Humanism is the philosophy that you should be a good guest at the dinner table of life.
A.C. GraylingRead
A human lifespan is less than a thousand months long. You need to make some time to think how to live it.
Interpretation
Life is short, and we must reflect on how we want to live it.
The quote by A.C. Grayling emphasizes the brevity of human life, equating it to a mere thousand months, which serves as a reminder that we have a limited time to contemplate our existence and choices. It urges individuals to take a step back and think critically about their lives, the impact of their actions, and the legacy they wish to leave behind, highlighting the importance of intentional living and self-reflection.
In practice
This quote can be used in a commencement speech to encourage graduates to think deeply about their futures.
Humanism is the philosophy that you should be a good guest at the dinner table of life.
It takes a certain ingenuous faith - but I have it - to believe that people who read and reflect more likely than not come to judge things with liberality and truth.
It doesn't have to be the Grand Canyon, it could be a city street, it could be the face of another human being - Everything is full of wonder.
People spend a lifetime thinking abouthow they would really like to live. I asked my friends and no one seems to know very clearly. To me, it's very clear now. I wish my life could have been like the years when I was writing 'Love in the Time of Cholera.'
I'm the luckiest broad on two feet, I'll tell you that. They say once a woman passes 40 she doesn't get any good parts, so I'm blessed.
I worry hope will crush me, the way love has so many times before. Are they so different, hope and love? O & E in the same place, half of the other in each word. Both swimming in unknowns. Iβve been through the big changes. These ones should seem easier in comparison, I should be more prepared, but they donβt and Iβm not. Sometimes I feel like a broken-wing butterfly, clinging to a window screen. Afraid to let go. Afraid to stay. Wondering how much wing is enough to fly.
Instructions for living a life. Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.
Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the same horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time. That is the life of men. Now, women forget all those things they don't want to remember, and remember everything they don't want to forget. The dream is the truth. Then they act and do things accordingly.
This is the middle of my life, I think of it as a place, like the middle of a river, the middle of a bridge, halfway across, halfway over. I'm supposed to have accumulated things by now: possessions, responsibilities, achievements, experience and wisdom. I'm supposed to be a person of substance.
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