Life Quotes

The big one. What it means, how to live it, and why it's worth the effort.

22520 quotes

W
"Life is not a problem to be solved but a reality to be experienced."
Wittgenstein, Ludwig
W
"How small a thought it takes to fill a whole life."
Wittgenstein, Ludwig
W
"Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards."
Wittgenstein, Ludwig
W
"Only the man who lives not for pleasure lives."
Wittgenstein, Ludwig
D
"The lived experience cannot be reduced to abstract formulas; it must be interpreted with sensitivity."
Dilthey, Wilhelm
D
"Life is not a problem to be solved but a mystery to be experienced and interpreted."
Dilthey, Wilhelm
D
"The meaning of life is found not in abstract principles but in lived experience."
Dilthey, Wilhelm
P
"A person is but a particular kind of thing, a system of habits."
Peirce, Charles Sanders
P
"Consciousness, on the lowest terms, is nothing other than a feeling."
Peirce, Charles Sanders
H
"Dwelling is the manner in which mortals are on the earth."
Heidegger, Martin
H
"The human condition is characterized by finitude and thrownness."
Heidegger, Martin
H
"We are always already thrown into a world not of our making."
Heidegger, Martin
H
"The essence of man is to be the guardian of being."
Heidegger, Martin
H
"We live in a stream of experiences, yet consciousness binds them into coherent wholes of meaning."
Husserl, Edmund
S
"Life is not a state of well-being, but a state of constant activity."
Spencer, Herbert
S
"The human being is a compound of contradictions."
Spencer, Herbert
S
"Existence is conditioned by, and is an expression of, perpetual activity."
Spencer, Herbert
S
"Life is the continuous adjustment to environment."
Spencer, Herbert
J
"This life is worth living, we can say, since it is what we make it."
James, William
J
"Hang on to the thought that life is worth living; that is the creed of a sound philosophy."
James, William
D
"Growth itself is the only moral purpose."
Dewey, John
D
"The individual only can finally judge the value of their own experience."
Dewey, John
D
"The most profound principle of human nature is the desire for personal growth."
Dewey, John
D
"We live not just in a physical world but in a world of meanings."
Dewey, John
D
"Life is not something that happens to us; it is something we do."
Dewey, John
D
"The capacity for growth is what fundamentally distinguishes the living from the dead."
Dewey, John
P
"A man should render himself such company as he wishes to keep."
Peirce, Charles Sanders
P
"Man makes the world, and the world makes man."
Peirce, Charles Sanders
P
"Life is full of surprises and improbabilities."
Peirce, Charles Sanders
P
"What is life but the exercise of thinking?"
Peirce, Charles Sanders