Quotes on Life

My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.

I've got nothing to do today but smile.

...You can only subject people to anguish who have a conscience. You can only punish people who have hopes to frustrate or attachments to sever; who worry what you think of them. You can really only punish people who are already a little bit good.

Life is like arriving late for a movie, having to figure out what was going on without bothering everybody with a lot of questions, and then being unexpectedly called away before you find out how it ends.

Above all, be the heroine of your life, not the victim.

As to conforming outwardly and living your own life inwardly, I do not think much of that.

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever: Its loveliness increases; it will never Pass into nothingness; but still will keep A bower quiet for us, and a sleep Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.

The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.

Every life deserves a certain amount of dignity, no matter how poor or damaged the shell that carries it.

When there is a tendency to compartmentalize the spiritual and make it resident in a certain type of life only, the spiritual is apt gradually to be lost.

There are no tricks in plain and simple faith.

Your only obligation in any lifetime is to be true to yourself.

At every moment of our lives, we all have one foot in a fairy tale and the other in the abyss.

No matter what he does, every person on earth plays a central role in the history of the world. And normally he doesn't know it.

When a person is lucky enough to live inside a story, to live inside an imaginary world, the pains of this world disappear. For as long as the story goes on, reality no longer exists.

The purpose of all the major religious traditions is not to construct big temples on the outside, but to create temples of goodness and compassion inside, in our hearts.

A truly compassionate attitude toward others does not change even if they behave negatively or hurt you.

Wisdom comes from experience. Experience is often a result of lack of wisdom.

Oh, it's delightful to have ambitions. I'm so glad I have such a lot. And there never seems to be any end to them-- that's the best of it. Just as soon as you attain to one ambition you see another one glittering higher up still. It does make life so interesting.

Where lowland is, that's where water goes. All medicine wants is pain to cure.

They were renewed by love; the heart of each held infinite sources of life for the heart of the other.