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,—but 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.
Whatever I have tried to do in life, I have tried with all my heart to do it well; whatever I have devoted myself to, I have devoted myself completely; in great aims and in small I have always thoroughly been in earnest.
The whole life of man is but a point of time; let us enjoy it.
We're all trying to get to the same island — whether you swim, fly, surf, or skydive, it doesn't matter. What matters is when the red light goes on.
I love running cross-country...You come up a hill and see two deer going, 'What the hell is he doing?' On a track I feel like a hamster.
Getting old is not a matter of age; it's a lack of # movement . And the ultimate lack of movement is death.
Nobody’s going to save you. No one’s going to cut you down, cut the thorns thick around you. No one’s going to storm the castle walls nor kiss awake your birth, climb down your hair, nor mount you onto the white steed. There is no one who will feed the yearning. Face it. You will have to do, do it yourself.
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