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Life Is Quotes

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Life Is Quotes

“A human life is defined by its relationship with others: by its duty to its species. In the face of this duty, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are meaningless. What you call individual rights are merely the cultural fantasy of a failed civilization.”

HumansFacesLife IsIndividualLibertyFantasyRightsDutyCivilizationSpeciesPursuitDefinedHuman LifeMeaninglessPursuit Of HappinessIndividual RightsRelationships With OthersLife Liberty And The Pursuit Of HappinessMeaningless Life
Book:Blade of Tyshalle
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“The real reason why human life can be so utterly exasperating and frustrating is not because there are facts called death, pain, fear, or hunger. The madness of the thing is that when such facts are present, we circle, buzz, writhe, and whirl, trying to get the I out of the experience... Sanity, wholeness and integration lie in the realisation that we are not divided, that man and his present experience are one, and that no separate I or mind can be found .... [Life] is a dance, and when you are dancing, you are not intent on getting somewhere. The meaning and purpose of dancing is the dance.”

MenTryingMindHumansRealReasonFactsPainLife IsLyingPurposeFoundMadnessDancingHungerCirclesHuman LifeReason WhyDividedSanityWholenessIntegrationFrustratingBuzzRealisation
Author:Alan Watts
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“The potential beauty of human life is constantly made ugly by man's ever recurring song of retaliation. The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever rising tides of revenge. Man has never risen above the injunction of the lex talionis: "Life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot." In spite of the fact that the law of revenge solves no social problems, men continue to follow its disastrous leading. History is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path.”

MenHumansMadeSelfFactsProblemHandsEyeLawLife IsSongIndividualNationsSocialPathFeetOceanUglySolveRevengeTeethHuman LifeRisingSpiteTidesPursuedRisenRecurringSocial ProblemsRetaliationWreckage
Author:Martin Luther King, Jr.
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“Free men are aware of the imperfection inherent in human affairs, and they are willing to fight and die for that which is not perfect. They know that basic human problems can have no final solutions, that our freedom, justice, equality, etc. are far from absolute, and that the good life is compounded of half measures, compromises, lesser evils, and gropings toward the perfect. The rejection of approximations and the insistence on absolutes are the manifestation of a nihilism that loathes freedom, tolerance, and equity.”

KnowsMenHumansProblemLife IsDiesFightingEvilJusticePerfectHalfWillingSolutionsAbsolutesFinalsAffairToleranceCompromiseManifestationRejectionEtcGood LifeImperfectionInherentEquityNihilismNot PerfectFree ManLoatheInsistenceApproximationHuman ProblemsLesser EvilJustice EqualityHalf Measures
Author:Eric Hoffer
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“The poor Geordies are in the process of being rebuffed by every sentient human being whose ambition in life is more than simply to pocket six million quid for having been a failure and run for the hills. They want beautiful, flowing football and tangible success, at St James' Park. Fine. I, meanwhile, want Jessica Alba and the Nobel prize for literature. I make my prospects slightly more realistic.”

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Author:Rod Liddle
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“If we once admit that our life is here for the purpose of race-improvement, then we question any religion which does not improve the race, or the main force of which evaporates, as it were, directing our best efforts toward the sky.... Improvement in the human race is not accomplished by extracting any number of souls and placing them in heaven, or elsewhere. It must be established on earth, either through achievement in social service, or through better children.”

IfsHumansChildrenDoeSoulEarthLife IsPurposeForceHeavenSocialNumbersEffortRaceOur LivesSkyAtheismAchievementPositive AtheismImprovementHuman RaceAccomplishedElsewhereBest EffortSocial Service
Author:Charlotte Perkins Gilman
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“Human life has no meaning independent of itself. There is no cosmic force or deity to give it meaning or significance. There is no ultimate destiny for man. Such a belief is an illusion of humankind's infancy. The meaning of life is what we choose to give it. Meaning grows out of human purposes alone. Nature provides us with an infinite range of opportunities, but it is only our vision and our action that select and realize those that we desire.”

MenGivingHumansActionLife IsDesirePurposeOpportunityBeliefForceGrowsRealizingVisionDestinyAtheismIllusionUltimateInfiniteIndependentRangeHuman LifeMeaning Of LifeSignificanceCosmicHumankindDeitiesOur ActionsSelectInfancyLife Has No Meaning
Author:Paul Kurtz
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“When I see nothing annihilated, and not even a drop of water wasted, I cannot suspect the annihilation of souls Thus finding myself to exist in the world, I believe I shall, in some shape or other, always exist; with all the inconveniences human life is liable to, I shall not object to a new edition of mine; hoping, however, that the errata of the last may be corrected.”

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Author:Benjamin Franklin
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“I know, that since life is our most precious gift, and as far as we can be absolutely certain, it's given to us to live but once, let us so live we will not regret years of useless virtue, and inertia, and timidity, and ignorance, and in our last moments we can say: 'All my life, all my conscious energies, have been dedicated to the most noble cause in the world, the liberation of the human mind and spirit - beginning with my own'.”

KnowsWorldYearsMindHumansHas BeensMomentsLastsLife IsSpiritCertainEnergyGivenCausesMy OwnVirtueIgnoranceRegretConsciousNobleLiberationUselessHuman MindDedicatedInertiaTimidityPrecious GiftsNoble Causes
Author:Maya Angelou
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“It is not a question of patronizing philanthropy towards disabled people. They do not need the patronage of the non-disabled. It is not for them to adapt to the dominant and dominating world of the so-called non-disabled. It is for us to adapt our understanding of a common humanity; to learn of the richness of how human life is diverse; to recognize the presence of disability in our human midst as an enrichment of our diversity.”

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

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Author:Vincent Van Gogh
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“He who expects from a great name in politics, in philosophy, in art, equal greatness in other things, is little versed in human nature. Our strength lies in our weakness. The learned in books are ignorant of the world. He who is ignorant of books is often well acquainted with other things; for life is of the same length in the learned and unlearned; the mind cannot be idle; if it is not taken up with one thing, it attends to another through choice or necessity; and the degree of previous capacity in one class or another is a mere lottery.”

IfsWorldMindHumansWellsLittlesArtBookPhilosophyLife IsLyingChoicesNamesClassTakenOne ThingHuman NatureGreatnessEqualDegreesWeaknessCapacityMereIgnorantLengthIdleLotteryVersatility
Book:Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)
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“The misery of human life is made up of large masses, each separated from the other by certain intervals. One year the death of a child; years after, a failure in trade; after another longer or shorter interval, a daughter may have married unhappily; in all but the singularly unfortunate, the integral parts that compose the sum-total of the unhappiness of a man's life are easily counted and distinctly remembered.”

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Book:Delphi Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Illustrated)
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“I think the novel is essentially a comic form (tragedy is for the theatre), not meaning by that full of jokes, but that it is about the absurd detail of human life, the way in which one cannot fully understand what is happening. Life is muddle and jumble and ends inconclusively, and when this is presented with great comic art the sorrows of human life can be truthfully conveyed; one is moved by the spectacle, and feels that something truthful has been told in a magic way.”

ThinkingWayFeelsHumansHas BeensArtEndsFormLife IsNovelMagicSorrowHappeningsJokesTragedyMovedDetailsTheatreAbsurdComicHuman LifeTruthfulBeing TruthfulMuddleComic Art
Author:Iris Murdoch
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“I always knew one thing, that life is made bearable and possible and liveable by the relations of one human being to another, the individual love and gentleness between persons, or in any case, the unbreakable bond that grows and fastens lives together in all sorts of mysterious ways.”

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Book:Letters of Katherine Anne Porter
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“the idea of a finished human product not only appears presumptuous but even, in my opinion, lacks any strong appeal. Life is struggle and striving, development and growth - and analysis is one of the means that can help in this process. Certainly its positive accomplishments are important, but also the striving itself is of intrinsic value.”

HumansMeanImportantIdeasHelpingLife IsValuesStrongProcessGrowthOpinionStruggleProductsDevelopmentStriveFinishedAppealsAnalysisAccomplishmentPsychiatryPresumptuousIntrinsic ValueLife Is A StruggleDevelopment And Growth
Book:Self-Analysis
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“Every human being has consciousness, but not every human being has the same amount. The potential for each one of us human beings is infinite consciousness. This is called supreme enlightenment, and it just needs unfolding by transcending each day. The more consciousness we have, the better life is.”

NeedsHumansLife IsHuman BeingsConsciousnessAmountEnlightenmentInfiniteSupremeEach DayBetter LifeUnfoldingTranscendingInfinite Consciousness
Author:David Lynch
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“Life is atrocious, we know. But precisely because I expect little of the human condition, man's periods of felicity, his partial progress, his efforts to begin over again and continue, all seem to me like so many prodigies which nearly compensate for the monstrous mass of ills and defeats, of indifference and error. Catastrophe and ruin will come; disorder will triumph, but order will too, from time to time.”

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Book:Memoirs of Hadrian
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“Saving lives is not a top priority in the halls of power. Being compassionate and concerned about human life can cause a man to lose his job. It can cause a woman not to get the job to begin with.”

MenHumansJobsLife IsCausesLosesCompassionKindnessConcernedPrioritiesSavingHuman LifeHallsCompassionateSave A LifeTop Priorities
Book:Boys Will Be Boys: Breaking the Link Between Masculinity and Violence
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“The impulse to confession almost always requires the presence of a fresh ear and a fresh heart; and in our moments of spiritual need, the man to whom we have no tie but our common nature, seems nearer to us than mother, brother, or friend. Our daily familiar life is but a hiding of ourselves from each other behind a screen of trivial words and deeds, and those who sit with us at the same hearth, are often the farthest off from the deep human soul within us, full of unspoken evil and unacted good.”

MenNeedsHumansHeartSoulMomentsSeemsSpiritualLife IsMotherEvilCommonBehindsHe ManBrotherEarsDeedsScreensFamiliarImpulseTiesHidingConfessionHuman SoulUnspoken
Book:Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated)
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“At the center of the religious life is a peculiar kind of joy, the prospect of a happy ending that blossoms from necessarily painful ordeals, the promise of human difficulties embraced and overcome.”

HumansKindLife IsJoyReligiousPromiseOvercomingDifficultyPainfulPeculiarHappy EndingsOrdealsReligious Life
Book:The Way Things Are: Conversations with Huston Smith on the Spiritual Life
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“In the end, people don't view their life as merely the average of all its moments-which, after all, is mostly nothing much plus some sleep. For human beings, life is meaningful because it is a story. A story has a sense of a whole, and its arc is determined by the significant moments, the ones where something happens. Measurements of people's minute-by-minute levels of pleasure and pain miss this fundamental aspect of human existence. A seemingly happy life maybe empty. A seemingly difficult life may be devoted to a great cause. We have purposes larger than ourselves.”

PeopleHumansMayEndsWholeMomentsStoriesHappensPainLife IsPurposeCausesDifficultHuman BeingsSleepPleasureLevelsViewsExistenceMinutesMissingAspectEmptyFundamentalsAverageDeterminedMeaningfulSignificantThings HappenPlusHappy LifeDevotedMeasurementHuman ExistenceArcsPain And PleasureDifficult LifeSignificant Moments
Book:Being Mortal: Illness, Medicine and What Matters in the End
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“Like an explorer returned from a distant planet or another dimension, Suki Kim has many extraordinary tales to tell, among them how different--and how awful--life is for those who live in North Korea. The devil is in the details here, for her gritty narrative focuses on everyday events to reveal how repression shapes daily life, even for the most privileged. Yet Kim also bears witness to that part of the human soul that no oppressor can ever claim.”

HumansDifferentSoulLife IsEventsPlanetsBearsShapesDevilClaimsExtraordinaryEverydayDetailsTalesAwfulWitnessNarrativeDimensionsDaily LifePrivilegedKoreaHuman SoulNorth KoreaRepressionOppressorsExplorersKim
Author:Carlos Eire
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“A half century from now, our grandchildren are likely to look back at the era of mass employment in the market with the same sense of utter disbelief as we look upon slavery and serfdom in former times. The very idea that a human being's worth was measured almost exclusively by his or her productive output of goods and services and material wealth will seem primitive, even barbaric, and be regarded as a terrible loss of human value to our progeny living in a highly automated world where much of life is lived on the Collaborative Commons.”

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Book:The Zero Marginal Cost Society: The Internet of Things, the Collaborative Commons, and the Eclipse of Capitalism
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