A book, too, can be a star, 'explosive material, capable of stirring up fresh life endlessly,' a living fire to lighten the darkness, leading out into the expanding universe. --Madeleine L'Engle (in A Reading List For The Spirit)

Life is as dear to a mute creature, as it is to man. Just as one wants happiness and fears pain, just as one wants to live and not die, so do other creatures. --Dalai Lama (in The Vet Who Is Saving India's Orphaned Animals)

I am confused by life, and I feel safe within the confines of the theatre. --Helen Hayes (in Broadway Theater Gives Troubled Teens a Second Act)

To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson (in More Than Your Average Cup of Joe)

People's great creativity and diversity, our desire for contribution and relationships, blossom when the heart of our community is clear and beckoning, and when we refrain from cluttering our paths with proscriptions and demands. The future of community is best taught to us by life. --Margaret Wheatley (in The Promise & Paradox of Community)

Music is the language of the spirit. It opens the secret of life bringing peace, abolishing strife. --Kahlil Gibran (in Luc and the Lovingtons: Music as a Force of Love)

Grit is living life like it's a marathon, not a sprint. --Angela Duckworth (in Beyond Grit: The Science of Creativity, Purpose and Motivation)

Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.
--Marcus Aurelius (in Red Onions: Transformed by Beauty)

And this, our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything. --William Shakespeare (in The Axis & the Sycamore)

There is something in the nature of tea that leads us into a world of quiet contemplation of life. --Lin Yutang (in Wu De: Tea Is the Great Connector)

Gratefulness is that fullness of life for which we are all thirsting. -- Brother David Steindl-Rast (in Gratefulness: An Opportunity to Practice)

The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit. --Nelson Henderson (in Graduation: A Song & Speech for the Ages)

Every life speaks to the power of what can be done. --Oprah Winfrey (in Give That Which is Organic To You: A Recipe to Avoid Burnout)

Somebody should tell us, right at the start of our lives, that we are dying. Then we might live life to the limit, every minute of every day. Do it! I say. Whatever you want to do, do it now! --Pope Paul VI (in What Makes Life Worth Living in the Face of Death?)

The energy of the mind is the essence of life. --Aristotle (in Another World)

There is a secret in all things. And that secret...makes life and reality and the moment so full, so vast... --Enrique Martínez Celaya (in The Whisper of the Order of Things)

Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life. --- Berthold Auerbach - (in Between Medicine and Music)

Every noble life leaves its fibre interwoven forever in the work of the world. --John Ruskin (in The Age of We Need Each Other)

Life is an adventure, it's not a package tour. --Eckhart Tolle (in Koan: A Conversation with Vaea Marx)

For life and death are one, even as the river and sea are one. --Kahlil Gibran (in The Life of Death)

When it comes to life, the critical thing is whether you take things for granted or whether you take them with gratitude. --G.K.Chesterton (in Getting to Cleveland: Seth Godin on Gratitude)

One, remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Two, never give up work. Work gives you meaning and purpose and life is empty without it. Three, if you are lucky enough to find love, remember it is there and don't throw it away.
--Stephen Hawking (in Reimagining the Cosmos)

Our emotions need to be as educated as our intellect. It is important to know how to feel, how to respond, and how to let life in so that it can touch you. --Jim Rohn (in The Modernization of Finnish Lament Singing)

What is the essence of life? To serve others and to do good. --Aristotle (in Edmund Benson: A Life of Hard Work and Giving Back)

Gratitude for the present moment and the fullness of life now is true prosperity. --Eckhart Tolle (in Training Our Trains of Thought)

To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong. --Joseph Chilton Pearce (in Business Lessons from the World of Improv)

Every aspect of your life is anchored energetically in your living space, so clearing clutter can completely transform your entire existence. --Karen Kingston (in The Art of Cleaning)

Be happy for this moment. This moment is your life. --Omar Khayyam (in Happiness Experts on Why Mind Wandering Can Be So Miserable )

When we recognize the precariousness of life, we understand that we are in the boat together...The willingness to contemplate death is not just about preparing for some moment at the end of a long road. --Frank Ostaseski (in Frank Ostaseski; Lessons to the Living from the Dying)

Wisdom is knowing I am nothing,
Love is knowing I am everything,
and between the two my life moves. --Nisargadatta Maharaj (in The Man Who Wasn't There: Explorations at the Edge of Self)

To learn that the most practical thing in life is to be idealistic is an enormous gift. --Godfrey Reggio (in A Call for Another Way of Living)

With an eye made quiet by the power of harmony, and the deep power of joy, we see into the life of things. --William Wordsworth (in Finding Your Moment of Obligation)

Smile at strangers and you just might change a life. ---Steve Maraboli- (in An Unlikely Friendship Reignites Two Artists)

True self tells us who we are, where we are planted in the ecosystem of life, what "right action" looks like for us, and how we can grow more fully into our own potentials. --Parker Palmer (in That Friend Walking Behind Me)

Self-awareness, intelligence, and the search for meaning that have --erroneously-- been ascribed as belonging only to human beings, are in fact general conditions for every life-form -- and particularly for plants. --Stephen Harrod Buhner (in The Intelligence of Plants)

The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with Nature. ---Joseph Campbell- (in The Heartbeat of a Drum)

There is more to life than increasing its speed. --Mahatma Gandhi (in The Empty Promise of Productivity and the Art of Slowing Down)

Even when life challenges us, it's a gift beyond all measure. --Parker Palmer (in The Politics of the Brokenhearted)

When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down 'happy'. They told me I didn't understand the assignment, and I told them they didn't understand life. --John Lennon (in The Happiness Multiplier Effect)

For life and death are one, even as the river and sea are one. --Khahil Gibran (in Margaret Wheatley: Warriors for the Human Spirit)

Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood. --Helen Keller (in Dan Millman: No Ordinary Moments in the School of Life)

What at first glance what may appear to be messy and inefficient may actually be life experimenting -- discovering what is possible. --Margaret Wheatley (in The Unplanned Organization)

Three things in human life are important: the first is to be kind; the second is to be kind; and the third is to be kind. --Henry James (in David Fryburg: Inspiring Kindness Through Images)

We are so achievement-oriented that we often surge right by the true value of relating to what's before us, because we think that accomplishing things will complete us, when it is experiencing life that will. --Mark Nepo from (in The Secret to Happiness Around the World)

Life is much less a competitive struggle for survival than a triumph of cooperation and creativity. --Fritjof Capra (in Fritjof Capra on Life and Leadership)

Life and death are one thread, the same line viewed from different sides. --Lao Tzu (in When Gratitude Holds Hands with Grief)

I've found that many of the decisions in my life involving change have come from the heart. --Judy Wicks (in Good Morning, Beautiful Business!)

Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage. --Anais Nin (in The Butterfly Child)

Life seems to have one question it asks us over and over: will you have your heart broken with something you care about? --David Whyte (in The renowned poet David Whyte has learned to walk on the borders)

Once we view the economy as supporting a meaningful, comfortable life for everyone in a sustainable world, then we can use economic growth to provide the goods and services we actually want, that actually benefit the people and the planet. --Clair Brown (in Creating a Compassionate Economy)