Life Quotes
“Life” is a smaller page than you might expect, and an older one. Seneca is the most-quoted of the classical writers, and the sourced entries run from Emerson’s journals in 1822 to Carl Jung’s memoir in 1963. Reading it is closer to browsing a shelf of moralists than scrolling a feed of captions.
One entry needs a warning. “Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced” is credited to Søren Kierkegaard all over the internet. The earliest appearance anyone has located is in a 1976 book about Jack Kerouac, which is a long way from nineteenth-century Copenhagen. We keep it listed, with its flag, because people search for it. We would not put his name under it.
Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt conquered a confirmed habit of living into which she had fallen.
The fine emotions whence our lives we mold
Lie in the earthly tumult dumb and cold.
My worthy friend, gray are all theories
And green alone Life's golden tree.
Life incinerates incessantly trying to smile
and keeps broiling continuously
pretending to be alive.