Living Quotations

Living quotations. Find, read, and share Living quotations. These are the best examples of Living quotes on PoetrySoup.

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Quote Left I�ve learned that making a living is not the same thing as making a life. Quote Right
Quote Left Your time is limited, don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma, which is living the result of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinion drowned 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. Quote Right
Quote Left A writer needs loneliness, and he gets his share of it. He needs love, and he gets shared and also unshared love. He needs friendship. In fact, he needs the universe. To be a writer is, in a sense, to be a day-dreamer - to be living a kind of double life. Quote Right
Quote Left Fortunately art is a community effort—a small but select community living in a spiritualized world endeavoring to interpret the wars and the... Quote Right
Quote Left I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, it's a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope. Which is what I do, and that enables you to laugh at life's realities. Quote Right
Quote Left Had it not been for you, I should have remained what I was when we first met, a prejudiced, narrow-minded being, with contracted sympathies and false knowledge, wasting my life on obsolete trifles, and utterly insensible to the privilege of living in this wondrous age of change and progress. Quote Right
Quote Left The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings but shorter tempers, wider freeways, but narrower viewpoints. We spend more, but have less; we buy more, but enjoy less. We have bigger houses and smaller families, more conveniences, but less time. We have more degrees but less sense, more knowledge, but less judgment, more experts, yet more problems, more medicine, but less wellness. We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get too angry, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too little, watch TV too much, and pray too seldom. We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often. We've learned how to make a living, but not a life. We've added years to life not life to years. We've been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet a new neighbor. We conquered outer space but not inner space. We've done larger things, but not better things. We've cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul. We've conquered the atom, but not our prejudice. We write more, but learn less. We plan more, but accomplish less. We've learned to rush, but not to wait. We build more computers to hold more information, to produce more copies than ever, but we communicate less and less. These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion, big men and small character, steep profits and shallow relationships. These are the days of two incomes but more divorce, fancier houses, but broken homes. These are days of quick trips, disposable diapers, throwaway morality, one night stands, overweight bodies, and pills that do everything from cheer, to quiet, to kill. It is a time when there is much in the showroom window and nothing in the stockroom. A time when technology can bring this letter to you, and a time when you can choose either to share this insight, or to just hit delete. Quote Right
Quote Left Out of the closets and into the museums, libraries, architectural monuments, concert halls, bookstores, recording studios and film studios of the world. Everything belongs to the inspired and dedicated thief... Words, colors, light, sounds, stone, wood, bronze belong to the living artist. They belong to anyone who can use them. Loot the Louver! A bas l Originality, the sterile and assertive ego that imprisons us as it creates. Vive le sol -- pure, shameless, total. We are not responsible. Steal anything in sight. Quote Right
Quote Left For a hundred years I breathe and live, the flower of beauty and the bread of kindness. I am your friendly shade in the noonday heat of summer, and I stand pencilled against the winter twilight, a silhouette for dreams. At dawning in the spring I am filled with song, the host to a thousand birds, and I decorate the autumn with pageantry and colour. Then comes the woodsman with his axe. And still I serve. I am the timber that builds your boat; the rafters of your cathedrals; the choirstalls of your church enriched by the magic of the carver's fingers. I am the beam that holds your house; the door of your homestead, and the lintel too. I am the handle of your hoe; the wood of your cradle; the bed on which you lie; the board of your table and the board for your bread. When I am living, harm me not. When I am dead, respect me and use me kindly. Quote Right
Quote Left (1) Do not let your children make toys out of flies/butterflies or birds. Such behavior results in injury to living creatures, but also it arouses in young hearts an impulse to cruelty and murder. Stories illustrative of the commandments: (2) The wife of a soldier named Fan was tuberculous and close to death. She was ordered to eat the brains of 100 sparrows as a remedy. When she saw the birds in the cage, she sighed and said: 'Must it be that 100 living creatures are to be killed that I may be healed? I would rather die than permit them to suffer.' She opened the cage and allowed them to fly away. Afterwards she recovered from her illness. (3) Tsao-Pin lived in a ruined house. His children begged him to have it repaired. He answered: 'In the cold winter the cracks in the walls and the space between the tiles and between the stones provide a shelter and a refuge to all kinds of living creatures. We should not endanger their lives.' (4) Wu-Tang used to take his son hunting with him. One day they came upon a stag that was playing with its young one. Tang took an arrow and killed the young one. The frightened stag ran off with a cry of anguish. When Tang concealed himself the stag returned and licked the wounds of its fawn. Tang again drew his bow and killed it. He then saw another stag and sent an arrow towards it, but the arrow was deflected and pierced his son. Tang threw his bow away and tearfully embraced his dead son, when he heard a voice from the air: 'Tang, the stag loved its fawn as much as you loved your son.' (5) Meng-tse praises King Suan of Tsi because of his compassion in freeing an ox that was to be sacrificed at the dedication of some bells. Such a sentiment, he says, should suffice to make one king of the world. Monastic Taoism & Kan-Ying-P'ien. From the commandments for monks: (1st): Thou shalt kill no living thing nor do injury to its life. (2nd): Thou shalt not consume as food the flesh and blood of any living creature. (34th): Thou shall not strike or whip domestic animals. (35th): Thou shall not intentionally crush insects and ants with thy foot. (36th): Thou shalt not play with hooks and arrows for thine own amusement. (37th): Thou shalt not climb into trees to remove nests and to destroy the eggs. (63rd): Thou shalt not catch birds and quadrupeds with snares and nets. (64th): Thou shalt not frighten and scare away birds that are brooding on their nests. (68th): Thou shalt not dig up during the winter months animals hibernating in the earth. (112th): Thou shalt not pour hot water on the ground in order to exterminate insects and ants. Quote Right
Quote Left The stage is a concrete physical place which asks to be filled, and to be given its own concrete language to speak. I say that this concrete language, intended for the senses and independent of speech, has first to satisfy the senses, that there is a poetry of the senses as there is a poetry of language, and that this concrete physical language to which I refer is truly theatrical only to the degree that the thoughts it expresses are beyond the reach of the spoken language. These thoughts are what words cannot express and which, far more than words, would find their ideal expression in the concrete physical language of the stage. It consists of everything that occupies the stage, everything that can be manifested and expressed materially on a stage and that is addressed first of all to the senses instead of being addressed primarily to the mind as is the language of words...creating beneath language a subterranean current of impressions, correspondences, and analogies. This poetry of language, poetry in space will be resolved precisely in the domain which does not belong strictly to words...Means of expression utilizable on the stage, such as music, dance, plastic art, pantomime, mimicry, gesticulation, intonation, architecture, lighting, and scenery...The physical possibilities of the stage offers, in order to substitute, for fixed forms of art, living and intimidating forms by which the sense of old ceremonial magic can find a new reality in the theater; to the degree that they yield to what might be called the physical temptation of the stage. Each of these means has its own intrinsic poetry. Quote Right
Quote Left More than 20 years ago, President Kennedy defined an approach that is as valid today as when he announced it. So let us not be blind to our differences,'' he said, but let us also direct attention to our common interests and to the means by which those differences can be resolved.''Well, those differences are differences in governmental structure and philosophy. The common interests have to do with the things of everyday life for people everywhere. Just suppose with me for a moment that an Ivan and an Anya could find themselves, oh, say, in a waiting room, or sharing a shelter from the rain or a storm with a Jim and Sally, and there was no language barrier to keep them from getting acquainted. Would they then debate the differences between their respective governments? Or would they find themselves comparing notes about their children and what each other did for a living?Before they parted company, they would probably have touched on ambitions and hobbies and what they wanted for their children and problems of making ends meet. And as they went their separate ways, maybe Anya would be saying to Ivan, Wasn't she nice? She also teaches music.'' Or Jim would be telling Sally what Ivan did or didn't like about his boss. They might even have decided they were all going to get together for dinner some evening soon. Above all, they would have proven that people don't make wars.People want to raise their children in a world without fear and without war. They want to have some of the good things over and above bare subsistence that make life worth living. They want to work at some craft, trade, or profession that gives them satisfaction and a sense of worth. Their common interests cross all borders. Quote Right
Quote Left Imagine there’s no countries, it isn’t hard to do; nothing to kill or die for, and no religion too. Imagine all the people living life in peace. Quote Right
Quote Left On the death of a friend, we should consider that the fates through confidence have devolved on us the task of a double living, that we have henceforth to fulfill the promise of our friend's life also, in our own, to the world. Quote Right
Quote Left Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see. Quote Right
Quote Left But if by some miracle and all our struggle, the earth is spared, only justice to every living being will save humankind.' Quote Right
Quote Left Americans will listen, but they do not care to read. War and Peace must wait for the leisure of retirement, which never really comes: meanwhile it helps to furnish the living room. Blockbusting fiction is bought as furniture. Unread, it maintains its value. Read, it looks like money wasted. Cunningly, Americans know that books contain a person, and they want the person, not the book. Quote Right
Quote Left Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. They come through you but not from you. And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you. You may give them your love but not your thoughts. For they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, Which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you, For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday. You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth. The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows might go swift and far. Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness; For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable. Quote Right
Quote Left Whatever your life's work is, do it well. A man should do his job so well that the living, the dead, and the unborn could do it no better. Quote Right
Quote Left Just living is not enough, said the Butterfly. One must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower. Quote Right
Quote Left Socrates: Would this habit of eating animals not require that we slaughter animals that we knew as individuals, and in whose eyes we could gaze and see ourselves reflected, only a few hours before our meal? Glaucon: This habit would require that of us. Socrates: Wouldn't this [knowledge of our role in turning a being into a thing] hinder us in achieving happiness? Glaucon: It could so hinder us in our quest for happiness. Socrates: And, if we pursue this way of living, will we not have need to visit the doctor more often? Glaucon: We would have such need. Socrates: If we pursue our habit of eating animals, and if our neighbor follows a similar path, will we not have need to go to war against our neighbor to secure greater pasturage, because ours will not be enough to sustain us, and our neighbor will have a similar need to wage war on us for the same reason? Glaucon: We would be so compelled. Socrates: Would not these facts prevent us from achieving happiness, and therefore the conditions necessary to the building of a just society, if we pursue a desire to eat animals? Glaucon: Yes, they would so prevent us. Quote Right
Quote Left I like nonsense -- it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living. Its a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope...and that enables you to laugh at all of lifes realities. Quote Right
Quote Left He who leads Must then be strong and hopeful as the dawn That rises unafraid and full of joy Above the blackness of the darkest night. He must be kind to every living thing; Kind as the Krishna, Buddha and the Christ, And full of love for all created life. Oh, not in war shall his great prowess lie, Nor shall he find his pleasure in the chase. Too great for slaughter, friend of man and beast, Touching the borders of the Unseen Realms And bringing down to earth their mystic fires To light our troubled pathways, wise and kind And human to the core, so shall he be, The coming leader of the coming time. Quote Right
Quote Left I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living. It's a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope. Which is what I do, and that enables you to laugh at life's realities. Quote Right
Quote Left Living well is the best revenge. Quote Right
Quote Left Despite those titles, power, and pelf, The wretch, concentred all in self, Living, shall forfeit fair renown, And, doubly dying, shall go down To the vile dust, from whence he sprung, Unwept, unhonor'd, and unsung. Quote Right
Quote Left Through all these new, imaginative, and creative approaches to the problem of sharing our earth with other creatures there runs a constant theme, the awareness that we are dealing with life with living populations and all their pressures and counter pressures, their surges and recessions. Only by taking account of such life forces and by cautiously seeking to guide them into channels favorable to ourselves can we hope to achieve a reasonable accommodation between the insect hordes and ourselves. The current vogue for poisons has failed utterly to take into account these most fundamental considerations. As crude a weapon as the cave man's club, the chemical barrage has been hurled against the fabric of life a fabric on the one hand delicate and destructible, on the other miraculously tough and resilient, and capable of striking back in unexpected ways. These extraordinary capacities of life have been ignored by the practitioners of chemical control who have brought to their task no high-minded orientation, no humility before the vast forces with which they tamper. The control of nature is a phrase conceived in arrogance, born of the Neanderthal age of biology and philosophy, when it was supposed that nature exists for the convenience of man. The concepts and practices of applied entomology for the most part date from that Stone Age of science. It is our alarming misfortune that so primitive a science has armed itself with the most modem and terrible weapons, and that in turning them against the insects it has also turned them against the earth. Quote Right
Quote Left First of all, Papa Smurf didn't create Smurfette. Gargamel did. She was sent in as Gargamel's evil spy with the intention of destroying the Smurf village, but the overwhelming goodness of the Smurf way of life transformed her. And as for the whole gang-bang scenario, it just couldn't happen. Smurfs are asexual. They don't even have reproductive organs under those little white pants. That's what's so illogical, you know, about being a Smurf. What's the point of living if you don't have a dick? Quote Right
Quote Left History is a living horse laughing at a wooden horse. History is a wind blowing where it listeth. History is no sure thing to bet on. History is a box of tricks with a lost key. History is a labyrinth of doors with sliding panels, a book of ciphers with the code in a cave of the Saragossa sea. History says, if it pleases, Excuse me, I beg your pardon, it will never happen again if I can help it. Quote Right
Quote Left Religion has actually convinced people that there's an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever 'til the end of time! But He loves you. He loves you, and He needs money! He always needs money! He's all-powerful, all-perfect, all-knowing, and all-wise, somehow just can't handle money! Religion takes in billions of dollars, they pay no taxes, and they always need a little more. Now, you talk about a good bullshit story. Holy Shit! Quote Right
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Member Quotes About Living

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Quote Left " Just as love and care are vital for humanity's survival, let us also offer them to all other living beings." Katheliyer Quote Right
Quote Left Tombs are places where the living come to periodically reside. Quote Right
Quote Left I ran a poem of mine through AI just for analysis, not to change or improve anything -- the opinion was frightening. Better than any person I have encountered, as if this thing was inside my head. The next generation really does have something to worry about. We are dinosaurs my friends -- hope our bones will retain truth enough to inspire when we are gone, to be really read as they are dug up and carefully dusted, by facsimiles of living souls. Quote Right
Quote Left A bee is as important as any living thing, hurt a bee and feel the sting. Quote Right
Quote Left ThecDead are always smiling for they know something the living do not.. Quote Right
Quote Left Words are power, living responsibility. Quote Right
Quote Left How much of seeming one is truly individual? Programed in a sense by physical/mental maybe spiritual constituents. Is there really an individual? And yet no two are the same conglomerate. No matter how many in the mix. The many/individual. And when we consider the all, maybe back to the God -- nothing existing outside of the limitless inside/outside of God. DNA, are there really any exclusions or limitations? We transverse living membranes of self-illusion. Quote Right
Quote Left Life, just like war, its not only about living an experience, but to really achieve and make a difference for our brethren. - January 2026. Quote Right
Quote Left When they stare at you for who you used to be, pray for them. It’s unhealthy for the living to dwell in a cemetery. Quote Right
Quote Left Life devoid of love and happiness may not seem worth living but if they are searched for and found then it is full of meaning. (Simple Observation 422 - © 2025 George Krokos) Quote Right
Quote Left Living has become a Scarce Sight. Many they are who Wander, and Exist only, but are never truly Alive. Be Alive! Live! ! Quote Right
Quote Left Religions offer valuable moral frameworks and meaning for many, guiding ethical living and community. However, historical additions by those in power—often to control or manipulate—can obscure their core wisdom with illogical narratives. Stripping away these layers can refine their essence, revealing timeless principles for a good life. Quote Right
Quote Left And when His blood, touched the ground, Divine light permeated the entire earth...His Mission complete, that the Son of God would henceforth reign, a living, brilliant, conscious presence, one with man, in His Father's sacred humanity. So bright was that moment, that on physical planes all else seemed dark by comparison. "It was finished, it was finished; the Divinization of man, and Glorification of God in His Creation (Hanna Jacob Doumette)". Not to be saddened...but rejoice with Christ! Quote Right
Quote Left Grieve in your own way. Be gentle with yourself. Let the tears fall, let the memories rise, and know that you don’t have to carry this alone. They would want you to keep living, loving, and slowly finding light again even if it’s just one breath at a time. I write this in memory of your loved one Quote Right
Quote Left Indeed, life is for living. Burn brightly! Both day and night, blazing way to find. Every pore, every thought we have, an electrified flame of being. Hell a cheap, phony duplication. Each of us, born of blessed starlight. Greater the divine fuel as we move on. Quote Right
Quote Left God lets us choose! The indecisive nature of man's soul why it has taken so long to move on to the the next stage of blessed evolution. Free Will does not mean simply making choices -- 2,000 years from now we will still be in the same spiritual rut, maybe living on radioactive islands, but nothing will change until we decide to change our rebellious, destructive consciousness. Christ never left us...the Christ in us, the Holy Spirit with us, is our salvation in the palm of our hands. Quote Right
Quote Left A politician is someone who promises the earth while living on another planet. Quote Right
Quote Left Indeed, each of us a pixel, of the human psyche...but important enough to Christ who allowed Himself to be crucified for all, no exclusions. We may see ourselves as mere pixels, but God sees us, perhaps, as part of the Greater Body of His Christ portrait..?! Who am I to argue with the One who gave me Life, and so much living opportunity? So much power...my conglomerate able to beautify or destroy an entire world? Quote Right
Quote Left Knowing is maybe less important than living? Certainly we are not here, to teach God anything. Quote Right
Quote Left I longed to live a better future—now the best future is simply living longer Quote Right
Quote Left Book is a government of life everything is living within its territory, under its administration. Quote Right
Quote Left Religion is like living in the land of Oz, a land that never was. Quote Right
Quote Left In this age of Grace (which doesn't mean we abrogate but fulfill the law) we are to be: A prophet by encouraging what God's Word says, and by warning of what God's Word says (Ezekiel 3:21) we are to be a priest by ministering to others to serve others graciously (2 Cor. 9:7) and we are to be kings as we rule our lives according to godly living (1 Peter 2) 1 Peter 4:11c "that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ" Quote Right
Quote Left Every word can be living. Poet's job to give them renewed, fascinating life. Quote Right
Quote Left Pray for those whose hearts are paused, from living in fear behind closed doors. Quote Right
Quote Left This is Love in Death : To see the fetching Angel in the living room corner waiting…to give up breath, letting go of life, then to fly towards shining stars, causing rain to fall on faces of mourners…finally to walk steps in a sky, without feet. Quote Right
Quote Left Smirch the living all over with ash, it’s easier to endure the contours of sadness. Quote Right
Quote Left " The Birth of Jesus from the Virgin is equivalent to the stage Srotapatti or Sohan ( He who has entered the stream ). This Initiation is the entrance of the Christ Soul into the Physical life intent upon living it Spiritually by Consecrating it to Noble and Worthy Ideals" Quote Right
Quote Left When your living alone, a house is no longer a home. Quote Right
Quote Left When your fragile thread of hope is broken, Will you be living to die or dying to live? Quote Right
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