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. . - Our life is what our thoughts make it. --Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121180) Roman emperor [161180] and Stoic philosopher. _Meditations_, IV, 3 Remember that man's life lies all within this present, as 'twere but a hair's-breadth of time: as for the rest, the past is gone, the future yet unseen. --Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121180) Roman emperor [161180] and Stoic philosopher. _Meditations_, III, 10 - A good man doubles the length of his existence; to have lived so as to look back with pleasure on our past existence is to live twice. --Martial [Marcus Valerius Martialis] (38/41103) Roman poet. _Epigrams_, X, 23 [86-98] The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you've got it made. --attributed to Groucho [Julius Henry] Marx (18951977) American film comedian. - The complete life, the perfect pattern, includes old age as well as youth and maturity. The beauty of the morning and the radiance of noon are good, but it would be a very silly person who drew the curtains and turned on the light in order to shut out the tranquillity of the evening. Old age has its pleasures, which, though different, are not less than the pleasures of youth. --W. Somerset Maugham (18741965) English novelist, playwright, and short-story writer. _The Summing Up_, ch. 73 [1938] It's a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it. --W. Somerset Maugham (18741965) English novelist, playwright, and short-story writer. _The Mixture as Before_ [1940] "The Treasure" - To love the worthy people who surround me, shun the evil ones, enjoy the good things in life, endure the bad, and remember to forget. This is my optimism. It has helped me to live. May it help you also. --Andrι Maurois (18851967) (pseudonym of Ιmile Salomon Wilhelm Herzog) French author. _Lettres a l'Inconnue_ [1953] - Reader's Digest: If you could go back in time and meet, say, the 12-year-old Paul McCartney, what advice would you give him? Paul McCartney: Oh, my God. What would I tell him? Keep a good sense of humor, man. You're going to need it. And enjoy yourself. Because, you know, we don't know how long we're here for. --Reader's Digest [November 2001], "Getting Better All The Time" - - There is, in fact, no reason to believe that any given natural phenomenon, however marvelous it may seem today, will remain forever inexplicable. Soon or late the laws governing the production of life itself will be discovered in the laboratory, and man may set up business as a creator on his own account. The thing, indeed, is not only conceivable; it is even highly probable. --H.L. (Henry Louis) Mencken (18801956) American journalist and literary critic. _Treatise on the Gods_ [1930], ch. 5 "Its State Today" [D]uring my late teens, with the enlightenment gradually dawning within me, I more than once concluded that death was preferable to life. At that age the sense of humor is in a low state. Later on, by the mysterious working of God's providence, it usually recovers. What keeps a reflective and skeptical man alive? In large part, I suspect, it is this sense of humor. But in addition there is curiosity. Human existence is always irrational and often painful, but in the last analysis it remains interesting. One wants to know what is going to happen tomorrow. Will the lady in the mauve frock be more amiable than she is today? Such questions keep human beings alive. If the future were known, every intelligent man would kill himself at once, and the Republic would be peopled wholly by morons. --H.L. (Henry Louis) Mencken (18801956) American journalist and literary critic. "Under the Elms" in _A Mencken Chrestomathy_ [New York: Knopf, 1949]. - Life has no other discipline to impose, if we would but realize it, than to accept life unquestioningly. Everything we shut our eyes to, everything we run away from, everything we deny, denigrate, or despise, serves to defeat us in the end. What seems nasty, painful, evil, can become a source of beauty, joy, and strength, if faced with an open mind. Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize it as such. --Henry Miller (18911980) American novelist and essayist. _The World of Sex_ [1940] Many of life's circumstances are created by three basic choices: the disciplines you choose to keep, the people you choose to be with; and, the laws you choose to obey. --attributed to Charles Millhuff American evangelist. The great advantage of living in a large family is that early lesson of life's essential unfairness. --Nancy Mitford (19041973) English writer. _The Pursuit of Love_, ch. I [1945] Wherever your life ends, it is all there. The advantage of living is not measured by length, but by use; some men have lived long, and lived little; attend to it while you are in it. It lies in your will, not in the number of years, for you to have lived enough. --Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (15331592) French moralist and essayist. _Essays_, bk. 1, ch. 20 [1580] There are three ingredients in the good life: learning, earning, and yearning. --Christopher Morley (18901957) American journalist, novelist, and poet. _Parnassus on Wheels_, ch. 10 [1917] Life is a very short visit to a toyshop between birth and death. --attributed to Desmond Morris (b. 1928) English anthropologist and author. The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness. --Vladimir Nabokov [pen name Vladimir Sirin] (18991977) Russian novelist. _Speak, Memory_, ch. 1 [1951] We will find in the lives of men who have done anything, of those whom we call great men, that it is this spirit of adventure, the call of the unknown, that has lured and urged them along on their course ... All of us are explorers in life, whatever trail we follow ... It is the explorers with the true spirit of adventure we now need if humanity shall really overcome the present difficulties. --Fridtjof Nansen (18611930) Norwegian polar explorer. Speech on being installed as Rector of the University of Aberdeen [November 1926]. - The seven ages of man: spills, drills, thrills, bills, ills, pills, and wills. --attributed to Richard John Needham (19121996) British-born Canadian writer. For the first half of your life, people tell you what you should do; for the second half, they tell you what you should have done. --attributed to Richard John Needham (19121996) British-born Canadian writer. - Life is like a game of cards. The hand that is dealt you represents determinism; the way you play it is free will. --Jawaharlal Nehru (18891964) Indian statesman. Quoted in Michigan State University _University College Quarterly_ [1968]. Money is life's report card. --cartoon caption in _New Yorker_ [1979]. - God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference. Living one day at a time; Enjoying one moment at a time; Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace; Taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it; Trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His Will; That I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with Him Forever in the next. Amen. --Reinhold Niebuhr (18921971) American theologian. "The Serenity Prayer" [1936] With slightly different wording, the first four lines above were attributed to Niebuhr in the "New York Times" on 2 August 1942. - - Deep down every human being well knows that he is in the world only one time, unique, and that no such strange chance will throw together a second time such a wonderfully many-colored assortment into a unity such as he is: he knows it, but conceals it like a bad conscience. --Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (18441900) German classical scholar, philosopher, and critic of culture. _Schopenhauer as Educator_ [1874] Believe me! The secret of reaping the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment from life is to *live dangerously!* --Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (18441900) German classical scholar, philosopher, and critic of culture. _Die frφhilche Wissenschaft_ [1882] - And in the meantime in the meantime life is not all seriousness and a somber understanding of history, and the work of making life better. Life is beautiful. Life is the best horse on the best ranch and the best ride to see the best sunset. Laugh, have a good time, enjoy it it's beautiful. --Peggy Noonan (b. 1950) Speechwriter for U.S. presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. "The Ben Elliott Story" in _The Wall Street Journal_[14 June 2004]. Any woman who does not thoroughly enjoy tramping across the country on a clear, frosty morning with a good gun and a pair of dogs does not know how to enjoy life. --Annie Oakley [Phoebe Anne Oakley Mozee] (18601926) American sharpshooter. Interview with "Minneapolis Times" [1900], as quoted in Isabelle S. Sayers _Annie Oakley and Buffalo Bill's Wild West_ [1981]. - Laughter is wine for the soul laughter soft, or loud and deep, tinged through with seriousness. ... the hilarious declaration made by man that life is worth living. --Sean O'Casey (18801964) Irish dramatist and memorist. Saturday Night in _Green Crows_ [1956] A lament in one ear, maybe; but always a song in the other. And to me life is simply an invitation to live. --Sean O'Casey (18801964) Irish dramatist and memorist. In David A. Wilson _Ireland, a Bicycle, and a Tin Whistle_, p. 1 [1995]. - Live neither in the past nor in the future, but let each day's work absorb your entire energies, and satisfy your wildest ambition. --Sir William Osler (18491919) Canadian-born physician. 1899 address at McGill University as reported in the _The Boston Medical and Surgical Journal_, vol. 141 [16 November 1899]. Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song, A medley of extemporanea; And love is a thing that can never go wrong; And I am Marie of Roumania. --Dorothy Parker (18931967) American critic and humorist. "Comment" l. I [1926] Life has not taught me to expect nothing, but she has taught me not to expect success to be the inevitable result of my endeavors. She taught me to seek sustenance from the endeavor itself, but to leave the result to God. --Alan Stewart Paton (19031988) South African author. "The Challenge of Fear," in _Saturday Review_ [9 September 1967]. To live at all is miracle enough. --Mervyn Peake (19111968) British novelist, poet, and artist. _The Glassblower_ [1950] Faith and my name is Kelly Michael Kelly, But I'm living the life of Reilly just the same. --Harry Pease (fl. 1919) Songwriter. "My Name is Kelly" [1919 song] Once we truly know that life is difficult once we truly understand and accept it then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, it no longer matters. --Scott Peck (19362005) American author. _The Road Less Traveled_ [1978] Life is the first gift, love is the second, and understanding the third. --Marge Piercy (b. 1936) American poet and novelist. Attributed; probably in her novel _Gone To Soldiers_ [1987]. The fortunate man, in my opinion, is he to whom the gods have granted the power either to do something which is worth recording or to write what is worth reading; and most fortunate of all is the man who can do both. --letter from Pliny the Younger to Tacitus (Pliny the Younger or Caius Plinius Caecilius Secundus (62c.115) Roman senator and author of a famous collection of letters. Tacitus [or Publius Cornelius Tacitus or Gaius Cornelius Tacitus] (c.55c.117), Roman orator, lawyer, senator, and historian.) 'But is all this *true*?' said Brutha. Didactylos shrugged. 'Could be. Could be. We are here and it is now. The way I see it is, after that, everything tends toward guesswork.' --Terry Pratchett (b. 1948) English science fiction writer. _Small Gods_ [1992] I have always been delighted at the prospect of a new day, a fresh try, one more start, with perhaps a bit of magic waiting somewhere behind the morning. --J.B. [John Boynton] Priestley (18941984) English novelist, playwright and critic. _Delight_, p. 170 [1949] My soul, sit thou a patient looker-on; Judge not the play before the play is done: Her plot hath many changes; every day Speaks a new scene; the last act crowns the play. --Francis Quarles (15921644) English poet. _Epigram_, "Respice Finem" And there I began to think that it is very true, which is said, that half the world does not know how the other half lives. --Franηois Rabelais (c. 1494 c. 1553] French humanist, satirist, and physician. _Gargantua and Pantagruel_, ch. XXXII [1548] I wanted a perfect ending. ... Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle and end. Life ... is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next. Delicious ambiguity. --Gilda Radner (19461989) American actress and comedienne. _It's Always Something_ [1989] The verdict you pronounce upon the source of your livelihood is the verdict you pronounce upon your life. --Ayn Rand (19051982) Russian-born American writer. _Atlas Shrugged_ [1957] A tough lesson in life that one has to learn is that not everybody wishes you well. --Dan Rather (b. 1931) American televison journalist. Quoted in William Safire & Leaonard Safir _Good Advice_ [1982]. - Once upon a time there was a tavern Where we used to raise a glass or two Remember how we laughed away the hours And dreamed of all the great things we would do Those were the days my friend We thought they'd never end We'd sing and dance forever and a day We'd live the life we choose We'd fight and never lose For we were young and sure to have our way. Then the busy years went rushing by us We lost our starry notions on the way If by chance I'd see you in the tavern We'd smile at one another and we'd say [Repeat Refrain] Just tonight I stood before the tavern Nothing seemed the way it used to be In the glass I saw a strange reflection Was that lonely woman really me [Repeat Refrain] Through the door there came familiar laughter I saw your face and heard you call my name Oh my friend we're older but no wiser For in our hearts the dreams are still the same [Repeat Refrain] --"Those Were The Days", 1968 song sung by Mary Hopkin with lyrics by Gene Raskin (19102004) written to the Russian song "Dorogoi dlinnoyu". - Some people have thought me too much of a pessimist, but I think of myself as a realist. I can't help that I've seen far too much evil, cruelty, brutality, death, dishonesty and hypocrisy to be a happy optimist. On the other hand, I've seen too much goodness, kindness, honesty, integrity and bravery to be a pessimist. The Chinese Taoists have it right. There is always light and darkness, good and evil, cowardice and courage, good times and bad times. Life is never all one or the other. It's always a mix, and we have to be strong enough to accept that. So, Sentinel readers, adieu. Thanks for all your kind thoughts and letters. To those of you who sent unkind thoughts, go to hell. --Charley Reese (b. 1937) American newspaper columnist. Farewell column in _Orlando Sentinel_ [29 July 2001]. - It is after you have lost your teeth that you can afford to buy steaks. -attributed to Pierre Auguste Renoir (18411919) French painter. Almost all men are over-anxious. No sooner do they enter the world than they lose that taste for natural and simple pleasures so remarkable in early life. Every hour do they ask themselves what progress they have made in the pursuit of wealth or honor; and on they go as their fathers went before them, till, weary and sick at heart, they look back with a sigh of regret to the golden time of their childhood. --Samuel Rogers (17631855) English poet. _Italy_ [18221828] "Foreign Travel" One's philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes. [...] In the long run, we shape our lives and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our responsibility. --Eleanor Roosevelt (18841962) American human rights activist, diplomat, and wife of U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. "Foreword" in _You Learn by Living_ [1960]. I cannot believe that the purpose of life is to be "happy." I think the purpose of life is to be useful, to be responsible, to be compassionate. It is, above all, to matter: to count, to stand for something, to have made some difference that you lived at all. --Leo Rosten (19081997) Polish-born American writer and social scientist. _Passions and Prejudices_ [1978] An awful lot of life on this planet is one man's assessment of the other. --Walt W. Rostow (19162003) American economist and educator. Quoted in Hugh Sidey _John F. Kennedy, President: A Reporter's Inside Story_ [1963]. The first quarter of life has slipped away before we know its use, and the last quarter also slips away after we have ceased to enjoy it. At first we do not know how to live; soon we are no longer able to live; and in the interval which separates these two useless extremities three quarters of the time which remains to us is consumed in sleep, in labor, in suffering, in constraint, in trouble of every description. --Jean Jacques Rousseau (17121778) French philosopher and novelist. _Emile; or, Treatise on Education_, Book Fourth [1762] Life has taught us that love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking outward together in the same direction. --Antoine de Saint-Exupιry (19001944) French novelist. _Wind, Sand and Stars_ (Terre des Hommes) [1939] - The history of the world and its peoples in three words 'Born, troubled, died.' --Carl Sandburg (18781967) American poet. _The People, Yes_ [1936] A baby is God's opinion that life should go on. --Carl Sandburg (18781967) American poet. "Remembrance Rock", ch. 2 [1948] - There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval. --George Santayana (18631952) Spanish-born philosopher and critic. _Soliloquies in England_ [1922] "War Shrines" Life is what happens to us while we are making other plans. --Allen Saunders (fl. 1957) Quoted in "Reader's Digest" [January 1957]. - A man must have grown old and lived long in order to see how short life is. --Arthur Schopenhauer (17881860) German philosopher. _Parerga and Paralipomena_ [1861] But we live through the fine days without noticing them; only when we fall on evil ones do we wish to have back the former. With sour faces we let a thousand bright and pleasant hours slip by unenjoyed and afterwards vainly sigh for their return when times are trying and depressing. Instead of this, we should cherish every present moment that is bearable, even the most ordinary, which with such indifference we now let slip by, and even with impatience push on. --Arthur Schopenhauer (17881860) German philosopher. _Parerga and Paralipomena_ [1861] The more unintelligent a man is, the less mysterious existence seems to him. --Arthur Schopenhauer (17881860) German philosopher. Attributed in _The Viking Book of Aphorisms_ [1966]. - Let me give you a definition of ethics: It is good to maintain and further life; it is bad to damage and destroy life. --Albert Schweitzer (18751965) Franco-German theologian, philosopher, and mission doctor. "Religion and Modern Civilization" (essay) [1934] I have often noticed that a kindly, placid good- humor is the companion of longevity, and, I suspect, frequently the leading cause of it. --Sir Walter Scott (17711832) Scottish novelist and poet. In John Gibson Lockhart _Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott_ , p. 593 [1901]. - Life is as tedious as a twice-told tale. --William Shakespeare (15641616) English dramatist. _King John_, III, iv [c. 1596] [Of the Internet?:] The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together. --William Shakespeare (15641616) English dramatist. _All's Well That Ends Well_, IV, iii, [1602-04] Ay, but to die, and go we know not where; To lie in cold obstruction, and to rot; This sensible warm motion to become A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside In thrilling region of thick-ribbed ice; To be imprisoned in the viewless winds And blown with restless violence round about The pendant world; or to be worse than worst Of those that lawless and incertain thought Imagine howling --- 'tis too horrible! The weariest and most loathed worldly life That age, ache, penury, and imprisonment Can lay on nature is a paradise To what we fear of death. --William Shakespeare (15641616) English dramatist. _Measure for Measure_, III, i [1604] When we are born we cry that we are come To this great stage of fools. --William Shakespeare (15641616) English dramatist. _King Lear_, IV, vi [1605-06] Nothing in his life Became him like the leaving it. --William Shakespeare (15641616) English dramatist. _Macbeth_, I, iv [1606] Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more: it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing. --William Shakespeare (15641616) English dramatist. _Macbeth_, V, v [1606] All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant, Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms. Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel And shining morning face, creeping like snail Unwillingly to school. And then the lover, Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier, Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard, Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel, Seeking the bubble reputation Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice, In fair round belly with good capon lined, With eyes severe and beard of formal cut, Full of wise saws and modern instances; And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts Into the lean and slippered pantaloon, With spectacles on nose and pouch on side; His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice, Turning again toward childish treble, pipes And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all, That ends this strange eventful history, Is second childishness and mere oblivion, Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything. --William Shakespeare (15641616) English dramatist. _As You Like It_, II, vii [1599] & see: The worlds a stage where Gods omnipotence, His justice, knowledge, love, and providence Do act the parts. --Guillaume de Salluste du Bartas (15441590) French poet. _La Semaine_ (The First Week) [1578] "First Day" - - You see things; and you say, 'Why?' But I dream things that never were; and I say, 'Why not?' --George Bernard Shaw (18561950) Irish dramatist and critic. _Back to Methuselah_, pt. 1, act 1 [1921] We should all be obliged to appear before a board every five years and justify our existence ... on pain of liquidation. --George Bernard Shaw (18561950) Irish comic dramatist, literary critic, Socialist propagandist, and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1925 [he didn't accept it.] Attributed in Laurence J. Peter _Peter's Quotations: Ideas for Our Time_, p. 275 [2003 ed.]. - The game of life is the game of boomerangs. Our thoughts, deeds and words return to us sooner or later, with astounding accuracy. --attributed to Florence Scovel Shinn (18711940) American author. You've got to love livin', baby! Because dyin' is a pain in the ass. --Frank Sinatra (19151998) American singer and actor. Quoted in Bill Zehme _ Intimate Strangers: Comic Profiles and Indiscretions of the Very Famous_ [2002]. The greatest results in life are usually attained by simple means and the exercise of ordinary qualities. --Samuel Smiles (18121904) Scottish author. _Self-Help_ [1859] Am I the person who used to wake in the middle of the night and laugh with the joy of living? Who worried about the existence of God, and danced with young ladies till long after daybreak? Who sang "Auld Lang Syne" and howled with sentiment, and more than once gazed at the full moon through a blur of great. romantic tears? --Logan Pearsall Smith (1865-1946) American-born man of letters. _More Trivia_ [1934] "Last Words" The future is always fairy-land to the young. Life is like a very beautiful and winding lane, on either side bright flowers, and beautiful butterflies, and tempting fruits, which we scarcely pause to admire and to taste, so eager are we to hasten to an opening which we imagine will be more beautiful still. But by degrees as we advance, the trees grow bleak, the flowers and butterflies fail, the fruits disappear, and we find we have arrived to reach a desert waste. --Harriet Maria Gordon Smythies _The Jilt_, ch. IX [1844] The unexamined life is not worth living. --Socrates (470?399 B.C.) Greek philosopher. In Plato _Apology_. No man loves life like him that's growing old. --Sophocles (496?406 B.C.) Greek dramatist. "Acrisius" fragment 64 - I must keep on rowing, not until I reach port but until I reach my grave. --Germaine de Staλl (17661817) French writer. _Letter to Albertine Necker de Saussure_ [July 1814]. Life often seems like a long shipwreck, of which the debris are friendship, glory, and love; the shores of existence are strewn with them. --Germaine de Staλl (17661817) French writer. Attributed in Maturin M. Ballou _Pearls of Thought_, p. 65 [1882]. - He has achieved success who has lived well, laughed often and loved much; who has enjoyed the trust of pure women, the respect of intelligent men and the love of little children; who has filled his niche and accomplished his task; who has left the world better than he found it, whether by an improved poppy, a perfect poem, or a rescued soul; who has never lacked appreciation of earth's beauty or failed to express it; who has always looked for the best in others and given them the best he had; whose life was an inspiration; whose memory is a benediction. --Bessie A. Stanley (b.1879) American writer. "Success" in _Brown Book Magazine_ [1904]. Live free or die. --John Stark (17281822) American revolutionary officer. Letter "To My Friends and Fellow Soldiers" [31 July 1809]. Life is a gamble at terrible odds if it was a bet, you wouldn't take it. --Tom Stoppard [Tomas Straussler] (b. 1937) Czech-born British playwright. _Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead_, act 3 [1967] Wouldn't it be terrible to discover that life is indeed fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us happen because we really deserve them? --attributed to J. Michael Straczynski (b. 1954) American writer and television producer. Let your life lightly dance on the edges of Time like dew on the tip of a leaf. --Rabindranath Tagore (18611941) Bengali poet, short-story writer, song composer, playwright, and painter who won the 1913 Nobel Prize for Literature. _The Gardener_ [1915] When I can look Life in the eyes, Grown calm and very coldly wise, Life will have given me the Truth, And taken in exchangemy youth. --Sara Teasdale (18841933) American poet. Winner of the first Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1918. "Wisdom" in Harper's (mag), vol. 134 [1917] - The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. --Henry David Thoreau (18171862) American essayist, poet, and practical philosopher. _Walden_, ch. I [1854] If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put foundations under them. --Henry David Thoreau (18171862) American essayist, poet, and practical philosopher. "Conclusion" in _Walden_ [1854] - ^^ from a soldier in Iraq [2005] ... There are days where pain seeps into your veins like a venom, slowing only to settle in marrow deep pools. There are days where no amount of rest can crack the adamantine circlets of fatigue that seem to bind your frame. There are days where memories of home seem like a cracked and faded picture, leaving just faded impressions shorn of all the subtle shadings that made the moment unique and special. When these days come they bear down on your heart like a steel press. But there is symmetry to all things under heaven, and for every suffering there is a joy of equal measure. It doesn't always come instantly, but it always seems to come. On the days where the carrion birds circle your consciousness that knowledge alone can be enough to ward off the darkness and mend the hurt. Sometimes felicity is writ large, like the cool desert mornings where the sun stains the horizon with sublime banners of crimson and gold. There are other times where satisfaction flows from being in the company of so many tough and determined soldiers. At other times joy comes from little more then seeing my name scrawled on a care package, the familiar words as intoxicating as the finest liquor. But all of these lesser joys pale in comparison to the raw sense of bliss that comes from just being alive another day. Life is something all too easily taken for granted, its brilliance muffled beneath an avalanche of the unimportant and unnecessary dramas of being. But out here you see firsthand just how tenuous the thread of life can be, and that awareness makes every pulse of your heart something strange and miraculous. When this mission comes to a close I'll carry back memories as sharp as razors, and there will be times when they continue to cut. There is no use bemoaning that reality, it simply is. I'm alright with that, if nothing else those memories will focus my attention on what has real value in this world. It isn't anything as empty as money, or as base as fame. It's the simple things that brought me joy even here in the middle of combat. My loving wife. My family. The company of good friends. Nature in all her incarnations. After all this I don't think I'll ever take any of them for granted. --Thunder6, "Balance" [12 September 2005] ^^ There is no safety in numbers, or in anything else. --James Thurber (18941961) American humorist and cartoonist. "The Fairly Intelligent Fly" in _Fables for Our Time..._ [1940] Pick the right grandparents, don't eat or drink too much, be circumspect in all things, and take a two-mile walk every morning before breakfast. --Harry S. Truman (18841972) American Democratic statesman, President of the U.S. [19451953]. Prescription for reaching the age of 80, remark to reporters on his 80th birthday, Washington, D.C. [8 May 1964]. - Only he who has seen better days and lives to see better days again knows their full value. --Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (18351910) American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot. _Mark Twain's Notebook_ [1935] Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life. --Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (18351910) American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot. In _Mark Twain: Collected Tales, Sketches, Speeches, and Essays 1891-1910_, p. 943 [Library of America, 1992], as quoted in _When in Doubt, Tell the Truth, and other quotations from Mark Twain_, collected by Brian Collins [1996]. - In the beginning, God created the earth, and he looked upon it in His cosmic loneliness. And God said, "Let Us make living creatures out of mud, so the mud can see what We have done." And God created every living creature that now moveth, and one was man. Mud as man alone could speak. God leaned close as mud as man sat up, looked around, and spoke. Man blinked. "What is the purpose of all this?" he asked politely." "Everything must have a purpose?" asked God. "Certainly," said man. "Then I leave it to you to think of one for all this," said God. And He went away. --Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (19222007) American novelist and short-story writer. _Cat's Cradle_ [1963] So it goes. --Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (19222007) American novelist and short-story writer. _Slaughterhouse-Five_, ch. I [1969] - This world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel. --Horace Walpole (17171797) English writer and connoisseur. Letter to Anne, Countess of Upper Ossory [16 August 1776]. The whole secret of life is to be interested in one thing profoundly and in a thousand things well. --Hugh Walpole (18841941) English novelist. According to Wikiquote: "Said at Keswick, as quoted in The Education Outlook [1926] Vol. 78." Life's a bitch, and then you die. --"Washington Post" [10 October 1982] Life is tough. It's even tougher if you're stupid. --attributed to John Wayne [Marion Michael Morrison] (19071979) American motion-picture actor. Life is such unutterable hell, solely because it is sometimes beautiful. If we could only be miserable all the time, if there could be no such thing as love or beauty or faith or hope, if I could be absolutely certain that my love would never be returned: how much more simple life would be. One could plod to the Siberian salt mines of existence without being bothered about happiness. Unfortunately the happiness is there. There is always the chance that another heart will come to mine. I can't help hoping and keeping faith, and loving beauty. Quite frequently I am not so miserable as it would be wise to be. --T. H. [Terence Hanbury] White (19061964) English novelist. _The Troll_ [1935] As I got older I became aware of the folly of this perpetual reaching after the future, and of drawing from tomorrow, and from tomorrow only, a reason for the joyfulness of today. I learned, when, alas! it was almost too late, to live in each moment as it passed over my head. --William Hale White [pseud. Mark Rutherford] (18311913) English novelist. _The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford_, ch. V [3rd ed., 1889] It is not how much you know about life but how you live your life that counts. Those who can avoid mistakes by observing the mistakes of others are most apt to keep free from sorrow. In a world full of uncertainties, the record of what has gone before human experience is as sure and reliable as anything of which we know. --Ray Lyman Wilbur (18751949) Medical doctor and president of Stanford University. Quoted in Alfred Armand Montapert _Inspiration & Motivation_ [1982]. - One ship sails East, And another West, By the self-same winds that blow, 'Tis the set of the sails And not the gales, That tells the way we go. Like the winds of the sea Are the waves of time, As we journey along through life, 'Tis the set of the soul, That determines the goal, And not the calm or the strife. --Ella Wheeler Wilcox (18501919) American author and poet. "'Tis the Set of the Sail" [1916] - - Paradox though it may seem and paradoxes are always dangerous things it is none the less true that life imitates art far more than art imitates life. --Oscar Wilde (18541900) Anglo-Irish dramatist and poet. "The Decay of Lying: A Dialogue" in _The Twentieth Century, vol. XXV [JanuaryJune 1889] In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it. The last is much the worst. --Oscar Wilde (18541900) Anglo-Irish dramatist and poet. _Lady Windermere's Fan_, act 3 [1892] - - Oh earth, you're too wonderful for anybody to realize you. ... Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it? every, every minute? --Thornton Wilder (18971975) American novelist and dramatist. "Our Town" act III [1938] My, wasn't life awful and wonderful. --Thornton Wilder (18971975) American novelist and dramatist. _Our Town_ [1938] My advice to you is not to inquire why or whither, but just enjoy your ice cream while it's on your plate that's my philosophy. --Thornton Wilder (18971975) American novelist and dramatist. "The Skin of Our Teeth" [1942] - Joy and grief are never far apart. In the same street the shutters of one house are closed, while the curtains of the next are brushed by shadows of the dance. A wedding- party returns from church, and a funeral winds to its door. The smiles and the sadness of life are the tragi-comedy of Shakespeare. Gladness and sighs brighten and dim the mirror he beholds. --Robert Aris Willmott (18091863) English editor and author. "Pleasures of Literature" in _The Eclectic Magazine_ [February 1852]. The longer I live the more beautiful life becomes. --Frank Lloyd Wright (18671959) American architect. Quoted in Alfred Armand Montapert _Distilled Wisdom : An Encyclopedia of Wisdom in Condensed Form_ [1964]. Ah, sweet mystery of life At last I found thee. --Rida Johnson Young (18691926) American songwriter. "Ah! Sweet Mystery of Life" [1910 song] - It may be that your sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others. --anon. - I believe you should live each day as if it is your last, which is why I don't have any clean laundry because, come on, who wants to wash clothes on the last day of their life? --anon., age 15 - Our life is like a candle in the wind. --Ancient proverb - A Chief stood before his CPO selectees with several items in front of him. When the session began, wordlessly he picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with rocks, about 2" in diameter. He then asked the group if the jar was full. They agreed that it was. So the Chief then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles, of course, rolled into the open areas between the rocks. He then asked the selectees again if the jar was full. They agreed it was. He picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else. He then asked once more the jar was full. The group responded with an unanimous yes. The Chief then produced two cans of beer from under the table and proceeded to pour the entire contents into the jar effectively filling the empty space between the sand. The group laughed. "Now," said the Chief, as the laughter subsided, "I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life. The rocks are the important things - your family, your partner, your health, your children - things that if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full. The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house, your car. The sand is everything else - the small stuff." "If you put the sand into the jar first," he continued "there is no room for the pebbles or the rocks. The same goes for your life. If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff, you will never have room for the things that are important to you. Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness. Play with your children. Take time to get medical checkups. Take your partner out dancing. There will always be time to go to work, clean the house, give a dinner party and fix the disposal. Take care of the rocks first - the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand." One of the selectees raised their hand and inquired what the beer represented. The Chief smiled. "I'm glad you asked. It just goes to show you that no matter how full your life may seem, there's always room for a couple of beers." --anon. - Most of us miss out on life's big prizes. The Pulitzer. The Nobel. Oscars. Tonys. Emmys. But we're all eligible for life's small pleasures. Pat on the back. A kiss behind the ear. A four-pound bass. A full moon. An empty parking space. A crackling fire. A great meal. A glorious sunset. Hot soup. Cold beer. Don't fret about copping life's grand awards. Enjoy its tiny delights. There are plenty for all of us. --published in the "Wall Street Journal" by United Technologies Corp. - ----- hardscrabble [HARD-skrab-uhl], adjective: 1. Yielding a bare or meager living with great labor or difficulty. 2. Marked by poverty. end page | KARMA - KENTUCKY | KINDNESS | KILL - KU KLUX KLAN | KNOWLEDGE | LABELS - LAS VEGAS | LANGUAGE | LATIN - LAUGHTER | LAW (THE) - LAWYERS | LAZINESS - LEGACY | LEARNING | LEISURE - LIBERALS | LIBERTY - LIBRARY | LIES / LIARS / LYING | LIFE - PAGE 1 (A-L) | LIFE - PAGE 2 (M-Z) | LIFESTYLE - LIMITATIONS | LINCOLN (ABRAHAM) - LITTERING | LIVE - LONDON | LONELINESS - LOUISIANA | LOVE - PAGE 1 (A-L) | LOVE - PAGE 2 (M-Z) | LOVE & MARRIAGE - LYNCHING | | H | I - J | K - L | M | N - O | P - Q | | Return Home | The Credits | The Cast | Act 1 | Act 2 | Act 3 | The Reviews | |
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