Quotes to Live By
Most popular how to live life quotes
Love many, trust few, and always paddle your own canoe.
Be here now.
Be brave enough to break your own heart.
Don't surrender all your joy for an idea you used to have about yourself that isn't true anymore.
Trust your gut. Forgive yourself. Be grateful.
All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law of the prophets.
What is hateful to you, do not to your fellow man. That is the entire law; all the rest is commentary.
This is the sum of duty: do not unto others which would cause you pain if done to you.
Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful.
None of you is a believer until he desires for his brother that which he desires for himself.
Surely it is the maxim of loving kindness—do not unto others what you would not have them do unto you.
Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind.
There is no doing it right; there's just being with what is as wholeheartedly as the moment allows.
It isn't the great, big pleasures that count the most; it's making a great deal out of the little ones.
Life is a bridge, build no house upon it; it is a river, cling not to its banks; it is a gymnasium, use it to develop the mind on the apparatus of circumstance; it is a journey, take it and walk on.
Accept — then act. Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it. Make it your friend and ally, not your enemy. This will miraculously transform your whole life.
To create a balanced and successful life, your vision needs to include the following seven areas: work and career, finances, recreation and free time, health and fitness, relationships, personal goals, and contribution to the larger community.
Let us live so that when we come to die, even the undertaker will be sorry.
Live as if you were to die tomorrow; learn as if you were to live forever.
We are here to add what we can to, not to get what we can from, life.
Begin each day with the idea of being able to generate compassion and understanding the whole day through.
Live your life, do your work, then take your hat.
There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.
A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving.
Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood.
There are two ways to live your life: One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.
You're not obligated to win. You're obligated to keep trying to do the best you can everyday.
Find out who you are and do it on purpose.
Never retract, never explain, never apologize; get things done and let them howl.
Do not worry; eat three square meals a day; say your prayers; be courteous to your creditors; keep your digestion good; exercise; go slow and easy. Maybe there are other things your special case requires to make you happy, but my friend, these I reckon will give you a good lift.
I never had a policy; I have just tried to do my very best each and every day.
Spend each day trying to be a little wiser than you were when you woke up. Discharge your duties faithfully and well. Slug it out one inch at a time, day by day. At the end of the day—if you live long enough—most people get what they deserve.
It's been my experience in life, if you just keep thinking and reading, you don't have to work.
What must be done is best done cheerfully.
Make it a point to do something every day that you don't want to do. This is the golden rule for acquiring the habit of doing your duty without pain.
Live everyday as if it were your last because someday you're going to be right.
Fortunate, indeed, is the man who takes exactly the right measure of himself and holds a just balance between what he can acquire and what he can use.
What we must decide is how we are valuable rather than how valuable we are.
We have to learn to be our own best friends because we fall too easily into the trap of being our worst enemies.
A human being's first responsibility is to shake hands with himself.
Never feel self-pity, the most destructive emotion there is. How awful to be caught up in the terrible squirrel cage of self.
Establishing goals is all right if you don't let them deprive you of interesting detours.
Keep high aspirations, moderate expectations and small needs.
Take your work seriously but yourself lightly.
Think big thoughts but relish small pleasures.
To be upset over what you don't have is to waste what you do have.
Look at everything as though you were seeing it either for the first or last time. Then your time on earth will be filled with glory.
Keep me away from the wisdom which does not cry, the philosophy which does not laugh and the greatness which does not bow before children.
Expect people to be better than they are; it helps them to become better. But don't be disappointed when they are not; it helps them to keep trying.
If there is anything we wish to change in the child, we should first examine it and see whether it is not something that could better be changed in ourselves.
To err is human; to refrain from laughing, humane.
Live so that your friends can defend you but never have to.
I endeavor to be wise when I cannot be merry, easy when I cannot be glad, content with what cannot be mended and patient when there be no redress.
A little kindness from person to person is better than a vast love for all humankind.
Resolve to be tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant with the weak and the wrong. Sometime in life you will have been all of these.
One of the secrets of a long and fruitful life is to forgive everybody everything every night before you go to bed.
Cultivate the habit of early rising. It is unwise to keep the head long on a level with the feet.
Never be haughty to the humble. Never be humble to the haughty.
In life, as in a football game, the principle to follow is: hit the line hard.
Be bold in what you stand for and careful what you fall for.
I make the most of all that comes and the least of all that goes.
My father always told me, "Find a job you love and you'll never have to work a day in your life."
If you can spend a perfectly useless afternoon in a perfectly useless manner, you have learned how to live.
Part of the art of living is knowing how to compare yourself with the right people. Dissatisfaction is often the result of unsuitable comparison.
One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture and, if possible, speak a few reasonable words.
Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life.
Stay hungry, stay foolish.
When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?"And whenever the answer has been no for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything —all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure—these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma—which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
Whatever you are, be a good one.
The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware.
The great art of life is sensation, to feel that we exist, even in pain.
To look at everything always as though you were seeing it either for the first or last time: Thus is your time on earth filled with glory.
Do one thing every day that scares you.
If you don't become the ocean you'll be seasick every day.
Your task is not to foresee the future, but to enable it.
Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the men of old; seek what they sought.
If you wish to live, you must first attend your own funeral.
There is nothing to find, only to realize. There is nothing to become, only to be. There is nothing to be fear, only to love.
Evil is boring. Cynicism is pointless. Fear is a bad habit. Despair is lazy. Hopelessness is self-indulgent. On the other hand: Joy is fascinating. Love is an act of heroic genius. Pleasure is our birthright. Chronic ecstasy is a learnable skill.
Rule Number 1 is, don't sweat the small stuff. Rule Number 2 is, it's all small stuff. And if you can't fight and you can't flee, flow.
Love while you've got love to give. Live while you've got life to live.
We ought to live each day as though it were our last day here below. But if I did, alas, I know it would have killed me long ago.
The shoe that fits one person pinches another; there is no recipe for living that suits all cases.
The best path through life is the high road.
I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them.
If everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough.
Everything has been figured out, except how to live.
My 1 repeated learning in life: "There Are No Adults." Everyone's making it up as they go along. Figure it out yourself, and do it.
The most important form of selfishness involves spending time on your fitness, eating right, pursuing your career, and still spending quality time with your family and friends.
You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.
To laugh often and much; to win the respect of the intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know that one life has breathed easier because you lived here. This is to have succeeded.
Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.
I have a simple philosophy: Fill what's empty. Empty what's full. Scratch where it itches.
Life must be lived as play.
The great use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it.
Fill what's empty, empty what's full, and scratch where it itches.
Do unto others what you want done unto you.
Fix your mind on truth, hold firm to virtue, rely on loving kindness, and find your recreation in the Arts.
Speak the truth, do not yield to anger; give, if thou art asked for little; by these three steps thou wilt go near the gods.
Create each day anew by clothing yourself with heaven and earth, bathing yourself with wisdom and love, and placing yourself in the heart of Mother Nature.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
Enjoy when you can, and endure when you must.
Fear less, hope more; eat less, chew more; whine less, breathe more; talk less, say more; hate less, love more; and all good things are yours.
Have a heart that never hardens, a temper that never tires, a touch that never hurts.
The great secret of success is to go through life as a man who never gets used up.
Old people have so little left of life they should cease trying to make it bring what they desire and make the most of what it offers. Come to think of it, that's not bad policy for young people as well.
If you know how to let go and be at peace, you know everything you need to know about living in the world.
Life is much, much easier when you treat all humans as flawed and defective, but each flawed in different ways.
You must impress your accountant rather than the neighbors, your cardiologist rather than gym rats, your readers rather than book editors, and Sparta rather than its enemies.
