Quotes to inspire and reflect

Do you believe in immortality? No, and one life is enough for me.

Life is like an onion: you peel it off one layer at a time, and sometimes you weep.

The major value in life is not what you get. The major value in life is what you become.

What a wonderful life I've had! I only wish I'd realized it sooner.

The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved - loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves.

How much of human life is lost in waiting.

Your life does not get better by chance, it gets better by change.

The soul is born old but grows young. That is the comedy of life. And the body is born young and grows old. That is life's tragedy.

I believe you should live each day as if it is your last, which is why I don't have any clean laundry, because, come on, who wants to wash clothes on the last day of their life?

To live in this world, you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and, when the time comes to let it go, to let it go.

When I look back on all these worries, I remember the story of the old man who said on his deathbed that he had had a lot of trouble in his life, most of which had never happened.

Life is too important to be taken seriously.

If you believed more in life you would fling yourself less to the moment.

If I had my life to live over again, I'd be a plumber.

Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving.

Execute every act of thy life as though it were thy last.

Life wastes itself while we are preparing to live.

It is not length of life, but depth of life.

To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children...to leave the world a better place...to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.

Let us not underestimate the privileges of the mediocre. As one climbs higher, life becomes ever harder; the coldness increases, responsibility increases.

We can have in life but one great experience at best, and the secret of life is to reproduce that experience as often as possible.

What we are today comes from our thoughts of yesterday, and our present thoughts build our life of tomorrow: Our life is the creation of our mind.

What if a demon were to creep after you one night, in your loneliest loneliness, and say, 'This life which you live must be lived by you once again and innumerable times more; and every pain and joy and thought and sigh must come again to you, all in the same sequence. The eternal hourglass will again and again be turned and you with it, dust of the dust!' Would you throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse that demon? Or would you answer, 'Never have I heard anything more divine'?

Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.

Looking good and dressing well is a necessity. Having a purpose in life is not.

How strange is the lot of us mortals! Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he senses it. But without deeper reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people.

If you have abandoned one faith, do not abandon all faith. There is always an alternative to the faith we lose. Or is it the same faith under another name?

Everyone who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the Universe – a spirit vastly superior to that of man…

To devote your life to the good of all and to the happiness of all is religion. Whatever you do for your own sake is not religion.

Religions die when they are proved to be true. Science is the record of dead religions.

Freedom prospers when religion is vibrant and the rule of law under God is acknowledged.

A cult is a religion with no political power.

Doubt is part of all religion. All the religious thinkers were doubters.

Religion is not a popular error; it is a great instinctive truth, sensed by the people, expressed by the people.

Where knowledge ends, religion begins.

The main object of religion is not to get a man into heaven, but to get heaven into him.

To die for a religion is easier than to live it absolutely.

Religion is the impotence of the human mind to deal with occurrences it cannot understand.

I do not know how to teach philosophy without becoming a disturber of established religion.

Science can purify religion from error and superstition. Religion can purify science from idolatry and false absolutes.

A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side.

The idea of a good society is something you do not need a religion and eternal punishment to buttress; you need a religion if you are terrified of death.

Religion is the masterpiece of the art of animal training, for it trains people as to how they shall think.

Whenever a taboo is broken, something good happens, something vitalizing. Taboos after all are only hangovers, the product of diseased minds, you might say, of fearsome people who hadn't the courage to live and who under the guise of morality and religion have imposed these things upon us.

When superstition goes, religion remains.

Just in terms of allocation of time resources, religion is not very efficient. There's a lot more I could be doing on a Sunday morning.

Man is the religious animal. He is the only religious animal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion –- several of them. He is the only animal that loves his neighbor as himself and cuts his throat, if his theology isn't straight.

There is no surer sign of decay in a country than to see the rites of religion held in contempt.