Robertson Davies Quotes

Mother Teresa was asked what was the meaning of life, and she said to help other people, and I thought, 'What a strange thing to say' - but maybe it's the right thing to say.

Man positively needs general ideas and convictions that will give a meaning to his life and enable him to find a place for himself in the universe.

Young children have no sense of wonder. They bewilder well, but few things surprise them. All of it is new to young children, after all, and equally gratuitous.

Childhood is over the moment things are no longer astonishing.

I don't necessarily view death as something negative. Death gives meaning to life. Living in fear of death is living in denial. Actually, it's not really living at all, because there is no life without death. It's two sides of the one. You can't pick up one side and say, I'm just going to use the 'heads' side. No. It doesn't work like that. You have to pick up both sides because nothing is promised to anyone in this world besides death.

I feel life is so small unless it has windows into other worlds.

Each day is an adventure in discovering the meaning of life.

I know that you cannot live on hope alone, but without it, life is not worth living. And you...And you...And you...Gotta give em hope.

I like to think that death gives life meaning. I like that philosophy.

I used to think about giving my life up for things, but I didn't understand what 'giving your life' really was until it was right there, about to be taken from me

A stranger here Strange things doth meet, strange glories see; Strange treasures lodged in this fair world appear, Strange all, and new to me. But that they mine should be, who nothing was, That strangest is of all, yet brought to pass.

Take death for example. A great deal of our effort goes into avoiding it. We make extraordinary efforts to delay it, and often consider its intrusion a tragic event. Yet we'd find it hard to live without it. Death gives meaning to our lives. It gives importance and value to time. Time would become meaningless if there were too much of it.

Before you come alive, life is nothing; it 's up to you to give it a meaning, and value is nothing else but the meaning that you choose.

How I have walked... day after day, and all alone, to see if there was not something among the old things which was new!

I'm very musically curious and I love new experience. I'm an adventurer. Some people want to sort of stay in a safe zone and repeat the same things and give them more depth, and I want to do new things all the time

We were placed on earth to fulfil a purpose, and that purpose is what gives meaning to our lives, you were sent to the world to make an impact and make a difference

To give life a meaning, one must have a purpose larger than self.

I can't imagine what possessed you to propose to me." "Well that will give you something to puzzle over any time you can't sleep.

Your life doesn't mean what you have or what you get. Its what your'e willing to give up.

But how much better, in any case, to wonder than not to wonder, to dance with astonishment and go spinning in praise, than not to know enough to dance or praise at all; to be blessed with more imagination than you might know at the given moment what to do with than to be cursed with too little to give you -- and other people -- any trouble.

Adventurous men enjoy shipwrecks, mutinies, earthquakes, conflagrations, and all kinds of unpleasant experiences. They say to themselves, for example, 'So this is what an earthquake is like,' and it gives them pleasure to have their knowledge of the world increased by this new item.

We are all of us born, live and die in the shadow of a giant question mark that refers to three questions: Where do we come from? Why? And where, oh where, are we going!

Art is really people asking the eternal question, "What is it all about?"

We are not sufficiently astonished by the fact that any science may be possible.

All the new people you meet, it's pretty amazing. The vampire needs new blood. And there is still a lot to learn and there is always great stuff out there. Even mistakes can be wonderful.