Life is not something to be lived through: it is something to be lived up to. It is a privilege, not a penal servitude of so many decades on earth.
Interpretation
Life should be embraced as a privilege rather than endured as a burden.
This quote emphasizes the idea that life is a valuable experience that should be actively engaged with and cherished. Instead of merely getting through life as if it were a punishment, we should aspire to live it fully and with appreciation for the opportunities it presents.
In practice
In a motivational speech about pursuing aspirations, this quote inspires people to truly engage with their goals.
Plants grow most in the darkest hours preceding dawn; so do human souls. Nature always pays for a brave fight. Sometimes she pays in strengthened moral muscle, sometimes in deepened spiritual insight, sometimes in a broadening, mellowing, sweetening of the fibres of character,βbut she always pays.
Self-confidence without self-reliance is as useless as a cooking recipe without food. Self-confidence sees the possibilities of the individual; self-reliance realizes them. Self-confidence sees the angel in the unhewn block of marble; self-reliance carves it out for oneself.
Love, in the divine alchemy of life, transmutes all duties into privileges, all responsibilities into joys.
Care-charmer Sleep, son of the sable Night, Brother to Death, in silent darkness born, Relieve my languish and restore the light; With dark forgetting of my care return. And let the day be time enough to mourn The shipwreck of my ill adventured youth: Let waking eyes suffice to wail their scorn Without the torment of the night's untruth.
Life is obstinate and clings closest where it is most hated.
You're getting well,' Samuel said. 'Some people think it's an insult to the glory of their sickness to get well. But the time poultice is no respecter of glories. Everyone gets well if he waits around.
Like a morning dream, life becomes more and more bright the longer we live, and the reason of everything appears more clear. What has puzzled us before seems less mysterious, and the crooked paths look straighter as we approach the end.
Because I grew up in such tight spaces, I don't get manicures, pedicures. I'm not into cars, but I am into a fabulous house. I wanted the spiral staircase, clean sheets on the bed, to be able to take a shower.
We don't beat the Reaper by living longer. We beat the Reaper by living well.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.