QuoteProject
Life has a practice of living you, if you don't live it.
Philip Larkin
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

If you don't actively engage with life, it will carry you along without your input.

This quote by Philip Larkin suggests that life is not merely something we observe or passively experience; rather, it requires active participation. If one fails to engage with their own existence, they may find themselves being directed by circumstances rather than making conscious choices that shape their own paths.

Themes

LifeLivingEngagementParticipationExperience

In practice

Example use cases

This quote can be used in a motivational speech about taking charge of one's life.

More from Philip Larkin

Never such innocence, Never before or since, As changed itself to past Without a word--the men Leaving the gardens tidy, The thousands of marriages Lasting a little while longer: Never such innocence again.
Philip LarkinRead
Uncontradicting solitude Supports me on its giant palm; And like a sea-anemone Or simple snail, there cautiously Unfolds, emerges, what I am.
Philip LarkinRead
Saki says that youth is like hors d'oeuvres: you are so busy thinking of the next courses you don't notice it. When you've had them, you wish you'd had more hors d'oeuvres.
Philip LarkinRead
Above all, though, children are linked to adults by the simple fact that they are in process of turning into them. For this they may be forgiven much. Children are bound to be inferior to adults, or there is no incentive to grow up.
Philip LarkinRead
Originality is being different from oneself, not others.
Philip LarkinRead
I can't understand these chaps who go round American universities explaining how they write poems: It's like going round explaining how you sleep with your wife.
Philip LarkinRead

Similar quotes

There are people looking for exactly what you have to offer, and you are being brought together on the checkerboard of life.
Louise HayRead
Life is not so idiotically mathematical that only the big eat the small; it is just as common for a bee to kill a lion or at least to drive it mad.
August StrindbergRead
Death comes for us all. Even for kings he comes.
Robert BoltRead
My lifetime’s memories are what I have brought home from the trip. I will require them for eternity no more than that little souvenir of the Eiffel Tower I brought home from Paris.
Roger EbertRead
We are like boxers, one never knows how much longer one has
Clint EastwoodRead
We are not perfect. The people around us are not perfect. People do things that annoy, disappoint, and anger. In this mortal life it will always be that way. Nevertheless, we must let go of our grievances. Part of the purpose of mortality is to learn how to let go of such things. That is the Lord’s way. Remember, heaven is filled with those who have this in common: They are forgiven. And they forgive.
Dieter F. UchtdorfRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.