The perplexity of life arises from there being too many interesting things in it for us to be interested properly in any of them.

Death is nothing, but to live defeated and inglorious is to die daily.

Civilisations have been destroyed many times, and this civilisation is no different. It can be destroyed. We can think of time in terms of millions of years and life will resume little by little. The cosmos operates for us very urgently, but geological time is different.

I’m a person of whim, and easily distracted. I don’t like multitasking. When I’m doing one thing, I like to do just that thing.

Three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.

Life can be boring unless you put some effort into it.

I have lived long enough to satisfy both nature and glory.

The Indian Summer of life should be a little sunny and a little sad, like the season, and infinite in wealth and depth of tone, but never hustled.

The idea that there is one kind of African is, of course, ridiculous. Sometimes African entrepreneurs want to kill you because you are saying public health is the priority, not roads. Of course they are right to press for that issue, but so are we right, I believe, to argue, for example, that millions of children could and should be vaccinated.

There is an ecstasy that marks the summit of life, and beyond which life cannot rise. And such is the paradox of living, this ecstasy comes when one is most alive, and it comes as a complete forgetfulness that one is alive.

The American doctor, in my opinion, possesses a combination of conservatism and that other quality which has put the United States in the forefront in almost every department of science – that is, an eagerness to know what it is really all about in order that he may not be the one left behind if there is something to it.

You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.

You cannot be creative with people around you.

Life is thickly sown with thorns, and I know no other remedy than to pass quickly through them. The longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater is their power to harm us.

The one thing that ‚Via Dolorosa‘ has is no opinions. To me, curiosity is 50 times as valuable as opinion.

When I’m really interested in something, I get superfocused on that. And I can spend hours upon hours not getting tired of reading about it and still be interested to learn more about it.

My whole life has been one big improvisation.

Of life’s two chief prizes, beauty and truth, I found the first in a loving heart and the second in a laborer’s hand.

Sometimes I think it would be easier to avoid old age, to die young, but then you’d never complete your life, would you? You’d never wholly know you.

Next to knowing when to seize an opportunity, the most important thing in life is to know when to forego an advantage.

The first forty years of life give us the text; the next thirty supply the commentary on it.

I never look at my watch when I’m sketching!

It’s life isn’t it? You plow ahead and make a hit. And you plow on and someone passes you. Then someone passes them. Time levels.

Understanding science and pushing the boundaries of science is what makes me immensely satisfied.

Life is so, so short. Bible says it’s like a vapor.

The state comes into existence for the sake of life and continues to exist for the sake of good life.

The measure of a life, after all, is not its duration, but its donation.

Unbeing dead isn’t being alive.

I only live in my music, and I have scarcely begun one thing when I start on another. As I am now working, I am often engaged on three or four things at the same time.

Love can do much, but duty more.

Each player must accept the cards life deals him or her: but once they are in hand, he or she alone must decide how to play the cards in order to win the game.

To a profound pessimist about life, being in danger is not depressing.

If life gives you limes, make margaritas.

Among the many values in life, I appreciate freedom most.

If you cannot understand that there is something in man which responds to the challenge of this mountain and goes out to meet it, that the struggle is the struggle of life itself upward and forever upward, then you won’t see why we go.

Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus.

I guess when you turn off the main road, you have to be prepared to see some funny houses.

Life, an age to the miserable, and a moment to the happy.

If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans.

I don’t think there’s any point going for second or third.

There is nothing more tragic than to find an individual bogged down in the length of life, devoid of breadth.

Today, more than ever before, life must be characterized by a sense of Universal responsibility, not only nation to nation and human to human, but also human to other forms of life.

To the wise, life is a problem; to the fool, a solution.

Steve Jobs‘ ability to focus in on a few things that count, get people who get user interface right, and market things as revolutionary are amazing things.

The older I get the more wisdom I find in the ancient rule of taking first things first. A process which often reduces the most complex human problem to a manageable proportion.

It is in life as it is in ways, the shortest way is commonly the foulest, and surely the fairer way is not much about.

Over the years I’ve seen people lose a spouse and then withdraw and lose interest in life, and I believe we need to resist that.

Part of the secret of a success in life is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside.

But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads?

I’ve been afraid of people playing their life away with too many toys.

I focus on one thing and one thing only – that’s trying to win as many championships as I can.

Men must live and create. Live to the point of tears.

Human life is everywhere a state in which much is to be endured, and little to be enjoyed.

I never felt settled or calm. You can’t really commit to life when you feel that.

Death most resembles a prophet who is without honor in his own land or a poet who is a stranger among his people.

I suppose that’s one of the ironies of life doing the wrong thing at the right moment.

In such a porcelain life, one likes to be sure that all is well lest one stumble upon one’s hopes in a pile of broken crockery.

You are doomed to make choices. This is life’s greatest paradox.

One always dies too soon or too late. And yet, life is there, finished: the line is drawn, and it must all be added up. You are nothing other than your life.

For if there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in despairing of life as in hoping for another life and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this life.

Every parting gives a foretaste of death, every reunion a hint of the resurrection.