Life and Existence

Is not life a hundred times too short for us to bore ourselves?

Be glad of life because it gives you the chance to love and to work and to play and to look up at the stars.

The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing.

There is only one difference between a long life and a good dinner: that, in the dinner, the sweets come last.

There is only one difference between a long life and a good dinner: that, in the dinner, the sweets come last.

We are all mortal until the first kiss and the second glass of wine.

Seize from every moment its unique novelty, and do not prepare your joys.

Life is not dated merely by years. Events are sometimes the best calendars.

Life is not dated merely by years. Events are sometimes the best calendars.

You only live once. But if you work it right, once is enough.

You only live once. But if you work it right, once is enough.

Every man regards his own life as the New Year’s Eve of time.

I love best to have each thing in its season, doing without it at all other times.

Butterflies count not months but moments, and yet have time enough.

A man who has to be punctually at a certain place at five o’clock has the whole afternoon ruined for him already.

A man who has to be punctually at a certain place at five o’clock has the whole afternoon ruined for him already.

Time marks us while we are marking time.

Snatching the eternal out of the desperately fleeting is the great magic trick of human existence.

Snatching the eternal out of the desperately fleeting is the great magic trick of human existence.

Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in.

Man creates culture and through culture creates himself.

I created nothing; I invented nothing; I imagined nothing; I perverted nothing; I simply discovered drama in real life.

Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.

Perfectionism is the enemy of creation, as extreme self-solicitude is the enemy of well-being.