological, forms of artistic cognition. But again we repeat: the thinking human consciousness and the dialogic sphere in which this consciousness exists, in all its depth and specificity, cannot be reached through a monologic artistic approach. — Mikhail Bakhtin

Everybody goes through divorces. There's millions of people that have drinking problems. There's people that their weight goes up and down, just like mine. It's just life. And I think people relate to that. I really do. — John Daly

He wondered if he was going to go through each year of his life thinking about how stupid he'd been the year before. — Maggie Stiefvater

We are all too much inclined, I think, to walk through life with our eyes shut. There are things all round us and right at our very feet that we have never seen, because we have never really looked. — Alexander Graham Bell

What I am thinking and doing day by day is resistlessly shaping my future - a future in which there is no expiation except through my own better conduct. No one can save. No one can live my life for me. If I am wise I shall begin today to build my own truer and better world from within. — Horatio Dresser

Who gets to celebrate this cosmic view of life? Not the migrant farmworker. Not the sweatshop worker. Certainly not the homeless person rummaging through the trash for food. You need the luxury of time not spent on mere survival. You need to
live in a nation whose government values the search to understand humanity's place in the universe. You need a society in which intellectual pursuit can take you to the frontiers of discovery, and in which news of your discoveries can be routinely disseminated. — Neil DeGrasse Tyson

Always think and always dream. Wonder what's around the next corner for yourself, and don't be afraid to go there, but most of all Love. Loving yourself and the people around you is the easiest path through life. It will bring you around that corner, and places you've never been. — Ron Baratono

Quote from my book DIVINE INTERRUPTIONS: A BIBLE STUDY THROUGH THE BOOK OF JOB. Available on Amazon.

"LIFE lessons are so challenging!
God never promised us an easy life, but it's not all darkness and suffering. We have a choice to see things with a positive mind set. Recognizing the negativity in our thinking is the first step toward a perspective transformation. This is a big step in the healing process, and usually produces Christian growth and greater spiritual maturity. — Cheryl Zelenka

To feel admiration for a man all through one's married life would, I think, be excessively tedious. — Agatha Christie

With the birth of Akash, in his sudden, perfect presence, Ruma had felt awe for the first time in her life. He still had the power to stagger her at times
simply the fact that he was breathing, that all his organs were in their proper places, that blood flowed quietly and effectively through his small, sturdy limbs. He was her flesh and blood, her mother had told her in the hospital the day Akash was born. Only the words her mother used were more literal, enriching the tired phrase with meaning: "He is made from your meat and bone." It had caused Ruma to acknowledge the supernatural in everyday life. But death, too, had the power to awe, she knew this now-that a human being could be alive for years and years, thinking and breathing and eating, full of a million worries and feelings and thoughts, taking up space in the world, and then, in an instant, become absent, invisible. — Jhumpa Lahiri

Everyone is always going through tough things, the irony in it is that everyone thinks what they're going through is just as hard as what you are. Life isn't about surviving this, it's about understanding this. — Nicholas Sparks

Most people go through life thinking God never speaks to them when in fact He's always speaking. To everyone. Always directing. Sometimes warning. Sometimes affirming. But we hear so little of what He says because our consciousness of His voice is obscured by our mental static. — Steven Furtick

We respect your learning, Dr Einstein; but there is one thing you do not seem to have learned: that God is a spirit and cannot be found through the telescope or microscope, no more than human thought or emotion can be found by analyzing the brain. As everyone knows, religion is based on Faith, not knowledge. Every thinking person, perhaps, is assailed at times with religious doubt. My own faith has wavered many a time. But I never told anyone of my spiritual aberrations for two reasons: (1) I feared that I might, by mere suggestion, disturb and damage the life and hopes of some fellow being; (2) because I agree with the writer who said, 'There is a mean streak in anyone who will destroy another's faith.' . . . I hope, Dr Einstein, that you were misquoted and that you will yet say something more pleasing to the vast number of the American people who delight to do you honor. — Richard Dawkins

The word 'confession,' to me, means needing to be absolved. I'm not asking for forgiveness. I'm not asking people to understand. I'd like to think that I tell stories and sometimes my life weaves through it. — Tori Amos

Even through my good-looking youth, I wasn't called on for any romantic parts, which is okay. What I was called on to do, I enjoyed doing. The funny thing about life is that if you live long enough, I think, you'll get every wish you ever had. It'll all come true. — Morgan Freeman

His personal fulfillment did not lead him to evolve a cheerful Madonna; on the contrary this Madonna was sad; she had already, through his sculptures, known the Descent. The tranquility of his early bas-relief, when Mary still had her decision to make, could never be recaptured. This young mother was committed; she knew the end of her boy's life. That was why she was reluctant to let him go, this beautiful, husky,healthy boy, his hand clasped for protection in hers. That
was why she sheltered him with the side of her cloak.
The child, sensitive to his mother's mood, had a touch of melancholy about the eyes. He was strong, he had courage, he would step forth from the safe harbor of his mother's lap, but just now he gripped her hand with the fingers of one hand, and with the
other held securely to her side. Or was it his own mother he was thinking about, sad because she must leave her son alone in the world? Himself, who clung to her? — Irving Stone

You can graciously live through every struggle. — Lailah Gifty Akita

There is strength in every struggle. Struggles create opportunities for you to become stronger, wiser and better. The moment you shift your thinking from "I cannot" to "I must," you will begin to see 'Beyond the Pain' and draw strength from within. Learn to see each obstacle as a stepping stone and watch your life change significantly. — Kemi Sogunle

I'm moving - as a person and as a writer - through time. I'm a different age. I'm thinking about different things. I have different life experiences. I'm trying to get closer to being honest. And by closer I mean that at different ages I have different ideas of what the truth is, and at any point I'm trying to express that at that moment in time. — Charlie Kaufman

You can start over again! Don't even think about quitting now! It is easy to replay in your mind how things did not work, how much you lost, what you are going through, how angry you are. There is no amount of conversation or magic that is going to wipe the slate clean. You are wasting valuable time and energy that could be used to regain a new normal and start another version of your life. Even though you are hurt and you may be feeling down - stop kicking yourself! Face what has happened. Make the decision to start over again. — Les Brown

The Metallica film was like this incredible life experience where I learned the most through guys that stereotypically you would think couldn't offer much to you. That's what I love about the film: It explodes your stereotype of them - they're not just a bunch of lugheads banging on the guitar. — Joe Berlinger

All of us necessarily hold many casual opinions that are ludicrously wrong simply because life is far too short for us to think through even a small fraction of the topics that we come across. — Julian Simon

I remember one time that I was filming a scene in whych my character rides through Troy on a chariot. I just looked around at this incredible set thinking 'This is the life'. — Orlando Bloom

And then you grew up, went to school, and began to 'philosophize,' didn't you? We all go through the same thing. It seems that during adolescence a person's inner life is suddenly weakened, stripped of its natural courage. In his thinking he no longer dares stand face to face with reality or mystery; he begins to see them through the opinions of 'grown-ups,' through books and courses and professors. Still, a voice remains which is not completely muffled and which cries out every so often - every time its gag is loosened by an unexpected jolt in the routine. The voice cries out its great questioning of everything, but we stifle it again right away. — Rene Daumal

Life's rewards as well as it's short-comings are magnetic reflections of the vivacious energies we release through our thoughts, our actions, and our words. — Netiera Danise

When you take something that's inert, and through motion, give it life, make it appear to be alive, living, breathing thinking and having emotions, that's animation. But when you take something that's live-action, and move a part of it, that's a special effect. — John Lasseter

Sometimes you just need to talk to someone who is detached from you. They just listen to what you tell them and you get to form the way that they see you, whereas everyone else in your life already thinks they know what you're dealing with or what you're going through. That's my recommendation for actual anxiety. — Veronica Roth

We're a young species; We're only 175,000 years old. On the evolutionary scale, life on this planet is 4 billion years old. We're 175,000 years old. So we're trying something out. Who wouldn't think it would be better to have the most stuff to take as much as you could? As we do that, we see why the moral prophets come along and say, don't even store into barns, right? It's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of the needle than a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. We've seen we plunder nature. We plunder our neighbor. We create enemies because we're against each other. — Tom Shadyac

I don't really have a life philosophy; my thing is just rebelling against pretty much organized religion. That is my main thing, because personally I think it's a crutch for people that are too weak to get through life on their own. I'm the kind of guy that says if I don't see it, then it doesn't work. And nobody can show me God. — Kerry King

We must have passed through life unobservantly, if we have never perceived that a man is very much himself what he thinks of others. — Frederick William Faber

Consider the bigger picture ... think things through and fully commit! — Epictetus

I think it's too late for prayin, hold up, a voice spoke to me and it slowly started sayin' 'Bring your lifestyle to me I'll make it better. I'll make your life better than you can imagine or even dreamed of.' I see demons. So relax your soul let me take control. You go down with the devil. Now roam through the depths of hell, where the rest your homeboys dwell. — Snoop Dogg

Someone once asked me how I hold my head up so high after all I have been through. I said it's because no matter what, I am a survivor NOT a victim. — Patricia Buckley

You become yourself, every single day of your life, through your choices and how you think. — Jenna Marbles

I don't think a married couple can go through life without laughs together any more than they can without tears. — Tennessee Williams

The fearsome blessing of that hard time continues to work itself out in my life in the same way we're told the universe is still hurtling through outer space under the impact of the great cosmic explosion ... I think grace sometimes explodes into our lives like that-sending our pain, terror, astonishment hurtling through inner space until by grace they become Orion, Cassiopeia, Polaris to give us our bearings, to bring us into something like full being at last. — Frederick Buechner

Obviously, when I learn about something new that I can do in my everyday life that makes a whole lot of sense and can help the environment, I do it. Eventually, it just becomes second nature. If we all begin to learn from one another and share some of the things we do, we just might be able to affect the world for the better through these little rituals. In a curious way, this would be a great wave of awareness: doing the right thing without being told to or having to think why. — Jennifer Aniston

Life is a gift, however long it lasts. It's God's to give and take away as He sees fit. We go through life thinking we're entitled to our ninety, but we're not entitled to anything. All we can do is trust that He knows what He's doing. That He has a plan for all of us, and that no pain He allows in our life will go unused. — Denise Hunter

I think through living one's life, one both changes and remains the same. One can see it either way, one can see oneself as being now what one was and one can see oneself as being absolutely different from what one was. It's a trick of thought. — Jasper Johns

I think life goes through a cycle of losing and refinding yourself all the time. Everyone has disappointments all the time, some of them pretty small, some of them pretty big. — Bruce Springsteen