Life

»Live all you can; it's a mistake not to. It doesn't so much matter what you do in particular, so long as you have your life. If you haven't had that what HAVE you had?«

Henry James
The Ambassadors

LIFE! I know not what thou art,
But know that thou and I must part;
And when, or how, or where we met,
I own to me 's a secret yet.
But this I know, when thou art fled,
Where'er they lay these limbs, this head,
No clod so valueless shall be
As all that then remains of me.

---------- Anna Lætitia Barbauld. 1743–1825

Life is what you´re caught in.

I wonder what it was in Emily Dickinson's life that made her think that parting partook of heaven – especially if she was talking about the final parting of death, which I assume she was.

For me, another great poet, Goethe, was nearer the mark, when he said that we must always be careful – for every parting with those we love contains within it the seeds of madness....

I'm still not sure about the meaning of life. Fortunately, this is not a graded essay!

My Life Closed Twice Before it Closed
by Emily Dickinson

My life closed twice before its close;
It yet remains to see
If Immortality unveil
A third event to me,

So huge, so hopeless to conceive,
As these that twice befell.
Parting is all we know of heaven,
And all we need of hell.

Is there any intelligent life on earth?

Yes, but I am only visiting.

Life was meant to be lived, and curiosity must be kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.

(Eleanor Roosevelt)

life is 10% what happens to you,
and 90% how you react to it.

Life does not cease to be funny when people die
any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.

George Bernard Shaw

It is a common saying, and in everybody’s mouth, that life is but a sojourn.

--Plato.

Life-- don't talk to me about life.

Life is the battle against entropy