This is the true joy in life, being recognized by yourself as a mighty one, being a force of nature instead of a feverish clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live. I rejoice in life for it’s own sake; Life is no brief candle to me, it is a sort of splendid torch which I’ve got to hold up for a moment. I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations. --George Bernard Shaw (in A Splendid Torch)

For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin — real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way. Something to be got through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life. --Fr. Alfred D'Souza (in Obstacles of Life)

Life is a journey. We are passengers in a train called life, and we are alive in the moment called now. The journey of life is so beautiful that it needs no destination. On this journey, we have been given a compass. The compass is the thirst to be fulfilled. The true journey of life begins the day we begin to seek to quench our thirst. This quest is the most noble one. --Prem Rawat (in Passenger In A Train)

This life is yours. Take the power to choose what you want to do and do it well. Take the power to love what you want in life and love it honestly. Take the power to walk in the forest and be a part of nature. Take the power to control your own life. No one else can do it for you. Take the power to make your life happy. --Susan Polis Schutz (in The Artist Who Paints Disappearing Rain Forests)

For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin - real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life." --Alfred D. Souza (in 365 Days of Happiness)

Beauty is life when life unveils her holy face. But you are life and you are the veil. Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror. But you are eternity and you are the mirror. --Kahlil Gibran (in Untitled)

A life of reaction is a life of slavery, intellectually and spiritually. One must fight for a life of action, not reaction. --Rita Mae Brown (in Untitled)

Unfortunately, happiness is often equated with physical health and material goods. One of life's cruel paradoxes is that the more we are afraid of losing what we have, the less free we are. As much as we should cherish life, it is a slippery slope to becoming slaves to the fear of death. The most free men and women I have ever known are those who are not afraid of losing it all. They are not reckless about life but have simply and miraculously matched political freedom with spiritual freedom. --Bob Kerry (in Untitled)

Life is not a series of isolated ponds and puddles; life is this river you see below, before you. It flows from the past through the present on its way to the future. "Life is a river" she repeated. Only in the most literal sense are we born on the day we leave our mother's womb. In the larger, truer sense we are born of the past- connected to its fluidity both generationally and experientially. --From Wally Lamb's 'This Much I Know is True' (in Untitled)

Look to this day! For it is life, the very life of life. In its brief course Lie all the verities and realities of your existence: The bliss of growth The glory of action The splendor of achievement, For yesterday is but a dream And tomorrow is only a vision But today well lived makes every yesterday dream of happiness And tomorrow a vision of hope. Look well, therefore, to this day! Such is the salutation to the Dawn. --Kalidas (in Untitled)

The limited world and the absolute truth together form the wholeness of life. Life is indivisible, you cannot fragment it, you cannot divide it. So there is no problem in relating to the limited world. The crookedness, the violence you see them as they are and you relate to them. You have to not cooperate with the violence, you have to discourage the hatred, the possessiveness, the domination. You have to encourage the sharing psychology, the attitude of cooperation, the value of friendship. By your life you do it, by living you do it. --Vimala Thakar (in Indivisible Life)

It is the fate of every truth to be an object of ridicule when it is first acclaimed. It was once considered foolish to suppose that black men were really human beings and ought to be treated as such. What was once foolish has now become a recognized truth. Today it is considered as exaggeration to proclaim constant respect for every form of life as being the serious demand of a rational ethic. But the time is coming when people will be amazed that the human race existed so long before it recognized that thoughtless injury to life is incompatible with real ethics. Ethics is, in its unqualified form, extended responsibility to everything that has life. --Dr. Albert Schweitzer (in Ethics, Unqualified)

It appeals to our ego to consider what "we" have and what "they" need. I went to South Africa once, to a small village about 800km from Cape Town. The people were extremely poor; conditions were basic; alcoholism was rife. My first impression was typical of a Westerner. I thought 'These poor people...' and I thought about what "we", in the prosperous North, could offer people in poor developing countries. But, by the time I left, having been invited into homes, eaten and laughed with both kids and adults, talked to folk wherever I roamed, I came away thinking more about what they had to offer to us. The visit made me realize that in our greedy pursuit of wealth we have lost a great deal of what money cannot buy. Our value system has gotten out of kilter with what is important in life. The people I met had an abundance of natural generosity, exuberance, lust for life, sense of community and family. I am now more worried for us and the road we are walking, blinded by unconscious greed because we always look after number one. We all, rich and poor alike, have something very valuable to gain if we share the world resources more fairly, and if we look again at what is really valuable in life. --Fran Healey, singer and songwriter with 'Travis' (in We Have, They Need)

Money is something we choose to trade our life energy for...Our allotment of time here on earth, the hours of precious life available to us. When we go to our jobs, we are trading our life energy for money. The truth, while simple, is profound. --Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin from Your Money or Your Life (in Money)

The secret of life is to have a task, something you devote your entire life to, something you bring everything to, every minute of the day for the rest of your life. And the most important thing is, it must be something you cannot possibly do. --Henry Moore (English Sculptor, 1898-1986) (in Untitled)

Man can no longer live his life for himself alone. We realize that all life is valuable and that we are united to all this life. From this knowledge comes our spiritual relationship with the universe. --Albert Schweitzer (in The World as an Organization)

Beauty is life when life unveils her holy face. But you are life and you are the veil. Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror. But you are eternity and you are the mirror. --Kahlil Gibran (in The Woman Behind The Pink Ribbon)

The deeper we look into nature, the more we recognize that it is full of life, and the more profoundly we know that all life is a secret and that we are united with all life that is in nature. --Albert Schweitzer (in Kids Worldwide Help Orphan Chimps)

Reverence for life is more than solicitude or sensitivity for life. It is a sense of the whole, a capacity for inspired response, a respect for the intricate universe of individual life. --Norman Cousins (in Taiwan's Butterfly Freeway)

The deeper we look into nature, the more we recognize that it is full of life, and the more profoundly we know that all life is a secret and that we are united with all life that is in nature. --Albert Schweitzer (in The Encyclopedia of Life)

Two lives that once part are like ships that divide. There are two lives to each of us, the life of our actions, and the life of our minds and hearts. History reveals men's deeds and their outward characters, but not themselves. There is a secret self that has its own life, unpenetrated and unguessed. --Edward Bulwer-Lytton (in History Lessons For A Disinterested Daughter)

When you help, you see life as weak. When you fix, you see life as broken. When you serve, you see life as whole. Fixing and helping may be the work of the ego, and service the work of the soul. --Rachel Naomi Remen (in Teenage Hero of Dhaka's Slums)

Time = Life. Therefore, waste your time and waste your life, or master your time and master your life. --Alan Lakein (in A Low Electron Diet)

Simplicity of living means meeting life face to face. It means confronting life clearly, without unnecessary distractions. It means being direct and honest in relationships of all kinds. It means taking life as it is. --Duane Elgin (in The Spiritual Wisdom of Simplicity)

Life is not a spectator sport. If you're going to spend your whole life in the grandstand just watching what goes on, in my opinion you're wasting your life. --Jackie Robinson (in 9 Ways In Which The Culture of Watching Is Changing Us)

If you want life on your side or to be on the side of life against death you must surrender completely to life. --Agnes Martin (in Our Greatest Obstacle to Happiness and How to Transcend It)

The purpose of life is to discover your gift. The work of life is to develop it. The meaning of life is to give your gift away. --David Viscott (in Seven Ways to Help High Schoolers Find Purpose)

A mind that has no walls, that is not burdened with its own acquisitions, accumulations, with its own knowledge, a mind that lives timelessly, insecurely - to such a mind, life is an extraordinary thing. Such a mind is life itself, because life has no resting place. --Jiddu Krishnamurti- (in A Mind Seeking Permanency Soon Stagnates)

Don't go through life, GROW through life. --Eric Butterworth (in Untitled)

We eventually learn that spirituality is not about leaving life's problems behind, but about continually confronting them with honesty and courage. It is about ending our feeling of separation from others by healing our relationships with parents, co-workers,and friends. It is about bringing heightened awareness and compassion to our family life, careers, and community service. --J. Krishnamurti (in Untitled)

If logic tells us that life is a meaningless accident, don't give up on life. Give up on logic. --Harold Kushner (in Untitled)

Whosoever killeth a human being for other than manslaughter or corruption in the Earth, it shall be as if he had killed all mankind, and whosoever saveth the life of one, it shall be as if he had saved the life of all mankind. --Sura Maida, V.32 (Koran) (in Untitled)

Don't go through life, GROW through life. --Eric Butterworth (in Untitled)

An aged Chinese wise man was walking through a field of snow, when he came upon a woman weeping. "Why are you crying?" he asked. "Because I'm thinking about my life, my youth, the beauty that I saw in the mirror and the men I loved. God is cruel to have given the ability to remember. He knew that I would remember the spring of my life, and cry." The wise man stood there in the field of snow, staring at a fixed point and contemplating. At a certain point, the woman stopped crying: "What do you see there?" she asked. "A field of roses," answered the wise man. "God was generous with me when he gave me the ability to remember. He knew that in winter, I could always remember spring -- and smile." --Paulo Cohelo (in Untitled)

The changes in our life must come from the impossibility to live otherwise than according to the demands of our conscience...not from our mental resolution to try a new form of life. --Leo Tolstoy (in Untitled)

The opposite of love is not hatred but indifference. Thus, the opposite of beauty is not ugliness but indifference. The opposite of education is not ignorance but indifference. The opposite of life is not death but indifference to life and death. --Ellie Weisel (in Untitled)

An authentic life is the most personal form of worship. Everyday life has become my prayer. --Sarah Ban Breathnach (in Untitled)

For everything that lives is holy, life delights in life. --William Blake (in Untitled)

We can describe "voluntary simplicity" as a manner of living that is outwardly more simple and inwardly more rich, a way of being in which our most authentic and alive self is brought into direct and conscious contact with living. This way of life is not a static condition to be achieved, but an ever changing balance that must be continuously and consciously made real. Simplicity in this sense is not simple. To maintain a skillful balance between the inner and outer aspects of our lives is an enormously challenging and continuously changing process. The objective is not to dogmatically live with less, but is a more demanding intention of living with balance in order to find a life of greater purpose, fulfillment and satisfaction. --Duane Elgin (in Untitled)

"Life is life -- whether in a cat, or dog or man. There is no difference there between a cat or a man. The idea of difference is a human conception for man's own advantage." --Sri Aurobindo (in Untitled)

For a bowl of water give a goodly meal; For a kindly greeting bow thou down with zeal; For a simple penny pay thou back with gold; If thy life be rescued, life do not withhold. Thus the words and actions of the wise regard; Every little service tenfold the reward. But the truly noble know all men as one, And return with gladness good for evil done. --Influential poem in Gandhi's life (in Untitled)

Your actions in life set your course and determine the destination of your travels. Your reactions in life create the climate in which you travel. --Beth Johnson (in Untitled)

People spend their whole life pursuing everything. Indeed, their spirits are buried alive by everything. How can it be that layers of prison are what we pursue in life? --Chi Tan (in Untitled)

If you want to know your past life, look into your present condition; if you want to know your future life, look at your present actions. --Padmasambhava (in Untitled)

The highest good is like water. Water gives life to the ten thousand things and does not strive. It flows in places men reject and so is like the Tao. In dwelling, be close to the land. In meditation, go deep in the heart. In dealing with others, be gentle and kind. In speech, be true. In ruling, be just. In daily life, be competent. In action, be aware of the time and the season. No fight: No blame. --Lao Tzu (in Untitled)

To love is the greatest thing in life; it is very important to talk about love, to feel it, to nourish it, to treasure it, otherwise it will soon be dissipated, for the world is very brutal. If while you are young you don't feel love, if you don't look with love at people, at animals, at flowers, when you grow up you find that your life is empty; you will be very lonely, and the dark shadows of fear will follow you always. But the moment you have in your heart this extraordinary thing called love and feel the depth, the delight, the ecstasy of it, you will discover that for you the world is transformed. --Krishnamurti (in Untitled)

We were talking-about the space between us all And the people-who hide themselves behind a wall of illusion Never glimpse the truth-then it's far too late-when they pass away. We were talking-about the love we all could share-when we find it To try our best to hold it there-with our love With our love-we could save the world-if they only knew. Try to realize it's all within yourself no-one else can make you change And to see you're really only very small, and life flows on within you and without you. We were talking-about the love that's gone so cold and the people, Who gain the world and lose their soul- they don't know-they can't see-are you one of them? When you've seen beyond yourself-then you may find, peace of mind is waiting there- And the time will come when you see we're all one, and life flows on within you and without you. --George Harrison (in Untitled)

Innocence alone can be passionate. The innocent have no sorrow, no suffering, though they have had a thousand experiences. It is not the experiences that corrupt the mind but what they leave behind, the residue, the scars, the memories. These accumulate, pile one on top of the other, and then sorrow begins. This sorrow is time. Where time is, innocency is not. Passion is not born of sorrow. Sorrow is experience, the experience of everyday life, the life of agony and fleeting pleasures, fears and certainties. You cannot escape from experiences, but they need not take root in the soil of the mind. These roots give rise to problems, conflicts and constant struggle. There is no way out of this but to die each day to every yesterday. The clear mind alone can be passionate. Without passion you cannot see the breeze among the leaves or the sunlight on the water. Without passion, there is no love. --J. Krishnamurti (in Untitled)

The mind seeks to nail life down and get it to stop moving and changing. When this doesn't work, the mind begins to seek the changeless, the eternal, something that doesn't move. But the mind of thought is itself an expression of life's movement and so must always be in movement itself. --Adyashanti (in Untitled)

I ain't got no checkbook and I ain't got no credit cards. To me money is a lot like water. For some folks it rushes through their life like a raging river. Money comes through my life like a trickle. But I want to pass it on in a way that does some good for the most folks. --Gertrude, in 'Soul of Money' (in Untitled)