What Do We Live For Quotes & Sayings

You wander through this city, and wonder if anything you do will make up for the horror that keeps the world turning. To live, you rip your own heart from your chest and hide it in a box somewhere, along with everything you ever learned about justice, compassion, mercy. You throw yourself into games to mark the time. And if you yearn for something different: what would you change? Would you bring back the blood, the dying cries, the sucking chest wounds? The constant war? So we're caught between two poles of hypocrisy. We sacrifice our right to think of ourselves as good people, our right to think our life is good, our city is just. And so we and our city both survive. — Max Gladstone

What do we do while we wait for my parents to find Jersey?" She let him go, took a step back.
"We live a normal life."
The words left his lips without emotion or meaning, because at this point he knew there was no such thing as a normal life for him.
Deep in his heart, he was still a vampire. — Kasi Blake

We searchers are ambitious only for life itself, for everything beautiful it can provide. Most of all we love and want to be loved. We want to live in a relationship that will not impede our wandering, nor prevent our search, nor lock us in prison walls; that will take us for what little we have to give. We do not want to prove ourselves to another or compete for love. — James Kavanaugh

The past doesn't exist. There is nothing to be sorry for. Today is when we start to live. Look ... look at the sea. The sea has no past. It is just there. It will never ask us to explain. The stars, the moon are there to light our way, to shine for us. What do they care what might have happened in the past? They are accompanying us, and are happy with that; can you see them shine? The stars are twinkling in the sky; would they do that if the past mattered? Wouldn't there be a huge storm if God wanted to punish us? We are alone, you and I, with no past, no memories, no guilt, nothing that can stand in the way of ... our love. — Ildefonso Falcones

Hey, there, Kizuki, I thought. Unlike you, I've chosen to live - and to live the best I know how. Sure, it was hard for you. What the hell, it's hard for me. Really hard. And all because you killed yourself and left Naoko behind. But that's something I will never do. I will never, ever, turn my back on her. First of all, because I love her, and because I'm stronger than she is. And I'm just going to keep on getting stronger. I'm going to mature. I'm going to be an adult. Because that's what I have to do. I always used to think I'd like to stay 17 or 18 if I could. But not any more. I'm not a teenager any more. I've got a sense of responsibility now. I' m not the same person I was when we used to hang out together. I'm 20 now. And I have to pay the price to go on living. — Haruki Murakami

We mustn't live like those with "little faith" who compromise for the sake of food and clothing. What we do matters. And not every job is a good job. — Voddie T. Baucham Jr.

Religions are moral exoskeletons. If you live in a religious community, you are enmeshed in a set of norms, relationships, and institutions that work primarily on the elephant to influence your behavior. But if you are an atheist living in a looser community with a less binding moral matrix, you might have to rely somewhat more on an internal moral compass, read by the rider. That might sound appealing to rationalists, but it is also a recipe for anomie - Durkheim's word for what happens to a society that no longer has a shared moral order.63 (It means, literally, "normlessness.") We evolved to live, trade, and trust within shared moral matrices. When societies lose their grip on individuals, allowing all to do as they please, the result is often a decrease in happiness and an increase in suicide, as Durkheim showed more than a hundred years ago. — Jonathan Haidt

If we're following our path, then worrying about what could or should happen is a worse illness than what could or should happen. And it's more likely we're going to be out of balance if we worry. The idea is that the future will take care of itself if we remain in the present. I really don't know what I'll do and I don't think about it that much. — Daniel Suelo

Nowhere can I think so happily as in a train. I am not inspired; nothing so uncomfortable as that. I am never seized with a sudden idea for a masterpiece, nor form a sudden plan for some new enterprise. My thoughts are just pleasantly reflective. I think of all the good deeds I have done, and (when these give out) of all the good deeds I am going to do. I look out of the window and say lazily to myself, "How jolly to live there"; and a little farther on, "How jolly not to live there." I see a cow, and I wonder what it is like to be a cow, and I wonder whether the cow wonders what it is to be like me; and perhaps, by this time, we have passed on to a sheep, and I wonder if it is more fun being a sheep. My mind wanders on in a way which would annoy Pelman a good deal, but it wanders on quite happily, and the "clankety-clank" of the train adds a very soothing accompaniment. So soothing, indeed, that at any moment I can close my eyes and pass into a pleasant state of sleep. — A.A. Milne

I also believe that government has no business telling us how we should live our lives. I think our lifestyle choices should be left up to us. What we do in our private lives is none of the government's business. That position rules out the Republican Party for me. — Jesse Ventura

...we can do some historical research to see how our ancestors lived. We will quickly discover that we are living in what to them would have been a dream world that we tend to take for granted things that our ancestors had to live without... — William B. Irvine

...And indeed it did take me a long time for me to find someone I wanted to marry. But I'm so glad I waited. What I know about Pete and me is that the flame will never go out. I do not look up from tossing the salad and think, Oh, God, how the hell did I ever get here? I do not look a the back of his head and think, I don't know you at all. I wake up with my pal, and go to sleep with my lover. He still thrills me, not only sexually but because of the way he regards the life that unfolds around him. I am interested in what he says about me and the children and our respective jobs, but I am also interested in what he says about the Middle East and the migratory patterns of monarchs and the amount of nutmeg that should be grated into the mashed potatoes and the impact that being a thwarted artist had on the life of Hitler. I believe he is a truly honest and awake and kind individual. If we live more than once, I want to find him again. — Elizabeth Berg

Why does a little girl lose her emotional equilibrium in a moment of parental discipline, or a megastar musician forget who she is because of one criticism? Or why, when a text message or the subject line of an e-mail says, "We need to talk" (or for us pastors, "About your sermon") are we struck with a sudden feeling of doom? Why do we spend hours in the gym or in front of the mirror or online meticulously editing our social media profiles? Why is the perfect "selfie" such a large part of how we present ourselves to the world? Why do we live in constant disequilibrium about what our real or imagined critics might say about us? — Scott Sauls

You gotta make a change. Its time for us as a people to start making some changes, lets change the way we eat, lets change the way we live, and lets change the way we treat each other. You see the old way wasn't working so its on us, to do what we gotta do to survive. — Tupac Shakur

What I am saying,' [Hiram Bell] said, 'is that we once had much, and we made what we could of it, but now it is passed. Do you mourn the passing of civilization? I do not. We do not live for civilization. We live to build our souls up to be good enough for God. More beer? — R.E. Klein

It's very important not to talk down to kids, and to give them something which they think is quite grown-up and hardcore. Kids themselves are very good at self-censoring. If they don't like something, if they think it's too strong for them, they'll simply stop reading. That's the thing about a book, you can't force someone to read it ... I think there's a lot in my books about friendship, leadership, about society and how it works, how we learn to live with each other and what skills do we need to make a viable society. Kids don't need to know any of that, they just want someone to be eaten again. — Charlie Higson

We may never understand all of life, but trusting that each event is as it should be is helpful. And all you can do. Stay strong in your vision of what you want for yourself and live with intention and action to become that. Everything will unfold naturally and easily. Now is all you have. It's all anyone has. The next moment is unpredictable and never promised to us in these bodies. — Camille Lucy

One of the rules that emerges from a consideration of the factors that promote self-sacrifice is that we are less ready to die for what we have or are than for what we wish to have and to be. It is a perplexing and unpleasant truth that when men already have "something worth fighting for," they do not feel like fighting. People who live full, worthwhile lives are not usually ready to die for their own interests nor for their country nor for a holy cause. — Eric Hoffer

It's strange when you think about it. There are hundreds and hundreds of murders in books and television. It would be hard for narrative fiction to survive without them. And yet there are almost none in real life, unless you happen to live in the wrong area. Why is it that we have such a need for murder mystery? And what is it that attracts us? The crime, or the solution? Do we have some primal need of bloodshed because our own lives are so safe, so comfortable? — Anthony Horowitz

I never understood the Prisoner's Dilemma until this day. Do you cooperate when you really do want the highest payoff? When it doesn't even seem fair for both of you to cooperate? When it seems right to defect even if the other player doesn't? That's the payoff matrix of the true Prisoner's Dilemma. But all the rest of the logic - everything about what happens if you both think that way, and both defect - is the same. Do we want to live in a universe of cooperation or defection? — Eliezer Yudkowsky

For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors, and laugh at them in our turn? — Jane Austen

People should know that Palestinians don't live for themselves alone. They live for each other. What I do for myself and my children, I also do for all my family. We are a community. — Izzeldin Abuelaish

Now he haunts me seldom: some fierce umbilical is broken,
I live with my own fragile hopes and sudden rising despair.
Now I do not weep for my sins; I have learned to love them
And to know that they are the wounds that make love real.
His face illudes me; his voice, with its pity, does not ring in my ear.
His maxims memorized in boyhood do not make fruitless and pointless my experience.
I walk alone, but not so terrified as when he held my hand.
I do not splash in the blood of his son
nor hear the crunch of nails or thorns piercing protesting flesh.
I am a boy again
I whose boyhood was turned to manhood in a brutal myth.
Now wine is only wine with drops that do not taste of blood.
The bread I eat has too much pride for transubstantiation,
I, too
and together the bread and I embrace,
Each grateful to be what we are, each loving from our own reality. — James Kavanaugh

Last Saturday night I was in a club on the South Side of Chicago listening to live rock music and talking to a guitar playing veteran of the music scene in the city. He looked and talked like the musicians that I recall from my childhood; he was a thin, cigarette smoking, avant garde and interesting guy. We got to talking about a life in the relatively risky creative arts and he said, "Look, you could get that safe job and spend your whole life that way, but what are you waiting for? When you're ninety-six years old and have three days left? Is that when you decide to do what you love? — Jamie Freveletti

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

You know what we pride ourselves on that - although I wouldn't mind if my backside was a little smaller. But look at the original divas ... take Aretha Franklin for example - I've seen her live in the States and she was mammoth, but she had that crowd under control and they doted on every movement she made! We're not little midgets but the music industry is not about that, it's about loving the music and respecting what you do. — Kate DeAraugo

You can overcome the things that are done to you, but you cannot escape the things that you have done.
Here is the truth: It matters, what you do at war. It matters more than you ever want to know. Because countries, like people, have collective consciences and memories and souls, and the violence we deliver in the name of our nation is pooled like sickly tar at the bottom of who we are. The soldiers who don't die for us come home again. They bring with them the killers they became on our national behalf, and sit with their polluted memories and broken emotions in our homes and schools and temples. We may wish it were not so, but action amounts to identity. We become what we do.You can tell yourself all the stories you want, but you can't leave your actions over there. You can't build a wall and expect to live on the other side of memory. All of the poison seeps back into our soil. — Megan K. Stack

At some point, our faith and our words must become our actions and lives. Do we talk more about God than we obey him? We aren't going to get to heaven and have God say, "Thanks for talking about doing so much for me with your friends. That was awesome!" Many of us have sat in Bible studies or retreats or church talking about what we want to change and how we want to live for God, only to go home and back to the routine of life. Change is a funny thing. It takes change to change. — Jennie Allen

It ends or it doesn't.
That's what you say. That's
how you get through it.
The tunnel, the night,
the pain, the love.
It ends or it doesn't.
If the sun never comes up,
you find a way to live
without it.
If they don't come back,
you sleep in the middle of the bed,
learn how to make enough coffee
for yourself alone.
Adapt. Adjust.
It ends or it doesn't.
It ends or it doesn't.
We do not perish. — Caitlyn Siehl

A balanced life isn't to do as we please, but to learn to do what is right. A person that is truly free in life doesn't try to balance the good and evil inside him. He fearlessly fights the war between his heart and mind, by choosing one path of standards to live by that will end suffering for himself and others. — Shannon L. Alder

For every man is a magnet, highly and singularly sensitized. Some draw to them fields and woods and hills, and are drawn in return; and some draw swift streets and the riches which are known to cities. It is not of importance what we draw, but that we really draw. And the greatest tragedy in life, as I see it, is that thousands of men and women never have the opportunity to draw with freedom; but they exist in weariness and labour, and are drawn upon like inanimate objects by those who live in unhappy idleness. They do not farm: they are farmed. But that is a question foreign to present considerations. We may be assured, if we draw freely, like the magnet of steel which gathers its iron filings about it in beautiful and symmetrical forms, that the things which we attract will also become symmetrical and harmonious with our lives. — Anonymous

We also have a new motivation to battle with sin: we're no longer under law, but under grace. This is counterintuitive. People think that law and legalism will best motivate us to strive to do what's right. But it's grace that enables us to live for God. "For — Tim Chester

Deep down, we all have our dark thoughts, Kathy. Mine are no different than any others. My life was planned for me, like my body was engineered to be what it is, a Prime Elite. But underneath it all I am still a man. Though I did not want this bonding at the beginning, it is now a part of me . . . and a part of you. We will work things out, my wife and we will do it together, that is what I accept. Also," he adjusted his arm around her, feeling her discomfort. "I know that without you there is an emptiness that I cannot put into words. It is an emptiness that I will not live with. Thus, I do not wish to be free of you . . . ever. — K.L. Tharp

Are you not afraid of death?'
I am not in the least afraid! ... I would rather die than drink that bitter medicine.'
At that moment the door of the room flew open, and four rabbits as black as ink entered carrying on their shoulders a little bier.
What do you want with me?' cried Pinocchio, sitting up in bed in a great fright.
We are come to take you,' said the biggest rabbit.
To take me? ... But I am not yet dead! ... '
No, not yet: but you have only a few minutes to live, as you have refused the medicine that would have cured you of the fever.'
Oh, Fairy, Fairy!' the puppet then began to scream, 'give me the tumbler at once ... be quick, for pity's sake, for I will not die
no ... I will not die ... — Carlo Collodi

Our intellectual odysseys take us out of and beyond this world but where they take us we cannot live for long - the air is too rarefied and we have nothing solid upon which to stand. What those odysseys into the strange and new can do is to make our ordinary, workaday world strange and new to us again, removing from it the crust of familiarity created by custom and habit. — D.E. Wittkower

a world of known risk, in short, risk (Figure 2-3, center). I use this term for a world where all alternatives, consequences, and probabilities are known. Lotteries and games of chance are examples. Most of the time, however, we live in a changing world where some of these are unknown: where we face unknown risks, or uncertainty (Figure 2-3, right). The world of uncertainty is huge compared to that of risk. Whom to marry? Whom to trust? What to do with the rest of one's life? In an uncertain world, it is impossible to determine the optimal course of action by calculating the exact risks. We have to deal with "unknown unknowns." Surprises happen. Even when calculation does not provide a clear answer, however, we have to make decisions. — Gerd Gigerenzer

Self-determination has to mean that the leader is your individual gut, and heart, and mind or we're talking about power, again, and its rather well-known impurities. Who is really going to care whether you live or die and who is going to know the most intimate motivation for your laughter and your tears is the only person to be trusted to speak for you and to decide what you will or will not do. — June Jordan

I suppose this is what I meant when I wrote what I did, sweet pea, about how it is we cannot possibly know what will manifest in our lives. We live and have experiences and leave people we love and get left by them. People we thought would be with us forever aren't and people we didn't know would come into our lives do. Our work here is to keep faith with that, to put it in a box and wait. To trust that someday we will know what it means, so that when the ordinary miraculous is revealed to us we will be there, standing before the baby girl in the pretty dress, grateful for the smallest things. — Cheryl Strayed

I live now for my work. I live for my work. I live only for my work. One day I will do work deserving of my talent & desire. One day. This I pledge. This I vow. I want you to love me for my work. But if you don't love me I can't continue my work. So please love me! - so I can continue my work. I am trapped here! I am trapped in this blond mannequin with the face. I can only breathe through that face! Those nostrils! That mouth! Help me to be perfect. If God was in us, we would be perfect. God is not in us, we know this for we are not perfect. I don't want money & fame. I want only to be perfect. The blond mannequin Monroe is me & is not me. She is not me. She is what I was born. Yes I want you to love her. So you will love me. Oh I want to love you! Where are you? I look, I look & there is no one there. — Joyce Carol Oates

Human ... I don't know what that word means ... Tell me what defines it. What sets it apart? Are you going to tell me its love? A crocodile will defend her brood to the death. Hope? A lion will stalk its prey for days. Faith? Who is to say what gods populate an orangutan's imagination. We build? So do termites. We dream? House cats do that on the windowsill ... We live in a shabby edifice ... hastily erected over a span of ten thousand years, and we draw he flimsy curtains to hide the truth from ourselves. — Rick Yancey

A purely mental life may be destructive if it leads us to substitute thought for life and ideas for actions. The activity proper to man is purely mental because man is not just a disembodied mind. Our destiny is to live out what we think, because unless we live what we know, we do not even know it. It is only by making our knowledge part of ourselves, through action, that we enter into the reality that is signified by our concepts. — Thomas Merton

How often do you cave in to the pressures of the crowd, seeking the approval of others instead of the approval of God? We all like to be liked - but that can be a very dangerous thing. Make it your goal to live for Christ and be faithful to Him, regardless of what the crowd demands. — Billy Graham

What we do every day - whether you live in
Mexico, the United States, Russia, China
can have a very negative impact on
an entire way of life for an entire people
far away from that source — Sheila Watt-Cloutier

An aversion came over me that we feel for all the mutilated. Why is that so, do you think? Because they put us in mind of what we would rather forget: how easily, at the stroke of a sword or a knife, wholeness and beauty are forever undone? Perhaps. But toward you I felt a deeper revulsion. I could not put out of mind the softness of the tongue, its softness and wetness, and the fact that it does not live in the light; also how helpless it is before the knife, once the barrier of teeth has been passed. The tongue is like the heart, in that way, is it not? — J.M. Coetzee

What we did not possess we had to make for ourselves or learn to do without, but the little I learned helped me to build a defense against the change that time would surely bring, to teach me that to live was to change, and that change was the one irrevocable law. Nothing remained the same. — Louis L'Amour

When Thoreau considered "where I live and what I live for," he tied together location and values. Where we live doesn't just change how we live; it informs who we become. Most recently, technology promises us lives on the screen. What values, Thoreau would ask, follow from this new location? Immersed in simulation, where do we live, and what do we live for? — Sherry Turkle

And if the prodigious genius of Azarya Sheiner has never found the solution, then perhaps that is proof that no solution exists, that the most gifted among us is feeble in mind against the brutality of incomprehensibility that assutalts us from all sides. And so we try, as best we cn, to do justice to the tremendousness of our improbable existence. And so we live, as best we can, for ourselves, or who will live for us? And we live, as best we can, for others, otherwise what are we? — Rebecca Goldstein

Our mythology tells us so much about fathers and sons ... What do we know about mothers and daughters? ... Our power is so oblique, so hidden, so ethereal a matter, that we rarely struggle with our daughters over actual kingdoms or corporate shares. On the other hand, our attractiveness dries as theirs blooms, our journey shortens just as theirs begins. We too must be afraid and awed and amazed that we cannot live forever and that our replacements are eager for their turn, indifferent to our wishes, ready to leave us behind. — Anne Roiphe

Boys,
I'm probably sleeping, but hopefully y'all got up on time. You need to be down at the factory by 9. Ask for Zeke.I listened to your interview with Starnes-it's good work, but I've changed my mind about some things.
At six hours per person, we'll never get through the whole town. I'd like you only to ask the following four questions: Where would you live if you could live anywhere? What would you do for a living if you didn't work for the factory? When did your people come to the country? And What do you think makes Gutshot special? I think that'll move things along nicely. They're expecting you at the factory. Lindsey will accompany you.
See you tonight.Hollis.
PS.I'm writing this note at 5:30., SO don't wake me up. — John Green

Whether we're the largest, smallest, most or least significant thing in the universe makes for a marvelous late-night discussion. It's not relevant to how we live in the here and now. We need to look around, take measure of ourselves, and decide what we can do and how much of it we do to improve our lives and the lives of as many others as we can reach. — Nikki Stern

Honor is what separates man from beast. The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to actually be what we pretend to be. Let others laugh and mock those of us they perceive beneath them, but remember, good Cadegan, honor lies inside our hearts and it is that which makes us act with mercy and compassion against those who have most wronged us. Even if the jackal wounds your pride, do not reward such knavery by surrendering your honor to him. Only then have you truly lost all. Never let anyone take your soul, for they are not worth your eternity or your heart. Instead — Sherrilyn Kenyon

We live in a trans period. Contemporary issues of sexuality, for example - the exciting aspects of them - have to do with transgenderedness. And there's trans-nationality. There are people like me, for example. I mean, what am I? Am I Indian? Am I American? And I'm not alone in being between things. — Vijay Seshadri

I think the people already know what they're doing wrong, and I certainly believe in Hell. But to me, when I see thousands of people before me, it just doesn't come out of me to say, 'You guys are terrible, and you're going to Hell.' I'd rather say that God is a God of mercy. You've got to live an obedient life, but for every mistake you've made, there's mercy there, and I believe we can do better. — Joel Osteen

You know, you're not aware of it, but you're following the action of the film through the body of the protagonist, you know? You feel what he feels when he jumps, when he leaps, when he wins, when he loses. And I think I just took it for granted that, you know, we can all do that, but it became obvious to me that men don't live through the female characters. — Meryl Streep

There is a foundation for our lives, a place in which our life rests. That place is nothing but the present moment, as we see, hear, experience what is. If we do not return to that place, we live our lives out of our heads. We blame others; we complain; we feel sorry for ourselves. All of these symptoms show that we're stuck in our thoughts. We're out of touch with the open space that is always right here. — Charlotte Joko Beck

We can't keep living with what other people want for us, or don't want for us," Yena said. "We have to live for what we want. But everything that's in your head, the things you've been told to believe and do, you can't just throw it all out like bathwater, even when you know it's hurting you. So — Foz Meadows

Abraham was a man who lived in oneness with God. If I live in oneness with a certain brother day after day, there will be no need for him to tell me of many things. I will already know what he likes and what he does not like, what pleases him and what offends him. If I love him and live in oneness with him, whatever I say and do will be in accordance with his likes or dislikes. I am sorry to say that many Christians [791] do not live in oneness with God. When important matters arise, they kneel down and pray, "O Lord, what is Your will?" Eventually, they do not follow God's will but their own concept. We do not know God's will by praying in such a way. If we would know God's will, we must live in oneness with Him. If we live in oneness with Him, He will not need to tell us what He desires, because we shall already know it by being one with Him. — Witness Lee

There is truth in little corners of our lives. There are hints of it in songs and children's eyes. It's familiar, like an ancient lullaby; What do I live for? If we've eyes to see ... If we've ears to hear ... To find it in our hearts and mouths the word that saves is near. Shed that shallow skin ... Come and live again ... Leave all you were before ... To believe is to begin. — Brooke Fraser

For this is what we do. Put one foot forward and then the other. Lift our eyes to the snarl and smile of the world once more. Think. Act. feel. Add our little consequence to the tides of good and evil that flood and drain the world. Drag our shadowed crosses into the hope of another night. Push our brave hearts into the promise of a new day. With love; the passionate search for truth other than our own. With longing; the pure, ineffable yearning to be saved. For so long as fate keeps waiting, we live on. — Gregory David Roberts

Our generation may stand at a crucial breakpoint in history, for we in the presently affluent nations may be the last who can afford to open up the high frontier. What we do during the next ten or twenty years may determine whether future generations will live in a humane and rewarding society, or whether they will spend their lives in desperate contention for the dwindling sustenance afforded by our limited terrestrial resources. — Philip K. Chapman

Second letter: Embrace your fear

What holds us back in life is the invisible architecture of fear. It keeps us in our comfort zones, which are, in truth, the least safe place in which to live. Indeed the greatest risk in life is taking no risk. But every time we do that which we fear , we take back the power that fear has stolen from us - for on the other side of fear lives our strength. Every time we step into the discomfort of growth and progress, we become more free. The more fears we walk through, the more power we reclaim. In this way, we grow both fearless and powerful, and thus are able to live the lives of our dreams. — Robin S. Sharma

Why do ever think about to get married??
Do we dare, all life to get worried, to be curious, to be angry, to think for money like they are gold, to think about what next to buy, to cry and even and more to happen?
Marriage is like the gold, you find it or not, it depends from you but you once lost you can't find the same gold or the same wife, it's in about of luck to find the same. Imaginate that you have gold, but you don't have money, so you go to a pawnshop and what happens the gold becomes money, but reality you have two diffirent stuff. This doesn't mean that by doing that you get the same, why don't you go and give your wife for other person??? Will be the same like your wife will live in this person for which you have replaced her??
Of course, NOT! — Deyth Banger

You humans drink our milk and eat the eggs of the chickens and the ducks. Isn't that enough for you? Isn't it enough that we give you our children and what's meant for our children? And if not, when is it enough? All you humans do is take, take, take from the earth and its beautiful creatures, and what do you give back? Nothing. I know humans consider it a grave insult to be called an animal. Well, I would never give a human the fine distinction of being called an animal, because an animal may kill to live but an animal never lives to kill. Humans have to earn the right to be called animals again. — David Duchovny

Hearing may make shorter intuitive leaps than sight, but it too is subject to illusions. The most pleasant of these are 'mondegreens,' named by the author Sylvia Wright from her youthful mishearing of the Scottish ballad that actually says, 'They hae slain the Earl o' Moray / and they layd him on the green'--not, alas, 'the Lady Mondegreen.' Children, with their relaxed expectations for logic, are a rich source of these (pledging allegiance to 'one Asian in the vestibule, with little tea and just rice for all'), but everyone has the talent to infer the ridiculous from the inaudible--and, what's more, to believe in it. Here, at least, we do behave like computers, in that our voice-recognition software has little regard for probability but boldly assumes we live in a world of surrealist poets. We are certain that Mick Jagger will never leave our pizza burning and that the Shadow knows what evil lurks in the hot cement. — Michael Kaplan

We do not segment our lives, giving some time to God, some to our business or schooling, while keeping parts to ourselves. The idea is to live all of our lives in the presence of God, under the authority of God, and for the honor and glory of God. That is what the Christian life is all about. — R.C. Sproul

What do we live for, if not to make life less difficult to others? — George Eliot

Therefore, to you, and to the fifty governors, I have a request. Please, do not send me politicians. We do not have the time to do the things that must be done through that process. I need people who do real things in the real world. I need people who do not want to live in Washington. I need people who will not try to work the system. I need people who will come here at great personal sacrifice to do an important job, and then return home to their normal lives. I want engineers who know how things are built. I want physicians who know how to make sick people well. I want cops who know what it means when your civil rights are violated by a criminal. I want farmers who grow real food on real farms. I want people who know what it's like to have dirty hands, and pay a mortgage bill, and raise kids, and worry about the future. I want people who know they're working for you and not themselves. That's what I want. That's what I need. I think that's what a lot of you want, too. — Tom Clancy

I think we have a free will, and at the same moment we don't. We have to live with that. It doesn't make sense intellectually, but that's because our intellect is always trying to come up with a logical, rational explanation for things. To do that, it puts labels on things. But once you label something, you've got twoness. You've got the label, and you've got what you're labeling. And there is only oneness in the universe, even though we artificially believe in twoness. — Wayne Dyer

This is not remarkable, for, as we know, reality is not a function of the event as event, but of the relationship of that event to past, and future, events. We seem here to have a paradox: that the reality of an event, which is not real in itself, arises from the other events which, likewise, in themselves are not real. But this only affirms what we must affirm: that direction is all. And only as we realize this do we live, for our own identity is dependent upon this principal. — Robert Penn Warren

Not just one day, you will live many days," the doctor would answer, "you will live months and years, too." "But what are years, what are months!" he would exclaim. "Why count the days, when even one day is enough for a man to know all happiness. My dears, why do we quarrel, boast before each other, remember each other's offenses? Let us go to the garden, let us walk and play and love and praise and kiss each other, and bless our life." "He's not long for this world, your son," the doctor said to mother as she saw him to the porch, "from sickness he is falling into madness." The — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

All of us are part of a big story. It is a story that is much bigger than we know. Do not confuse the life you live with the story. Do not be afraid to leave the story. You may get scared sometimes because you fail to understand that what is scared is not you. It's the story. The story looks for a way to travel. The story is afraid you will let go. — Frederick Reiken

I think you'll make a great Congressman, Sam Porter. The people of New York couldn't ask for anything better.
New Jersey."
What do you mean, New Jersey?"
I live in Jersey. That's my home state."
But what about people of New York? Don't we deserve honest representatives, too?" It was one thing when he was going to be her Congressman, but he was going to be someone else's Congressman, not hers?
New York has good representatives."
But not as good as you, Sam. We deserve the best."
Move to Jersey. — Kathleen O'Reilly

Those who would live beyond their nature-given span lose their framework, and with it lose a proper sense of relationship to those who are younger, gaining only the resentment of youth for encroaching on its careers and resources. The fact that there is a limited right time to do the rewarding things in our lives is what creates the urgency to do them. Otherwise, we might stagnate in procrastination. The very fact that at our backs, as the poet cautions his coy mistress, we "always hear / Time's winged chariot hurrying near" enhances the world and makes the time priceless. — Sherwin B. Nuland

Ultimately, we live in the face of an irresolvable mystery about our origin and, for that matter, about our end. And what Schleiermacher would have us do is (a) acknowledge that this is the case and (b) accept it as something positive, a point of departure for a life of trusting joy. — George Pattison

When we pillow our heads at night, we need to have things that give us peace. Many such things are available, but one of the best is the simple peace of knowing that we've done things that day that were not easy for us to do. If we can see ourselves as people who are learning little by little to master the hard parts of life, we will live with a greater confidence and be able to serve those around us more helpfully. The ancient adage is true which tells us, A ship in the harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for. — Gary Henry

If you dread tomorrow it's because you don't know how to build the present, and when you don't know how to build the present, you tell yourself you can deal with it tomorrow, and it's a lost cause anyway because tomorrow always ends up being today don't you see ... We have to live with the certainty that we'll get old and that it won't look nice or be good or feel happy. And tell ourselves that it's now that matters: to build something now at any price using all our strength. Always remember that there's a retirement home waiting somewhere and so we have to surpass ourselves every day, make every day undying. Climb our own personal Everest and do it in such a way that every step is a little bit of eternity. That's what the future is for: to build the present with real plans made by living people. — Muriel Barbery

We Catholics have not only to do our best to keep down our own warring passions and live decent lives, which will often be hard enough in this odd world we have been born into. We have to bear witness to moral principles which the world owned yesterday and has begun to turn its back on today. We have to disapprove of some of the things our neighbors do, without being stuffy about it; we have to be charitable towards our neighbors and make great allowances for them, without falling into the mistake of condoning their low standards and so encouraging them to sin. Two of the most difficult and delicate tasks a man can undertake; and it happens, nowadays, not only to priests, to whom it comes as part of their professional duty, but to ordinary lay people...So we must know what are the unalterable principles we hold, and why we hold them; we must see straight in a world that is full of moral fog. — Ronald Knox

Life is precious and it's what you do with it that keeps you alive on the inside.It's not enough just to live and take that gift for granted.Each one of us has fears,but the more we work to overome them,the more we are able to enjoy our lives. — Demi Lovato

What do we live for? If not to give what you have and share life with other souls. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Life has everything in store for you, Dorian. There is nothing that you, with your extraordinary good looks, will not be able to do."
"But suppose, Harry, I became haggard, and old, and wrinkled? What then?"
"Ah, then," said Lord Henry, rising to go, "then, my dear Dorian, you would have to fight for your victories. As it is, they are brought to you. No, you must keep your good looks. We live in an age that reads too much to be wise, and that thinks too much to be beautiful. We cannot spare you." (8.19) — Oscar Wilde

Most girls take one look at you and swoon. You've never had to really work for someone's affection or put effort into maintaining it. In many ways, your natural gifts have done you a disservice
they've stunted your sensitivity and charm! You've never had to develop insight into what will make a girl laugh and come to love you for reasons that aren't handsome or heroic. That's why smees are experts on the subtle arts of courtship and seduction; nothing comes easy to us, but we do understand and live by the Lover's Maxim."
"And what on earth is the Lover's Maxim?" asked Maz, feeling very uninformed.
The smee cleared his throat. "If you can't be handsome, be rich. If you can't be rich, be strong. If you cant be strong, be witty."
"But what if you can't be witty?" Max wondered.
"Learn the guitar. — Henry H. Neff

We live in an age in which the volume of available information stupefies us. On any relatively interesting subject we can find thousands of Web pages, tens - if not hundreds - of books, and article after article. How do we filter all this information? How do we process all this information? Core values and principles provide one mechanism for processing and filtering information. They steer us in the direction of what is more, or less, important. They help us make product decisions and evaluate development practices. — Jim Highsmith

Ah! If you have a self-will in your hearts, pray to God to uproot it. Have you self-love? Beseech the Holy Spirit to turn it out; for if you will always will to do as God wills, you must be happy. I have heard of some good old woman in a cottage, who had nothing but a piece of bread and a little water, and lifting up her hands, she said, as a blessing, "What!? all this, and Christ too?" What is "all this," compared with what we deserve? And I have read of someone dying, who was asked if he wished to live or die; and he said, "I have no wish at all about it." "But if you might wish, which would you choose?" "I would not choose at all." "But if God bade you choose?" "I would beg God to choose for me, for I would not know which to take." Oh happy state! to be perfectly acquiescent, to lie passive in His hand, and know no will but His. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Life in God should be a daring adventure of love - a continuous journey of putting aside our securities to enter more profoundly into the uncharted depths of God. Too often, however, we settle for mediocrity. We follow the rules and practices of prayer but we are unwilling or, for various reasons, unable to give ourselves totally to God. To settle on the plain of mediocrity is really to settle for something less than God that leaves the heart restless and unfulfilled. A story from the desert fathers reminds us that giving oneself wholly to God can make a difference: Abba Lot went to see Abba Joseph and said to him, "Abba, as far as I can I say my little office, I fast a little, I pray and meditate, I live in peace and as far as I can, I purify my thoughts. What else can I do?" Then the old man stood up and stretched his hands towards heaven. His fingers became like ten lamps of fire and he said to him, "If you will, you can become all flame."15 — Ilia Delio

Would to God we were all Christians who profess to be Christians, and that we lived up to what we profess. Then would the Christian shine forth "clear as the sun, fair as the moon," and what besides - why, "amazing as an army with
banners"! A consistent Church is an amazing Church - an honest, upright Church would shake the world! The tramp of
godly men is the tramp of heroes; these are the thundering legions that sweep everything before them. The men that are
what they profess to be, hate the semblance of a lie - whatever shape it wears - and would sooner die than do that which is dishonest, or that which would be degrading to the glory of a Heaven-born race, and to the honor of Him by whose name they have been called! O Christians! You will be the world's contempt; you will be their despising, and hissing unless you live for one objective! — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

He saw that at its center were Coretta and Yoki, unharmed. And then, having made sure of that, Martin Luther King became very calm, with what Branch calls "the remote calm of a commander." Stepping back out on the porch, he held up his hand for silence. Everything was all right, he told the crowd. "Don't get panicky. Don't do anything panicky. Don't get your weapons. If you have weapons, take them home. He who lives by the sword will perish by the sword. Remember that is what Jesus said. We are not advocating violence. We want to love our enemies. I want you to love our enemies. Be good to them. This is what we must live by. We must meet hate with love." The crowd was silent now, as King continued speaking. He himself might die, he said, but that wouldn't matter. "If I am stopped, this movement will not stop. If I am stopped, our work will not stop. For what we are doing is right. What we are doing is just. — Robert A. Caro

We only have one life and one body to care of, and we better do it right. You never know what tomorrow may bring and so we better live this life the best we can and be grateful for everything we have. — Novak Djokovic

It was one of those rare times of shared happiness, of perfect contentment. We had a feeling of expectation, that what was already wonderful would only get better and better as time went on. These moments are one of the rarest, most fragile things in the world. You have to seize the day; you have to recall all the rotten, dirty things you endured to earn this peace. You have to remember to enjoy each minute, each hour, because although you may feel like it's going to last forever, the world plans otherwise. You want to be grateful for every precious second, but you simply can't do it. It's not in human nature to live life to the fullest. Haven't your ever noticed that equal amounts of pain and joy are not, in fact, equal in duration? Pain drags on until you wonder if life will ever be bearable again; pleasure, though, once it's reached its peak, fades faster than a trodden gardenia, and your memory searches in vain for the sweet scent. — George Alec Effinger

You must understand that our civilization is so vast that we can't have our minorities upset and stirred. Ask yourself, what do we want in this country, above all? People want to be happy, isn't that right? Haven't you heard it all your life? I want to be happy, people say. Well, aren't they? Don't we keep them moving, don't we give them fun? That's all we live for, isn't it? — Ray Bradbury

For sure we live in a youth-obsessed culture that is constantly trying to tell us that if we're not young and glowing and "hot," we don't matter. But I refuse to buy into such a distorted view of reality. And I would never lie about or deny my age. To do so is to contribute to a sickness pervading our society - the sickness of wanting to be what you're not. I know for sure that only by owning who and what you are can you step into the fullness of life. I feel sorry for anyone who buys into the myth that you can be what you once were. The way to your best life isn't denial. It's owning every moment and staking a claim to the here and now. You're not the same woman you were a decade ago; if you're lucky, you're not the same woman you were last year. The whole point of aging, as I see it, is change. If we let them, our experiences can keep teaching us about ourselves. I celebrate that. Honor it. Hold it in reverence. And I'm grateful for every age I'm blessed to become. — Oprah Winfrey

When the church first began, it was a pacifistic movement known for its outspoken criticism of any form of bloodshed or violence. After Constantine legalized Christianity, 'just war' theory emerged, which meant that Christians could participate in wars if certain criteria were satisfied. By the year 1100, Christians were launching Crusades and telling the faithful that killing Muslims would secure them a spot in heaven! What happened? Somewhere along the way we forgot that Jesus intended the Sermon on the Mount to be an actual, concrete program for living. He wanted us to actually live it, not just admire it as a nice but unrealistic ideal. I mean, what would happen if Christians dedicated themselves to peacemaking with the same discipline and focus that armies do for war? What difference could it make? We have to revisit the early church's teachings about reconciliation, peacemaking, and the Sermon on the Mount and ask ourselves if we're living them out or tiptoeing around them. — Ian Morgan Cron

When I thought you'd died - "
"Don't say it," she choked out. "You don't have to relive that."
"No," he said. "I do. I have to tell you. It was the first time - even after all these years of expecting my own death - that I truly knew what it meant to die. Because with you gone ... there was nothing left for me to live for. I don't know how my mother did it."
"She had her children," Kate said. "She couldn't leave you."
"I know," he whispered, "but the pain she must have endured ... "
"I think the human heart must be stronger than we could ever imagine."
Anthony stared at her for a long moment, his eyes locking with hers until he felt they must be one person. Then, with a shaking hand, he cupped the back of her head and leaned down to kiss her. His lips worshiped hers, offering her every ounce of love and devotion and reverence and prayer that he felt in his soul.
-Anthony & Kate — Julia Quinn

To live in the midst of danger is to know how good life is," his father replied.
"But if we are lost in the danger?" Kino asked anxiously.
"To live in the presence of death makes us brave and strong," Kino's father replied. "That is why our people never fear death. We see it too often and we do not fear it. To die a little later or a little sooner does not matter. But to live bravely, to lobe life, to see how beautiful the trees are and the mountains, yes, even the sea, to enjoy work because it produces food for life - in these things we Japanese are a fortunate people. We love life because we live in danger. We do not fear death because we understand that life and death are necessary to each other."
"What is death?" Kino asked.
"Death is the great gateway," Kino's father said. — Pearl S. Buck

We're being attacked for what we do in the Islamic world, not for who we are or what we believe in or how we live. — Thomas E. Woods Jr.

By the age of twenty, you know you're not going to be a rock star. By twenty-five, you know you're not going to be a dentist or any kind of professional. And by thirty, darkness starts moving in- you wonder if you're ever going to be fulfilled, let alone wealthy and successful. By thirty-five, you know, basically, what you're going to be doing for the rest of your life, and you become resigned to your fate ...
... I mean, why do people live so long? What could be the difference between death at fifty-five and death at sixty-five or seventy-five or eighty-five? Those extra years ... what benefit could they possibly have? Why do we go on living even though nothing new happens, nothing new is learned, and nothing new is transmitted? At fifty-five, your story's pretty much over. — Douglas Coupland

So he has touched you, and yet there is much you do not yet understand. How are you to fathom all that is happening? What shall be the direction from inside for what you think? How you shall live? Where you will go? The answer, my new brother, is found within the sacred texts. Together we will begin to study them, you and I. You will learn to speak with God directly. And you will discover how to listen to him speak with you. — Janette Oke

Hey, we live each day, start each day, as if we had an endless number stretching out ahead of us. We don't, but that's how one has to face the day, right? I see an analogy with writing fiction: the story at hand probably won't come off well, and even if it does, it probably won't get published, but if it does there won't be any payment for it - and even if there is, almost nobody will read it, and most who do won't understand or like it. But you go ahead and write the story. What choices do you have? There's always silence, but that won't do for me." - Gordon Weaver (who is suddenly my hero, even though I don't know who he is). — Gordon Weaver

...the Cupcake Nation mentality - "Everyone's a winner!" - is so dangerous. When we try to protect the young from any vaguely uncomfortable ideas or encounters, we do them a grave disservice. Being tested by different viewpoints in my life, being sometimes offended or occasionally hurt, or even targeted, is a big part of what prepared me for the challenged I've faced in my career.., — Megyn Kelly

We're workers, they say. Work, they call it! That's the crummiest part of the whole business. We're down in the hold, heaving and panting, stinking and sweating our balls off, and meanwhile! Up on deck in the fresh air, what do you see?! Our masters having a fine time with beautiful pink and perfumed women on their laps. They send for us, we're brought up on deck. They put on their top hats and give us a big spiel like as follows: "You no-good swine! We're at war! Those stinkers in Country No. 2! We're going to board them and cut their livers out! Let's go! Let's go! We've got everything we need on board! All together now! Let's hear you shout so the deck trembles: 'Long live Country No. 1!' So you'll be heard for miles around. The man that shouts the loudest will get a medal and a lollipop! Let's — Louis-Ferdinand Celine

Br>
'Yes, OK, but so what if I was!' Interrupted Jane. 'What if I was! That's my point. What if I was a bit overweight and not especially pretty? Why is that so terrible? So disgusting? Why is that the end of the world?'
Madeline found herself without words. To be fat and ugly actually would be the end of the world for her.
'It's because A woman's entire self-worth rests on her looks,' said Jane. 'That's why. it's because we live in a beauty-obsessed society where the most important thing a women can do is make herself attractive to men.
. — Liane Moriarty