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.
It's like many other things in life, Ellie. You keep on the path and all's well. You get off it and the next thing you know you're lost if you're not lucky.
A broom is drearily sweeping up the broken pieces of yesterday's life.
So you can't dance? Not at all? Not even one step? How can you say that you've taken any trouble to live when you won't even dance?
Each time I think I've created time for myself, along comes a throwback to disrupt my private space.
I don't think I was particularly in need of superheroes. I never had any fascination with Superman or Spider-Man or a Batman kind of character. If it happened at all, it was imagined characters that I had invented. My dad was a role model for me. He was a fascinating man. There was intrigue and entertainment growing up with him. He gave me an edict that I still pursue: βLife should never be boring."
When you grow up poor, you dream of just having a hom, and a bed that's clean - that's a sanctuary. Having a really great husband, a child who's healthy and happy and brings me joy - all of that has been my dream.
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