The 105 Most Famous Quotes about Life

Through the ups and downs of life, inspiring authors and other guides/mentors are always at your side. No matter if they help you in person with sound advice or with their written teachings, these individuals always provide something of value in your present situation. They may help you to rediscover the joy and beauty of life just as much as they will help you to keep moving when the going gets tough. To celebrate the marvelous insights of the companions that guide us through life, we’ve created a hand-picked selection of the most famous quotes about life. Enjoy these insightful and wise words.

Every once in a while, you come across a person whose knowledge about life proves to be invaluable to you. No matter if you read inspirational books or listen to insightful podcasts/TED talks, there are teachers and guides who have a profound impact on your life in general.

“It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.”
Andre Gide

You may meet some of these teachers in person while others have preserved their insights for posterity in invaluable books. Some of these individuals may not even reveal themselves as beneficial guides until you realize years later how helpful they have been.

Enjoy our collection of inspiring and famous quotes about life

However, the exceptionally helpful people that accompany you through life may not always be those who sugarcoat their opinions. Similarly, they may not tell you what you want to hear, but more so will tell you what you need to hear. For this reason, their advice – no matter how uncomfortable it may be – more often than not proves to be tremendously helpful.

The 105 Most Famous Quotes about Life

The wonderful aspect of having a wide variety of authors and inspirational individuals as guides is that you can learn from these people’s wealth of knowledge. By listening to their thoughts, you can learn from their experience in life and from the mistakes they regret. Doing so will help you to avoid making similar mistakes, which can be quite helpful in life.

Let’s have a look at popular and famous quotes about life

1.

„Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it.“
Charles R. Swindoll

2.

„Life is the art of drawing without an eraser.“
John W. Gardner

3.

„There are two great days in a person’s life – the day we are born and the day we discover why.“
William Barclay

4.

“The Ultimate Answer to Life, The Universe and Everything is… 42!“
Douglas Adams

5.

„The biggest adventure you can take is to live the life of your dreams.“
Oprah Winfrey

6.

“The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.”
Isaac Asimov

7.

“The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.“
Ralph Waldo Emerson

8.

“Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim, and end of human existence.“
Aristotle

9.

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.“
Martin Luther King Jr.

10.

“Be the change that you wish to see in the world.”
Mahatma Gandhi

11.

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.“
Albert Einstein

12.

“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.“
Rumi

13.

“The secret of life, though, is to fall seven times and to get up eight times.”
Paulo Coelho

14.

“I’m not in this world to live up to your expectations and you’re not in this world to live up to mine.“
Bruce Lee

15.

“And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.“
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

16.

“You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”
Marcus Aurelius

17.

“Do one thing every day that scares you.“
Eleanor Roosevelt

18.

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”
Oscar Wilde

19.

„Only I can change my life. No one can do it for me.“
Carol Burnett

20.

“The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.”
Marcus Aurelius

21.

“Count your age by friends, not years. Count your life by smiles, not tears.”
John Lennon

22.

“The flower that blooms in adversity is the rarest and most beautiful of all.“
Walt Disney

23.

„Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.“
Albert Einstein

24.

“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.“
Albert Camus

25.

“Without music, life would be a mistake.“
Friedrich Nietzsche

26.

“Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.“
George Bernard Shaw

27.

“Joy multiplies when it is shared among friends, but grief diminishes with every division. That is life.“
R.A. Salvatore

28.

“They say a person needs just three things to be truly happy in this world: someone to love, something to do, and something to hope for.”
Tom Bodett

29.

“If my life is going to mean anything, I have to live it myself.”
Rick Riordan

30.

“Be steady and well-ordered in your life so that you can be fierce and original in your work.“
Gustave Flaubert

31.

“Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone – we find it with another.“
Thomas Merton

32.

“Do you not see how necessary a world of pains and troubles is to school an intelligence and make it a soul?“
John Keats

33.

“I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.“
Tagore

34.

“He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.“
Friedrich Nietzsche

35.

“The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for a newer and richer experience.“
Eleanor Roosevelt

36.

“I have always believed, and I still believe, that whatever good or bad fortune may come our way we can always give it meaning and transform it into something of value.”
Hermann Hesse

37.

“Life is filled with unanswered questions, but it is the courage to seek those answers that continues to give meaning to life.“
J.D. Stroube

38.

“The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes.“
Arthur Conan Doyle

39.

“The desire to reach for the stars is ambitious. The desire to reach hearts is wise.“
Maya Angelou

40.

“The mystery of human existence lies not in just staying alive, but in finding something to live for.”
Fyodor Dostoyevsky

41.

“The simple things are also the most extraordinary things, and only the wise can see them.“
Paulo Coelho

42.

“For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.“
Ralph Waldo Emerson

43.

“The most wasted of all days is one without laughter.“
Nicolas Chamfort

44.

“Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder. Help someone’s soul heal. Walk out of your house like a shepherd.“
Rumi

45.

“The best things in life make you sweaty.“
Edgar Allan Poe

46.

„Life is a work in progress.“
Jeff Rich

47.

“Folks are usually about as happy as they make their minds up to be.“
Abraham Lincoln

48.

“Success is getting what you want, happiness is wanting what you get”
W. P. Kinsella

49.

“The past has no power over the present moment.”
Eckhart Tolle

50.

“The best way to cheer yourself is to try to cheer someone else up.”
Mark Twain

51.

„You have succeeded in life when all you really want is only what you really need.“
Vernon Howard

52.

“Each of us has meaning and we bring it to life. It is a waste to be asking the question when you are the answer.“
Joseph Campbell

53.

„Peace is the beauty of life. It is sunshine. It is the smile of a child, the love of a mother, the joy of a father, the togetherness of a family. It is the advancement of man, the victory of a just cause, the triumph of truth.“
Menachem Begin

54.

„The indispensable first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: decide what you want.“
Ben Stein

55.

“It is not that we have so little time but that we lose so much. The life we receive is not short but we make it so; we are not ill provided but use what we have wastefully.“
Lucius Annaeus Seneca

56.

„Life is a journey that must be traveled no matter how bad the roads and accommodations.“
Oliver Goldsmith

57.

“We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.“
Maya Angelou

58.

“It’s hard to beat a person who never gives up.”
George Herman Ruth

59.

“The purpose of life is to contribute in some way to making things better.“
Robert F. Kennedy

60.

“It is better to remain silent at the risk of being thought a fool than to talk and remove all doubt of it.”
Maurice Switzer

61.

„Learn to enjoy every minute of your life. Be happy now. Don’t wait for something outside of yourself to make you happy in the future. Think how really precious is the time you have to spend, whether it’s at work or with your family. Every minute should be enjoyed and savored.“
Earl Nightingale

62.

„In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.“
Robert Frost

63.

“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”
Kurt Vonnegut

64.

“The human race is a monotonous affair. Most people spend the greatest part of their time working in order to live, and what little freedom remains so fills them with fear that they seek out any and every means to be rid of it.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

65.

“To serve is beautiful, but only if it is done with joy and a whole heart and a free mind.“
Pearl S. Buck

66.

“One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar.“
Helen Keller

67.

“It is good to love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is well done.“
Vincent Van Gogh

68.

„There is only one happiness in this life, to love and be loved.“
George Sand

69.

“Laughter is wine for the soul – laughter soft, or loud and deep, tinged through with seriousness – the hilarious declaration made by man that life is worth living.“
Sean O’Casey

70.

“To think what is true, to sense what is beautiful and to want what is good, hereby the spirit finds purpose of a life in reason.”
Johann Gottfried Herder

71.

„I have seen many storms in my life. Most storms have caught me by surprise, so I had to learn very quickly to look further and understand that I am not capable of controlling the weather, to exercise the art of patience and to respect the fury of nature.“
Paulo Coelho

72.

„Nobody got where they are today by living for tomorrow.“
Tom Wilson

73.

“What’s meant to be will always find a way”
Trisha Yearwood

74.

“If there is meaning in life at all, then there must be meaning in suffering.“
Viktor Frankl

75.

„Life is never easy for those who dream.“
Robert James Waller

76.

„Each day is the scholar of yesterday.“
Publilius Syrus

77.

“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to reform (or pause and reflect).”
Mark Twain

78.

“God will not look you over for medals, degrees or diplomas but for scars.”
Elbert Hubbard

79.

“May you live every day of your life.“
Jonathan Swift

80.

“Any fool can know. The point is to understand.“
Albert Einstein

81.

“You do not write your life with words…You write it with actions. What you think is not important. It is only important what you do.”
Patrick Ness

82.

“Cry. Forgive. Learn. Move on. Let your tears water the seeds of your future happiness.“
Steve Maraboli

83.

“So we shall let the reader answer this question for himself: who is the happier man, he who has braved the storm of life and lived or he who has stayed securely on shore and merely existed?“
Hunter S. Thompson

84.

“For me, I am driven by two main philosophies: know more today about the world than I knew yesterday and lessen the suffering of others. You’d be surprised how far that gets you.“
Neil deGrasse Tyson

85.

“You never change your life until you step out of your comfort zone; change begins at the end of your comfort zone.“
Roy T. Bennett

86.

“Realize that if a door closed, it’s because what was behind it wasn’t meant for you.“
Mandy Hale

87.

“The grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.”
George Washington Burnap

88.

“Living in a way that reflects one’s values is not just about what you do, it is also about how you do things.“
Deborah Day

89.

“Those who are not looking for happiness are the most likely to find it because those who are searching forget that the surest way to be happy is to seek happiness for others.“
Martin Luther King Jr.

90.

“I have come to see that if we complain about life, it is because we are thinking only of ourselves.”
Gordon B. Hinckley

91.

“To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the only end of life.“
Robert Louis Stevenson

92.

“Life only makes sense when you perceive it as mystery and it makes no sense to the conceptualizing mind.“
Anthony de Mello

93.

“The secret to life is meaningless unless you discover it yourself.”
W. Somerset Maugham

94.

“The problem with people is they forget that most of the time it’s the small things that count.“
Jennifer Niven

95.

“Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift of God, which is why we call it the present.“
Bill Keane

96.

“Don’t waste your time in anger, regrets, worries, and grudges. Life is too short to be unhappy.“
Roy T. Bennett

97.

“The advantage of a bad memory is that one enjoys several times the same good things for the first time.“
Friedrich Nietzsche

98.

“Luxury is not a necessity to me, but beautiful and good things are.“
Anais Nin

99.

“Being happy isn’t having everything in your life be perfect. Maybe it’s about stringing together all the little things.“
Ann Brashares

100.

“Now and then it’s good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy.“
Guillaume Apollinaire

101.

“Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier. Be the living expression of God’s kindness: kindness in your face, kindness in your eyes, kindness in your smile.“
Mother Teresa

102.

“A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them; then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books, music, love for one’s neighbor — such is my idea of happiness.“
Leo Tolstoy

103.

“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”
Oscar Wilde

104.

“If you hang out with chickens, you’re going to cluck and if you hang out with eagles, you’re going to fly.“
Steve Maraboli

105.

“Everything you can imagine is real.”
Pablo Picasso

I hope you enjoyed this collection of the most famous quotes about life. What are your favorite quotes from this list?

Stay victorious!