Quotes about life
How to live, how quickly it goes and what to do with it. A broad collection of quotes about life from writers across two and a half thousand years.
The library has 9,070 quotes on this topic. Here are 60 of the most quoted, no more than four from any one writer.
60 quotes about life
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He was a man, take him for all in all, I shall not look upon his like again.
William Shakespeare Hamlet, Act i. Sc. 2 -
His life was gentle, and the elements So mix’d in him, that Nature might stand up And say to all the world, “This was a man!”
William Shakespeare Julius Caesar, Act v. Sc. 5 -
You have too much respect upon the world: They lose it that do buy it with much care.
William Shakespeare The Merchant of Venice, Act i. Sc. 1 -
Why, then the world’s mine oyster, Which I with sword will open.
William Shakespeare The Merry Wives of Windsor, Act ii. Sc. 2 -
Farewell! a word that must be, and hath been,—A sound which makes us linger; yet—farewell!
Lord Byron Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto iv. Stanza 186 -
Which is the best government? That which teaches us to govern ourselves.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Maxims and Reflections, Life and Character, No. 225 · translated by T. Bailey Saunders -
Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; The proper study of mankind is man.
Alexander Pope Essay on Man. Epistle ii, Line 1 -
Nor love thy life, nor hate; but what thou liv’st Live well: how long or short permit to heaven.
John Milton Paradise Lost, Book xi. Line 553 -
Who surpasses or subdues mankind Must look down on the hate of those below.
Lord Byron Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage -
None are so desolate but something dear, Dearer than self, possesses or possess’d A thought, and claims the homage of a tear.
Lord Byron Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto ii. Stanza 24 -
But ’midst the crowd, the hum, the shock of men, To hear, to see, to feel, and to possess, And roam along, the world’s tired denizen, With none who bless us, none whom we can bless.
Lord Byron Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto ii. Stanza 26 -
Ofttimes nothing profits more Than self-esteem, grounded on just and right.
John Milton Paradise Lost -
What boots it at one gate to make defence, And at another to let in the foe?
John Milton Samson Agonistes, Line 560 -
Before man made us citizens, great Nature made us men.
James Russell Lowell On the Capture of Fugitive Slaves near Washington -
Creation’s heir, the world, the world is mine!
Oliver Goldsmith The Traveller, Line 50 -
As one who long in populous city pent, Where houses thick and sewers annoy the air.
John Milton Paradise Lost, Book ix. Line 445 -
Lives of great men all remind us We can make our lives sublime, And departing, leave behind us Footprints on the sands of time.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow A Psalm of Life -
On life’s vast ocean diversely we sail, Reason the card, but passion is the gale.
Alexander Pope Essay on Man. Epistle ii, Line 107 -
There is no fire like passion, there is no shark like hatred, there is no snare like folly, there is no torrent like greed.
The Buddha Dhammapada, v. 251 · translated by F. Max Müller -
Who shall decide when doctors disagree, And soundest casuists doubt, like you and me?
Alexander Pope Moral Essays. Epistle iii, Line 1 -
Worth makes the man, and want of it the fellow; The rest is all but leather or prunello.
Alexander Pope Essay on Man. Epistle iv, Line 203 -
He who formerly was reckless and afterwards became sober, brightens up this world, like the moon when freed from clouds.
The Buddha Dhammapada, v. 172 · translated by F. Max Müller -
Yon foaming flood seems motionless as ice; Its dizzy turbulence eludes the eye, Frozen by distance.
William Wordsworth Address to Kilchurn Castle -
Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.
Francis Bacon Of Studies -
Think naught a trifle, though it small appear; Small sands the mountain, moments make the year, And trifles life.
Edward Young Love of Fame, Satire vi. Line 208 -
Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other, and scarce in that; for it is true we may give advice, but we cannot give conduct.
Benjamin Franklin Autobiography -
Man wants but little here below, Nor wants that little long.
Oliver Goldsmith The Hermit, Chap. viii. Stanza 8 -
Thought is the property of him who can entertain it, and of him who can adequately place it.
Ralph Waldo Emerson Representative Men. Shakespeare -
Discontent is the want of self-reliance: it is infirmity of will.
Ralph Waldo Emerson Essays. First Series. Self-Reliance -
Proverbs, like the sacred books of each nation, are the sanctuary of the intuitions.
Ralph Waldo Emerson Essays. First Series. Compensation -
Is not marriage an open question, when it is alleged, from the beginning of the world, that such as are in the institution wish to get out, and such as are out wish to get in?
Ralph Waldo Emerson Representative Men. Montaigne -
Earth’s noblest thing,—a woman perfected.
James Russell Lowell Irené -
Nothing is more terrible than ignorance in action.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Maxims and Reflections, Life and Character, No. 231 · translated by T. Bailey Saunders -
The greatest of faults, I should say, is to be conscious of none.
Thomas Carlyle Heroes and Hero-Worship. The Hero as a Prophet -
Men who can hear the Decalogue, and feel no self-reproach.
William Wordsworth The Old Cumberland Beggar -
How indestructibly the good grows, and propagates itself, even among the weedy entanglements of evil!
Thomas Carlyle Sartor Resartus -
Little strokes fell great oaks.
Benjamin Franklin Maxims prefixed to Poor Richard’s Almanac, 1757 -
Orthodoxy is the Bourbon of the world of thought. It learns not, neither can it forget.
Thomas Henry Huxley Aphorisms and Reflections, No. LVII -
He has paid dear, very dear, for his whistle.
Benjamin Franklin The Whistle. November, 1779 -
The cattle are grazing, Their heads never raising; There are forty feeding like one!
William Wordsworth The Cock is crowing -
Be your character what it will, it will be known; and nobody will take it upon your own word.
Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield Letters to His Son -
He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper.
Edmund Burke Reflections on the Revolution in France. Vol. iii. p. 453 -
Handsome is that handsome does.
Oliver Goldsmith Vicar of Wakefield, Chap. i -
Knowledge is more than equivalent to force.
Samuel Johnson Rasselas, Chap. xiii -
One half of the world knows not how the other half lives.
François Rabelais -
History is indeed little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.
Edward Gibbon -
Where village statesmen talk’d with looks profound, And news much older than their ale went round.
Oliver Goldsmith The Deserted Village, Line 223 -
This world is all a fleeting show, For man’s illusion given; The smiles of joy, the tears of woe, Deceitful shine, deceitful flow,—There’s nothing true but Heaven.
Thomas Moore This World is all a fleeting Show -
Nor rural sights alone, but rural sounds, Exhilarate the spirit, and restore The tone of languid nature.
William Cowper The Task, Book i. The Sofa. Line 181 -
Good to the heels the well-worn slipper feels When the tired player shuffles off the buskin; A page of Hood may do a fellow good After a scolding from Carlyle or Ruskin.
Oliver Wendell Holmes How not to settle it -
What can’t be cured must be endured.
Robert Burton Anatomy of Melancholy, Part ii. Sect. 2, Memb. 3 -
Make a virtue of necessity.
Robert Burton Anatomy of Melancholy, Part iii. Sect. 3, Memb. 4, Subsect. 1 -
Something between a hindrance and a help.
William Wordsworth Michael -
You may recognise the utility of an idea, and yet not quite understand how to make a perfect use of it.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Maxims and Reflections, Life and Character, No. 352 · translated by T. Bailey Saunders -
He who holds back rising anger like a rolling chariot, him I call a real driver; other people are but holding the reins.
The Buddha Dhammapada, v. 222 · translated by F. Max Müller -
Is there in this world any man so restrained by humility that he does not mind reproof, as a well-trained horse the whip?
The Buddha Dhammapada, v. 143 · translated by F. Max Müller -
It is a difficult role, and so much the greater will be the honor if you perform it well.
Abraham Lincoln February 26 -
A jury has too frequently at least one member more ready to hang the panel than to hang the traitor.
Abraham Lincoln August 18 -
We are never further from our wishes than when we fancy we possess the object of them.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Maxims and Reflections, Life and Character, No. 267 · translated by T. Bailey Saunders -
Wise counsels may accelerate, or mistakes delay it, but the victory is sure to come.
Abraham Lincoln September 27
Who wrote most about life
- William Shakespeare 830
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 811
- Thomas Carlyle 322
- Ralph Waldo Emerson 308
- Horace 211
- Thomas Henry Huxley 180
- Alexander Pope 173
- Abraham Lincoln 158
- John Milton 130
- Friedrich Schiller 127
- Lord Byron 114
- Oliver Goldsmith 110