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Life

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“My father is about to be 90. I feel like I’m in good company. There was a time in my life when the men in my family did not live that long. I had some fear of that in the back of my mind – but, you know, you wind up shortening your life, worrying about how long it’s going to be rather than how well you’re going to live.”
Keith David (born 1956) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.”
Marcus Aurelius (misattributed) first seen 2009 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: No printed sources exist for this prior to 2009, and this seems to have been an attribution which arose on the internet, as indicated by web searches and rationales provided at "Marcus Aurelius and source checking" at T…
“Oh Hindus and Mussalmans, do you inhabit any country other than India? Do you not both live here on the same land and are you not buried in this land or cremated on the ghats of this land? You live here and die here. Therefore remember that Hindu and Mussalman are words of religious significance otherwise Hindus, Mussalmans and Christians who live in this country constitute one nation.”
Syed Ahmed Khan (1817–1898) first seen 1884 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Addressing a gathering at Gurdaspur on 27 January 1884, Writings and Speeches of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, Nachiketa Publications (1972), p. 266.
“Spirituality tells the seeker not to live in the hoary past, not to live in the remote future, but to live in the immediacy of today, in the eternal Now.”
Sri Chinmoy (1931–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We must all learn to live together as brothers — or we will all perish together as fools. This is the great issue facing us today. No individual can live alone; no nation can live alone. We are tied together.”
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968) said by 1968 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Long live Montreal, Long live Quebec! Long live free Quebec!”
Charles de Gaulle (1890–1970) first seen 1967 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Said in 1967 on the balcony of Montréal City Hall,, with particular emphasis on the word 'libre'. The phrase, a slogan used by Quebecers who favoured Quebec sovereignty, and de Gaulle's use of it, was seen by them as le…
“If the white man wants to live in peace with the Indian he can live in peace. There need be no trouble. Treat all men alike. Give them all the same law. Give them all an even chance to live and grow. All men were made by the same Great Spirit Chief. They are all brothers. The earth is the mother of all people, and all people should have equal rights upon it.”
Chief Joseph (1840–1904) said by 1904 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And then I thought to myself, "You know, what they think of you is so fantastic, it's impossible to live up to it. You have no responsibility to live up to it!"It was a brilliant idea: You have no responsibility to live up to what other people think you ought to accomplish. I have no responsibility to be like they expect me to be. It's their mistake, not my failing.”
Richard Feynman (1918–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There are some men, who as they approach 70, read the Bible and prepare to die. Others prepare themselves to live to 90. It has been my observation that if a man prepares to live to 90, but dies at 70, no harm is done. If however, a man prepares to live to 70 but ends up dying at 90, then his last 20 years will be hell.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841–1935) said by 1935 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Certainly, we live in a different world … for the first time in all of known human history, we live in a world absent of the likelihood of superpower conflict. Now we live in a world in which there are superpowers, but we're not butting heads all the time. That's a very good thing for the world... but... there's still a few bad guys out there.”
Tom Clancy (1947–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Think how much better it is to criticize conventional customs if you yourself live up to them, scrupulously. Then people can't say you're attacking them to excuse your own infractions. Yes, I've heard that plea.... To word it differently, 'You must live up to the popular code if you believe in it; but if you don't believe in it, then you must live up to it!'”
Sinclair Lewis (1885–1951) said by 1951 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Belief in heaven and hell is a big deal in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and some forms of doctrinaire Buddhism. For the rest of us it’s simply meaningless. We don’t live in order to die, we live in order to live.”
Ursula K. Le Guin (1929–2018) said by 2018 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There's no "putting an act together". Okay? A stand-up comedian is an act. You are an act. You breathe and live an act. It's not assembled; it's not-- This is not Hello, Dolly!. It's constant, it's organic; you live inside it. It's like a snow globe. Comedy is a snow globe. You live in it.”
Jerry Seinfeld (born 1954) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Long live Germany. Long live Argentina. Long live Austria. These are the three countries with which I have been most connected and which I will not forget. I greet my wife, my family and my friends. I am ready. We'll meet again soon, as is the fate of all men. I die believing in God.”
Adolf Eichmann (1906–1962) first seen 1962 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Before his execution in Jerusalem (1 June 1962), as quoted in Becoming Eichmann: Rethinking the Life, Crimes, and Trial of a "Desk Murderer" by David Cesarani (2006), p. 321. .
“Machiavelli is not concerned with how men do live merely in order to describe it; his intention is rather, on the basis of knowledge of how men do live, to teach princes how they ought to rule and even how they ought to live.”
Leo Strauss (1899–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I think we all learn from the past. I just feel we shouldn't live there. We shouldn't live in the past. I live for today, and to me, the most important moment is now.”
Shirley Temple (1928–2014) first seen 1975 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in: "Madam Ambassador - Sixty Minutes" CBS, 1975.
“Roger: It’s exciting to play new songs live, we’ve been playing “Summon Monsters” and that’s on the new record it’s fast and got some fun fast quick bass licks that are fun to play so that’s a fun one to play live. Been getting off on that lately, and I think “Conviction Notice” is super solid live and the horn line is great. It’s fun to play new songs.”
Roger Manganelli (born 1973) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Thoreau's disobedience is disobedience as refusal. I won't live in your world. I will live as if your world has ended, as indeed it deserves to end. I will live as if my gesture of refusing your world has destroyed it.”
Curtis White (born 1951) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“At the moment when Congo reaches independence, the whole government wishes to pay solemn homage to the King of the Belgians, and to the noble people he represents for the work done here over three quarters of a century. I would not wish my feelings to be wrongly interpreted... Long live King Baudouin, Long live Belgium, Long live the independent Congo.”
Patrice Lumumba (1925–1961) first seen 1690 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The new leaders of Africa Rolf Italiaander, Englewood Cliffs, N.J., Prentice-Hall 1690, p 159. Patrice Lumumba in a speech at a luncheon following the Independence Ceremony on June 30, 1960 in Leopoldville. (In the book…
“In fact, the chief end of a woman in China is not to live for herself, or for society; not to be a reformer or to be president of the woman's natural feet Society; not to live even as a saint or to do good to the world; the chief end of a woman in China is to live as a good daughter a good wife and a good mother.”
Gu Hongming (1857–1928) said by 1928 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What universities are saying by these codes, special protections, and double standards — to women, to blacks, to Hispanics, to gay and lesbian students — is, "You are too weak to live with freedom. You are too weak to live with the First Amendment." If someone tells you you are too weak to live with freedom, they have turned you into a child.”
Alan Charles Kors (born 1943) first seen 2005 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in "College" (2005), Bullshit!, HBO
“Roy, long live the white race, God bless you, so long, Gina. Long live the white race. I've got nothing more to live for.”
Dan Burros (1937–1965) said by 1965 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“# A related trait of science is its destruction of idols, destruction of the gods men live by... Science has no absolute right or absolute justice... To live comfortably with science it is necessary to live with a dynamically changing system of concepts... it has a way of weakening old and respected bonds...”
Walter Orr Roberts (1915–1990) said by 1990 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“'You only live once,' so make it count and live. Live longer and healthier. I have travelled, lived in different countries, joined and won beauty competitions, started acting, and became a host/presenter, but nothing beats a healthy mind and body.”
Bea Santiago (born 1990) first seen 2025 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Kidney Warrior Bea Santiago Shares an Inspiring Message About Womanhood, Metro.Style 27 March 2025.
“There are many ways to live one's faith outside the Church. Not all beguines are fortunate enough – or have the opportunity – to be welcomed into large institutions such as the one in Paris. Many live in large groups in small houses in the city centre and work. Others prefer to live alone. Some, the so-called wandering beguines, beg and preach in the streets. (chapter 10)”
Aline Kiner (1959–2019) said by 2019 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Long live the advancing socialism of China! Long live the restoration of diplomatic relations between China and Japan! Long live peace in Asia and the world!”
Inejirō Asanuma (1898–1960) first seen 1959 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Closing cheers, Beijing, 12 March 1959
“We can see for ourselves that one can live Christian hope and joyful communion with the whole Church, despite the difficult conditions we live in. So we will realize that there is no need to flee, emigrate, and that it is nice to live the gift of Christian joy in the places where we were born, and where we met Jesus, listening to the proclamation of the Gospel.”
Basel Yaldo (born 1970) first seen 2016 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: At World Youth Day in Krakow young Iraqis will pray the 'Our Father' in Aramaic before the Pope (12 July 2016) Fides News Agency
“Just as science can live without certainty, religion can live without dogma, and the two can live together without conflict. This is the solution that Feynman recommends to his students.”
Richard Feynman (1918–1988) said by 1988 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Freeman Dyson, The Scientist As Rebel (2006) "Is God in the Lab?
“Each must in virtue strive for to excel; That man lives twice that lives the first life well.”
Robert Herrick (poet) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Depression and hopelessness are not the only reasons terminally ill patients wish to end their lives. Many individuals see nothing undignified about choosing to end their lives at the time and manner of their choosing — and many view such a choice as the meaningful culmination of a good life.”
Jacob M. Appel (born 1973) first seen 2009 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Is it compassionate to prohibit suicide?,"The Baltimore Sun (2009-03-17)
“Do not then consider life a thing of any value. For look at the immensity of time behind thee, and to the time which is before thee, another boundless space. In this infinity then what is the difference between him who lives three days and him who lives three generations?”
Marcus Aurelius (121–180) said by 180 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But I'm telling you, it's going to change lives. I don't know how—I don't know what's going to happen, quite honestly — but it's going to change lives. It is a life-changing, and I think, a planet course-altering event and I would invite you to join us either physically or virtually.”
Glenn Beck (born 1964) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The absurdity of modern ideological enthusiasms is evident, but while those who promote them make them the focus of their existence and the whole meaning of their lives, better-balanced people try to get on with their lives as normal. No one wants to spend his life arguing, let alone fighting, against sheer idiocy, and thus, sheer idiocy wins the day.”
Anthony Daniels (psychiatrist) first seen 2022 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ideological Guerrillas Are Winning the War", The Epoch Times (November 13, 2022)
“A great moral reformation will occur only as reformation takes place in the hearts, minds, and lives of each of us; as morality is reinstated as a priority in the homes of the country; and as men and women, boys and girls, realize that their lives are missing a critical moral component and determine to seek a life of virtue.”
Gordon B. Hinckley (1910–2008) said by 2008 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The difference between great people and everyone else is that great people create their lives actively, while everyone else is created by their lives, passively waiting to see where life takes them next.”
Michael E. Gerber (born 1936) first seen 1998 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Attributed to Michael E. Gerber in: American Farriers' Journal, 1998, p. 61
“Speech is our most valuable instrument, because we can make it fit our common lives. We are not born to follow words. Words follow life. It has always been so from the very beginning. In fact, the human larynx and the shape of the passages above it have evolved in harmony with the lives our earliest ancestors lived, first in the trees, and then on the ground.”
John Rupert Firth (1890–1960) said by 1960 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: p. 25 (1968; 24)
“[about choosing A Little Life as the title] We have such small lives, all of us. And this is the story of one of those lives.”
Hanya Yanagihara (born 1974) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I hold him to be a fool who throughout his life is dying with fear that he must die; and to be a bad man he who lives so careless of it as if death did not exist [...]. The only wise man is he who lives through each day as if at any hour he may die.”
Francisco de Quevedo (1584–1645) said by 1645 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“My office was on the west front of the Capitol, I worked in the Capitol and I was on the House side. This year is 20 years since the attacks of Sept. 11 and almost every day, I remember 44 Americans gave their lives to stop the plane headed to this Capitol building. I thanked them every day for saving my life and the lives of so many others”
Stacey Plaskett (born 1966) first seen 2001 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.
“We have to stand together to hold accountable and punish child abusers. We have to save the lives of these children because their lives are life of the family and the country in general in the future. The family and the community should be at the centre of combating the vice because the crime takes place in the community.”
Anita Asiimwe first seen 2016 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: , The New Times (16 April 2016)
“I might be in Abuja but I like to touch the lives of these women out there because when you touch the life of one woman, you have touched the lives of a whole family.”
Priscilla Achapka wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Both family and friends come to visit every now and then. We’re used to a long-distant social life in Kenya as everyone lives miles apart, so you tend to stay overnight if you go to visit someone. That being said our lives are full of social interaction in Samburu, with many people coming through Camp both from abroad and from the local nomadic communities. . Speaking of family and friends.”
Saba Iassa Douglas-Hamilton (born 1970) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Everyday life and where it was happening was what interested me. Taking pictures enabled me to hear the stories of the people I photographed, which satisfied an immense curiosity to learn and understand the lives of others, lives different in experience and age from my own.”
Ida Wyman (1926–2019) said by 2019 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Of course I have no right whatsoever to write down the truth about my life involving as it naturally does the lives of so many other people, but I do so urged by a necessity of truth-telling, because there is no living soul who knows the complete truth; here, may be one who knows a section; and there, one who knows another section: but to the whole picture not one is initiated.”
Vita Sackville-West (1892–1962) first seen 1920 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Autobiographical sketch (23 July 1920), published in Portrait of a Marriage : Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson (1998), p. 3
“The secret story is the one we'll never know, although we're living it from day to day, thinking we're alive, thinking we've got it all under control and the stuff we overlook doesn't matter. But every single damn thing matters! Only we don't realize. We just tell ourselves that art runs on one track and life, our lives, on another, and we don't realize that's a lie.”
Roberto Bolaño (1953–2003) said by 2003 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Do what thy manhood bids thee do, from none but self expect applause; He noblest lives and noblest dies who makes and keeps his self-made laws. All other Life is living Death, a world where none but Phantoms dwell, A breath, a wind, a sound, a voice, a tinkling of the camel-bell.”
Richard Francis Burton (1821–1890) said by 1890 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“So long as Faith with Freedom reigns And loyal Hope survives, And gracious Charity remains To leaven lowly lives; While there is one untrodden tract For Intellect or Will, And men are free to think and act, Life is worth living still.”
Alfred Austin (1835–1913) said by 1913 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A miracle worker is an artist of the soul. There’s no higher art than living a good life. An artist informs the world of what’s available behind the masks we all wear. That’s what we’re all here to do. The reason so many of us are obsessed with becoming stars is because we’re not yet starring in our own lives. The cosmic spotlight isn’t pointed at you; it radiates from within you.”
Marianne Williamson (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It was this intolerable sense of feeling and understanding so much, and yet living on a plane of social reality where the look of a world which one did not make or own struck one with a blinding objectivity and tangibility, that made me grasp the revolutionary impulse in my life and the lives of those about me and far away.”
Richard Wright (1908–1960) said by 1960 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Life is unfixed when one lives in Berlin, where one has to fight for a living. It is painfully base here. I see that a fine, free culture cannot be created under these circumstances and wish to leave as soon as I have overcome this big slump.”
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880–1938) first seen 1911 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: End of 1911; as quoted in Ernst Ludwig Kirchner: ein Künstlerleben in Selbstzeugnissen, Andreas Gabelmann (transl. Claire Louise Albiez); Hatje Cantz Verlag, Ostfildern, Germany 2010, p. 45