Inspirational Quotes on Life

“Yet that grief and this joy were alike outside all the ordinary conditions of life; they were loop-holes, as it were, in that ordinary life through which there came glimpses of something sublime. And in the contemplation of this sublime something the soul was exalted to inconceivable heights of which it had before had no conception which reason lagged behind, unable to keep up with it.”

“Then she thought of how life could still be happy, and how tormentingly she loved and hated him, and how terribly her heart was pounding.”

“When the peasants and their song had vanished from his sight and hearing, a heavy feeling of anguish at his loneliness, his bodily idleness, his hostility to this world, came over him...It was all drowned in the sea of cheerful common labor. God had given the day, God had given the strength. Both day and strength had been devoted to labour and in that lay the reward...Levin had often admired this life, had often experienced a feeling of envy for the people who lived this life, but that day for the first time...the thought came clearly to Levin that it was up to him to change that so burdensome, idle, artificial and individual life he lived into this laborious, pure and common, lovely life.”

“This very pride in keeping his word was that he was keeping it to miscreants. It was his last triumph over these lunatics to go down into their dark room and die for something that they could not even understand. The barrel-organ seemed to give the marching tune with the energy and the mingled noises of a whole orchestra; and he could hear deep and rolling, under all the trumpets of the pride of life, the drums of the pride of death.”

“I was waiting for you," said Gregory. "Might I have a moment's conversation?" "Certainly. About what?" asked Syme in a sort of weak wonder. Gregory struck out with his stick at the lamp-post, and then at the tree. "About this and this," he cried; "about order and anarchy. There is your precious order, that lean, iron lamp, ugly and barren; and there is anarchy, rich, living, reproducing itself--there is anarchy, splendid in green and gold." "All the same," replied Syme patiently, "just at present you only see the tree by the light of the lamp. I wonder when you would ever see the lamp by the light of the tree.”

“The most perfect life develops as a circle, and terminates in its beginning, making it impossible to say, This is the commencement, that the end.”

“I once was a stranger to grace and to God, I knew not my danger, and felt not my load; Though friends spoke in rapture of Christ on the tree, Jehovah Tsidkenu was nothing to me. I oft read with pleasure, to sooth or engage, Isaiah’s wild measure and John’s simple page; But e’en when they pictured the blood sprinkled tree Jehovah Tsidkenu seemed nothing to me. Like tears from the daughters of Zion that roll, I wept when the waters went over His soul; Yet thought not that my sins had nailed to the tree Jehovah Tsidkenu—’twas nothing to me. When free grace awoke me, by light from on high, Then legal fears shook me, I trembled to die; No refuge, no safety in self could I see— Jehovah Tsidkenu my Saviour must be. My terrors all vanished before the sweet Name; My guilty fears banished, with boldness I came To drink at the fountain, life giving and free— Jehovah Tsidkenu is all things to me. Jehovah Tsidkenu! my treasure and boast, Jehovah Tsidkenu! I ne’er can be lost; In Thee I shall conquer by flood and by field, My cable, my anchor, my breast-plate and shield! Even treading the valley, the shadow of death, This “watchword” shall rally my faltering breath; For while from life’s fever my God sets me free, Jehovah Tsidkenu, my death song shall be.”

“Courage is life's only measure.”

“The highest and most beautiful things in life are not to be heard, nor read about, nor seen, but, if one will, are to be lived.”

“With words as valueless as poker chips, we play games whose object it is to keep us from seeing each other's cards.”

“‎Kalganov ran back into the front hall, sat down in a corner, bent his head, covered his face with his hands, and began to cry. He sat like that and cried for a long time--cried as though he were still a little boy and not a man of twenty... 'What are these people, what sort of people can there be after this!' he kept exclaiming incoherently, in bitter dejection, almost in despair. At that moment he did not even want to live in the world. 'Is it worth it, is it worth it!' the grieved young man kept exclaiming.”

“Perché a volte mi capitano dei momenti di una tale angoscia, di una tale angoscia… Perché in quei momenti già inizia a sembrarmi che non sarò mai capace di cominciare a vivere una vera vita; perché ho già avuto l’impressione di aver perso ogni misura, ogni senso della realtà, della autenticità.”

“If I did not believe in life, if I were to lose faith in the woman I love, if I were to lose faith in the order of things, even if I were to become convinced, on the contrary, that everything is a disorderly, damned, and perhaps devilish chaos, if I were struck even by all the horrors of human disillusionment-still I would want to live, and as long as I have bent to this cup, I will not tear myself from it until I've drunk it all!”

“His plan in your life means his work in your hands, and you can be sure it is work he has chosen and gifted you to do.”

“If we can keep ourselves from interfering with the natural laws of life, mistakes can be our child's finest teachers.”

“Better to be the hireling of a stranger, and serve a man of mean estate whose living is but small, than be the ruler over all these dead and gone.”

“We do not content ourselves with the life we have in ourselves and in our own being; we desire to live an imaginary life in the mind of others, and for this purpose we endeavour to shine. We labour unceasingly to adorn and preserve this imaginary existence, and neglect the real. And if we possess calmness, or generosity, or truthfulness, we are eager to make it known, so as to attach these virtues to that imaginary existence. We would rather separate them from ourselves to join them to it; and we would willingly be cowards in order to acquire the reputation of being brave. A great proof of the nothingness of our being, not to be satisfied with the one without the other, and to renounce the one for the other! For he would be infamous who would not die to preserve his honour.”

“How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book!”

“Now I knew that life and truth were one; that life mere and pure is in itself bliss; that where being is not bliss, it is not life, but life-in-death. Every inspiration of the dark wind that blew where it listed went out a sigh of thanksgiving. At last I was! I lived, and nothing could touch my life! My darling walked beside me, and we were on our way home to see the Father!”

“Ich weiß nicht, aber mich dünkt, ich sähe zwei Wege um zur Wissenschaft der menschlichen Geschichte zu gelangen. Der eine, mühsam und unabsehlich, mit unzähligen Krümmungen, der Weg der Erfahrung; der andere, fast ein Sprung nur, der Weg der innern Betrachtung. Der Wanderer des ersten muß eins aus dem andern in einer langwierigen Rechnung finden, wenn der andere die Natur jeder Begebenheit und jeder Sache gleich unmittelbar anschaut, und sie in ihrem lebendigen, mannigfaltigen Zusammenhange betrachten, und leicht mit allen übrigen, wie Figuren auf einer Tafel, vergleichen kann.”