Quotes to inspire and reflect

The two basic stories of all times are Cinderella and Jack the Giant Killer—the charm of women and the courage of men.

The “greatness” of literature cannot be determined solely by literary standards though we must remember that whether it is literature or not can be determined only by literary standards.

The unusual is only found in a very small percentage, except in literary creations, and that is exactly what makes literature.

There are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before.

O my soul, do not aspire to immortal life, but exhaust the limits of the possible.

With both agents and publishers hungry for bestsellers, literature will have to end up as a cottage industry.

We cannot all hope tocombine the pleasing qualities of good looks, brains, and eloquence.

It is of great use to the sailor to know the length of his line, though he cannot with it fathom all the depths of the ocean.

A good marksman may miss.

The thing I am most aware of is my limits. And this is natural; for 1 never, or almost never, occupy the middle of my cage; my whole being surges toward- the bars.

Men cease to interest us when we find their limitations.

I am not eternity, but a man; a part of the whole, as an hour is of the day.

Pity is for the living, envy is for the dead.

Science says: “We must live,” and seeks the means of prolonging, increasing, facilitating and amplifying life, of making it tolerable and acceptable; wisdom says: “We must die," and seeks how to make us die well.

Death's stamp gives value to the coin of life; making it possible to buy with life what is truly precious.

Oh Death where is thy sting! It has none. But life has.

One must take all one’s life to learn how to live, and, what will perhaps make you winder more, one must take all one’s life to learn how to die.

You will die not because you're ill, but because ' you’re alive.

The whole motley confusion of acts, omissions, regrets and hopes which is the life of each one of us finds in death, not meaning or explanation, but an end.

One wants to live, of course, indeed one only stays alive by virtue of the fear of death.

In the attempt to defeat death man has been inevitably obliged to defeat life, for the two are inextricably related. Life moves on to death, and to deny one is to deny the other.

Long life, and short, are by death made all one; for there is no long, nor short, to things that are no more.

The most rational cure after all for the inordinate fear of death is to set a just value on life.

Grieve not; though the journey of life be bitter, and the end unseen, there is no road which does not lead to an end.

A good life fears not life nor death.

Dying is as natural as living.

The whole life of instinct serves the one end of bringing about death.

It is better that we live ever so / Miserably than die in glory.

All our life is but a going out to the place of execution, to death.

Death is what men want when the anguish of living / is more than they can bear.

I think that the dying pray at the last not “please,” but “thank you,” as a guest thanks his host at the door.

If a man know not life which he hath seen, how shall he know death, which he hath not seen?

The golden years of my life are slipping by on stealthy feet at nightfall; there is a footprint in the dark, a bell strikes twelve, and the flying year is gone.

Thus my life is a flight and I lose everything and everything belongs to oblivion.

For the complete life, the perfect pattern includes old age as well as youth and maturity.

As I get older, my childhood self becomes more accessible to me, but selectively, in images as stylized and suspect as moments remembered from a novel read years ago.

Every stage of human life, except the last, is marked out by certain and defined limits; old age alone has no precise and determinate boundary.

There are but three events which concern men: birth, life, and death. They are unconscious of their birth, they suffer when they die, and they neglect to live.

Whoever is not in his coffin and the dark grave let him know he has enough.

Life is not governed by will or intention. Life is a question of nerves, and fibers, and slowly built-up cells in which thought hides itself and passion has its dreams.

Life is the saddest thing there is, next to death.

Life has a way of overgrowing its achievements as well as its ruins.

Children, who play life, discern its true law and relations more clearly than men, who fail to live it worthily, but who think that they are wiser by experience, that is, by failure.

What is a great life if not a youthful idea executed by the man of mature years?

Life, like a child, laughs, shaking its rattle of death as it runs.

Life is given to us, we earn it by giving it.

Life is a tragedy wherein we sit as spectators for a while and then act our part in it.

Everyday life is a stimulating mixture of order and haphazardly. The sun rises and sets on schedule but the wind bloweth where it listeth.