Life

LIFE! I know not what thou art,
But know that thou and I must part;
And when, or how, or where we met,
I own to me 's a secret yet.
But this I know, when thou art fled,
Where'er they lay these limbs, this head,
No clod so valueless shall be
As all that then remains of me.

---------- Anna Lætitia Barbauld. 1743–1825

»Live all you can; it's a mistake not to. It doesn't so much matter what you do in particular, so long as you have your life. If you haven't had that what HAVE you had?«

Henry James
The Ambassadors

Life was meant to be lived, and curiosity must be kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.

(Eleanor Roosevelt)

It is a common saying, and in everybody’s mouth, that life is but a sojourn.

--Plato.

Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.

(George Bernard Shaw)

We are here to add what we can to life, not to get what we can from it.

William Osler

My Life Closed Twice Before it Closed
by Emily Dickinson

My life closed twice before its close;
It yet remains to see
If Immortality unveil
A third event to me,

So huge, so hopeless to conceive,
As these that twice befell.
Parting is all we know of heaven,
And all we need of hell.

Is there any intelligent life on earth?

Yes, but I am only visiting.

Some say life is the thing, but I prefer reading.

(Ruth Rendell)

Life-- don't talk to me about life.

Living on earth is expensive, but it does include a free trip around the sun.

When it comes time to cash in that Ninth Life, I hope I will be in the sea. Man is a fish in exile. To become part of a kaleidoscopically dazzling coral reef certainly seems preferable to becoming food for worms in a city cemetery or burning in a crematory oven for an hour and a half.

I wonder what it was in Emily Dickinson's life that made her think that parting partook of heaven – especially if she was talking about the final parting of death, which I assume she was.

For me, another great poet, Goethe, was nearer the mark, when he said that we must always be careful – for every parting with those we love contains within it the seeds of madness....