Life is too tragic for sadness: Let us rejoice.
Good or ill, life is life; you only realize that when you have to risk it.
If God has made your cup sweet, drink it with grace; if He has made it bitter, drink it in communion with Him.
When people are like, 'Life is good,' I go, 'No, life is a series of disastrous moments, painful moments, unexpected moments, and things that will break your heart. And in between those moments, that's when you savor, savor, savor.'
the greatest learning of the ages lies in accepting life exactly as it comes to us.
We all travel different roads to our ultimate destinations. For some of us the path is rockier than for others. But no one reaches the end without feeling some form of adversity. So rather than fight it, why not accept it as the way of life? Why not detach yourself from the outcomes and simply experience every circumstance that enters your life to the fullest?
What is the good life? What is the good man? The good woman? What is the good society and what is my relation to it? What are my obligations to society? What is best for my children? What is justice? Truth? Virtue? What is my relation to nature, to death, to aging, to pain, to illness? How can I live a zestful, enjoyable, meaningful life? What is my responsibility to my brothers? Who are my brothers? What shall I be loyal to? What must I be ready to die for?
My whole life has been about changing negatives into positives. I got famous, then I got cancer, and now I live to talk about it. Sometimes the best gifts come in the ugliest packages.
Don't worry about this world; it is not broken. And don't worry about others. You worry more about them than they do. There are people waging war; there are people on the battlefield who are more alive than they've ever been before. Don't try to protect people from life; just let them have their experience while you focus upon your own experience.
Sow the living part of yourselves in the furrow of life.
There is one statement I want you to keep after you are finished with this book. It is more of a mantra, really. Nonetheless, let it crawl across your mind any time you feel you have been backed into a corner spiritually. It is very simple: Live your life, no matter what life is. Take that with you. Live your life. No matter what that life is.
Life is a cup of tea; the more heartily we drink the sooner we reach the dregs.
A man must be prepared to face life, as well as death, there's no escape from either.
It's not life or death, the labyrinth. Suffering. Doing wrong and having wrong things happen to you. That's the problem. Bolivar was talking about the pain, not about the living or dying. How do you get out of the labyrinth of suffering?
My life's a wreck, and I love it.
I know that I shall die struggling for breath, and I know that I shall be horribly afraid. I know that I shall not be able to keep myself from regretting bitterly the life that has brought me to such a pass; but I disown that regret. I now, weak, old, diseased, poor, dying, hold still my soul in my hands, and I regret nothing.
I've learned so much from the Pirahas over the years. But this is perhaps my favorite lesson. Sure, life is hard and there is plenty of danger. And it might make us lose some sleep from time to time. But enjoy it. Life goes on.
How do we nurture the soul? By revering our own life. By learning to love it all, not only the joys and the victories, but also the pain and the struggles.
No--when the rain falls you just let it fall and you grin like a madman and you dance with it, because if you can make yourself happy in the rain then you're doing pretty alright in life. (Nick, page 156)
Avoiding problems you need to face is avoiding the life you need to live.
This is the reason we cannot complain of life: it keeps no one against his will.
Faith of Cranes is a love song to the beauty and worth of the lives we are able to lead in the world just as it is, troubled though it be... The writing is honest, intensely lived, and overflowing with heart: broken, mended, and whole.
I remembered that the real world was wide, and that a varied field of hopes and fears, of sensations and excitments, awaited those who had the courage to go forth into it's expanse, to seek real knowledge of life amidst it's perils.
We cannot expect to be happy always ... by experiencing evil as well as good we become wise.
You are right, none of us live enough, and sometimes I think it is because we mistake hurrah and hullabaloo for experience, we get a sock in the eye and think it is a broken heart.
