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Life

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“I knew that to live a fulfilling life I had to live a purposeful life; a life of service.”
Zozibini Tunzi (born 1993) first seen 2019 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Zozibini Tunzi crowned Miss SA 2019, Glamour, August 12, 2019
“They have lost the metaphysical sense Of the future, they feel themselves The end of a chain Of lives, single lives And we know that lives Are single And cannot defend The metaphysic On which rest The boundaries Of our distances.”
George Oppen (1908–1984) first seen 1968 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: from "Of Being Numerous" #26, 1968; New Collected Poems, New Directions, 2002,
“When people say "Black Lives Matter," that doesn't mean blue lives don't matter; it just means all lives matter, but right now the big concern is the fact that the data shows black folks are more vulnerable to these kinds of incidents.”
Barack Obama (born 1961) first seen 2016 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Statement by the President (7 July 2016)
“Power and influence have been the center of—this is not necessarily an argument in favor of keeping it, but power and influence have been the center of the field of the study of politics from the beginning. And what’s more, they are the central elements in all of our lives, our daily lives and our family lives, this interview going on—and they’re enormously complex.”
Robert A. Dahl (1915–2014) said by 2014 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Great people have a vision of their lives that they practice emulating each and every day. They go to work on their lives, not just in their lives.”
Michael E. Gerber (born 1936) first seen 2010 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Cited in: Tom Butler-Bowdon (2010), 50 Prosperity Classics. p. 133
“In war, the cost in civilian lives is incalculable, not to mention the many military personnel whose lives are destroyed. Then there is the cost to the environment and the cost to human potential as our scientists waste their lives planning and researching even more horrific weapons which increasingly, in modern war, kill more civilians than combatants.”
Mairead Maguire (born 1944) first seen 2014 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Disturbing Expansion of the Military-Industrial Complex, Common Dreams, (14 October 2014)
“I am not talking here about some lazy faith, where we resign ourselves to the tragic splittings in our lives with an upward turn of the hands or a vicious beating of our breasts. I am talking about believing that we have the power to actually transform our experience, change our lives, save our lives. Otherwise, why this book? It is the faith of activists I am talking about.”
Cherríe Moraga (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We come together to mourn the lives lost to the same racist system that devalues Black lives and devalued the lives of Anthony and JoJo.”
Mark Ruffalo (born 1967) first seen 2021 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 19 November 2021 tweet
“Just to clarify what you just said, you’re saying saving the lives of slaves or saving the lives of an unborn child is more important than saving the lives of slaves?”
Ajay Pittman (born 1993) first seen 2021 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in KFOR-TV (Apr 7, 2021)
“Whenever I can’t find stories that I want to read, I try writing them for myself. In this case, I’d met many older women who’d lived colorful lives and yet when it came to fiction, I didn’t find stories that mirrored these lives, especially so when it came to the lives of Black women.”
Sarah Ladipo Manyika (born 1968) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Capital is dead labor, that vampire-like, only lives by sucking living labor, and lives the more, the more labor it sucks.”
Karl Marx (1818–1883) said by 1883 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But here’s the point: As we’ve seen too often, public trust is frayed and is broken, and it undermines public safety when it gets frayed. It literally undermines safety. Families across the country have to ask why, in this nation, for example, so many Black Americans wake up knowing they could lose their lives just by living their lives.”
Joe Biden (born 1942) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“After the onset of the pandemic, we in Tanzania, and I believe in many other developing countries, were stuck in the twilight of protecting lives and livelihoods. Measures advocated by the WHO were geared towards protecting lives, however, an economy like Tanzania, consists of a bigger proportion people living on subsistence economy whom we need to keep afloat,”
Samia Suluhu Hassan (born 1960) first seen 2025 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Africa’s critical minerals poised to power global green energy transition Africa Renewal (2025)
“Therefore in Shinto there is no doctrine of absolute and final salvation. Human beings continue to grow. Human beings keep growing throughout their lives, and after their lives on earth they go to the other world (see Chapter 7) and continue living for renovation and maintenance, or shuri kosei. Eventually, they may keep growing until they eventually become Kami.”
Motohisa Yamakage (1925–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Well, in some ways we’re not successful at all. We’re destroying our home. That’s not a bit successful. Chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans have been living for hundreds of thousands of years in their forest, living fantastic lives, never overpopulating, never destroying the forest. I would say that they have been in a way more successful than us as far as being in harmony with the environment.”
Jane Goodall (1934–2025) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: In response to: "If chimps are so much like us, why are they endangered while humans dominate the globe?" Discover Magazine interview with Virginia Morell (28 March 2007)
“We are made of the stuff of stars, given our lives by a living world, given our selves by time. We are brother to the trees and sister to the sun. We are of such glorious stuff we need not carry pain around like a label. Our duty, as living things, to be sure that pain is not our whole story, for we can choose to be otherwise. As Ellin says, we can choose to dance.”
Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) said by 2016 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“most of all, it matters that the world is blue because our lives depend on the living ocean-not just the rocks and water, but stable, resilient, diverse living systems that hold the world on a steady course favorable to humankind. The big question is, what can we do to take care of the blue world that takes care of us?”
Sylvia Earle (born 1935) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I do believe that our lives and our art go together. Who I am and what I write are the same...I feel that the writing process doesn't just begin when you are putting words on paper. It begins in the living that you do before, and I feel powerful enough now so that I can set up my daily living circumstances in order to support me and support my art.”
Maxine Hong Kingston (born 1940) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“By this time... the living through and the acting out of spiritual or ethical principles would have begun to be an intrinsic part of people’s lives, and orthodoxy as we now know it would have ceased to exist. Religion would no longer be an ‘aspect’ of human living but the almost unconscious foundation of every activity.”
Vera Stanley Alder (1898–1984) said by 1984 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You live life once, you live it by your principles and you live it courageously- that’s what it's about.”
Salmaan Taseer (1944–2011) said by 2011 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Indulge, and to thy genius freely give; For not to live at ease, is not to live. Death stalks behind thee, and each flying hour Does some loose remnant of thy life devour. Live, while thou liv'st; for death will make us all A name, a nothing but an old wife's tale.”
John Dryden (1631–1700) said by 1700 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He had never learned to live without delight. And he would have to learn to, just as, in a Prohibition country, he supposed he would have to learn to live without sherry. Theoretically he knew that life is possible, maybe even pleasant, without joy, without passionate griefs. But it had never occurred to him that he might have to live like that.”
Willa Cather (1873–1947) said by 1947 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It seems like being gay or whatever sin you wish to be a part of is okay ... but I have the duty to lift that gay person up to the standard to ask if they want to live the life that God wants them to or live the lifestyle that they want to live.”
Louis Farrakhan (born 1933) first seen 1997 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Boston speech, The Guardian (August 1997)
“What shall we know of our death? Either the soul is immortal and we shall not die, or it perishes with the flesh and we shall not know that we are dead. Live, then, as if you were eternal, and do not believe that your life has changed merely because it seems proved that the Earth is empty. You do not live in the Earth, you live in yourself.”
André Maurois (1885–1967) first seen 1933 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in Will Durant, On the Meaning of Life (London: Williams & Norgate, 1933) p. 53
“I wish to live because life has within it that which is good, that which is beautiful and that which is love. Therefore, since I have known all of these things, I have found them to be reason enough and — I wish to live. Moreover, because this is so, I wish others to live for generations and generations and generations.”
Lorraine Hansberry (1930–1965) said by 1965 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Let us learn from the lips of death the lessons of life. Let us live truly while we live, live for what is true and good and lasting. And let the memory of our dead help us to do this. For they are not wholly separated from us, if we remain loyal to them. In spirit they are with us. And we may think of them as silent, invisible, but real presences in our households.”
Felix Adler (1851–1933) said by 1933 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I told myself to be true to me, even if I have just one day left to live. Life is so precious to live in deceit. Coming out was a way to exonerate myself and be and live free.”
Bandy Kiki (born 1991) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We don't beat the reaper by living longer, but by living well, and living fully — for the reaper will come for all of us. The question is: what do we do between the time we're born and the time he shows up. Because when he shows up, it’s too late to do all the things that you’re always gonna, kinda get around to.”
Randy Pausch (1960–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Solitude is a silent storm that breaks down all our dead branches; Yet it sends our living roots deeper into the living heart of the living earth.”
Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) said by 1931 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I love our old Chuang-tzu because I love his pantheism, because he got a living by making straw shoes. I love the Dutchman Spinoza because I love his pantheism, because he got a living by grinding lenses. I love the Indian Kabir because I love his pantheism, because he got a living by knotting fishing-nets.”
Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) said by 1677 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Guo Moruo, in his 1919 poem entitled Three Pantheists (San ge Fanshenlun Zhe) [original in Chinese]. As quoted in Liu Jianmei (1967), Zhuangzi and Modern Chinese Literature
“Stewart: Living. Living. Everyday living. At home, in the garden, around the house, with the kids, um, on vacation, and it has always been for me a very serious subject. But to persuade other people that it's a serious subject, not my readers, not my, not my followers, I don't want to call them followers, my friends, but to persuade...”
Martha Stewart (born 1941) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The world should be owned by the people living in it. Every person should be seen as living in a world truly his. All persons should be seen as living in a world truly theirs.”
Eli Siegel (1902–1978) said by 1978 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What we really want to see is people living in African cities to go from living in dwellings to living in homes,”
Isabel dos Santos (born 1973) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Each living being of the universe, therefore, sustains to every other living being the relation of possible right and wrong, but to the insentient universe no such relation exists. Right is that relation which is conducive to happiness, or welfare, or complete living, or whatever synonym is preferred. Wrong is that which conduces to the opposite of happiness—misery, ill-fare, maladaptation.”
J. Howard Moore (1862–1916) said by 1916 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There are more than a million British people living in Spain. There are hundreds of thousands of British people living in France. In fact there are tens of thousands of people living in almost every EU country and if we were to pull up the drawbridge on the English Channel, the truth is British people wouldn't be able to come and go because they'd take action against us.”
Ed Davey (born 1965) first seen 2014 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Towns 'feel under siege' from migrants, minister warns", BBC News (26 October 2014)
“I like living in a town not dominated by cars. I like living in a small community where artists from around the world come and go. I like living in a town with big sky and big clouds, and where you can connect with things of the spirit easily. It’s both stimulating and peaceful all at once. It makes me want to write.”
Sandra Cisneros (born 1954) first seen 2018 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On what inspired her essay collection A House of My Own in “Interview with Sandra Cisneros” in Latino Book Review (2018 Oct 1)
“I'm amazed at how fast the interest has grown in writing in English by writers of South Asian origin, whether they're living in India, living in South Asia, or they are expatriate writers living here or immigrant American writers like Jhumpa Lahiri and me. The size of the community of such writers and the body of work produced has happened so fast. (2007)”
Bharati Mukherjee (1940–2017) said by 2017 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If the majority of people were right, we'd be living in paradise. But we are not living in paradise, we are living in hell. What does it mean? That means the majority of people are wrong. So I never believed what people told me.”
Marjane Satrapi (1969–2026) first seen 2008 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On her views of life in “Confessions of Miss Mischief” in The Guardian (2008 Mar 28)
“If Socrates died, then either he died when he was living, or when he was dead. But he couldn't have died when he was living, for he was not dead when he was living. But he couldn't have died when he was dead, for when he was dead he had already died. Therefore, Socrates never died.”
Sextus Empiricus (200–300) said by 300 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Sextus Empiricus quoted in Introduction to Logic by Paul Herrick (2013)
“Just living, but living outside of the box and doing different things. Everything’s in play. You just have to watch what you say, because the landscape we’re living in is challenging. But I try to be wide open”
Deon Cole (born 1972) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Our principles fix what our life stands for, our aims create the light our life is bathed in, and our rationality, both individual and coordinate, defines and symbolizes the distance we have come from mere animality. It is by these means that our lives come to more than what they instrumentally yield. And by meaning more, our lives yield more.”
Robert Nozick (1938–2002) first seen 1993 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Nature of Rationality (1993), Ch. V : Instrumental Rationality and Its Limits; Rationality's Imagination, p. 181
“I have always loved long journeys. The act of leaving accustomed surroundings is a release from real time, real life. You can place that familiar life on hold, freeze it, secure in the awareness that it will be there waiting for you when you come back. The journey itself becomes an opportunity to explore parallel lives, those other optional lives which have always been there.”
Witi Ihimaera (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Qur’an declares that one who takes a life unjustly has, in effect, taken the lives of humanity as a whole, and that one who saves a life has, in effect, saved the lives of humanity as a whole.”
Fethullah Gülen (1941–2024) said by 2024 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Maybe we also take our life for granted and forget that life is not ours, but a gift from God and must be given back to him. God is asking us to take care of our lives, not just our lives here on earth, but especially our afterlife; God is telling us to take care of each other.”
Julius Dusin Gitom (born 1957) first seen 2021 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Bishop in Sabah: "Christ's mission continues in the midst of the pandemic" (10 November 2021) Fides News Agency
“All life produces waste. The act of living produces costs, hazards and disposal questions, and so the (Environment) Ministry has found itself in the center of all life, mitigating, guiding and policing the detritus of the average person along with investigating the infractions of the greedy and short-sighted, the ones who wish to make quick profits and trade on others’ lives for it.”
Paolo Bacigalupi (born 1972) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Those who dwell, as scientists or laymen, among the beauties and mysteries of the earth are never alone or weary of life. Whatever the vexations or concerns of their personal lives, their thoughts can find paths that lead to inner contentment and to renewed excitement in living. Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts.”
Rachel Carson (1907–1964) said by 1964 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Living a minimally acceptable ethical life involves using a substantial part of our spare resources to make the world a better place. Living a fully ethical life involves doing the most good we can.”
Peter Singer (born 1946) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The idea of taking up art as a calling, a profession, is a mirage. Art enriches life. It makes life worth living. But to make a living at it—that idea is incompatible with making art.”
John Sloan (1871–1951) said by 1951 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And I was struck all at once how life was out there going through its regular courses, and I was suspended, waiting, caught in a terrible crevice between living my life and not living it.”
Sue Monk Kidd (born 1948) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Preserving seeks to secure the life that already is; safeguarding secures and reproduces the conditions of becoming, of living, of futurity, where the content of that life, that living, can be neither prescribed nor predicted, and where self-determination emerges as a potential.”
Judith Butler (born 1956) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source