63 Inspiring Living Quotes

In the hustle and bustle of daily life, finding moments of inspiration can be a powerful source of motivation and comfort. Whether you’re navigating personal challenges, striving towards ambitious goals, or simply seeking a bit of daily encouragement, the right words can make all the difference. We’ve meticulously curated a collection of the top 63 inspiring living quotes to uplift your spirit and spark your inner drive. Each quote has been selected for its ability to resonate, inspire, and empower, offering wisdom from some of the greatest minds in history. Embark on this journey of words and discover the profound impact they can have on your outlook and heart.

1. “We shouldn't live as if [other worlds] mattered more than this life in this world, because where we are is always the most important place.” - Philip Pullman

2. “All teachings are mere references. The true experience is living your own life. Then, even the holiest of words are only words.” - DENG MING-DAO

3. “If we don't change, we don't grow. If we don't grow, we aren't really living.” - Anatole France

4. “A girl calls and asks, "Does it hurt very much to die?""Well, sweetheart," I tell her, "yes, but it hurts a lot more to keep living.” - Chuck Palahniuk

5. “We need faith and the mind of the Lord Jesus to recognize something of lasting value in even our most ordinary tasks.” - Phillip Yancey

6. “He was weary of himself, of cold ideas and brain dreams. Life a poem? Not when you went about forever poetizing about your own life instead of living it. How innocuous it all was, and empty, empty, empty! This chasing after yourself, craftily observing your own tracks--in a circle, of course.This sham diving into the stream of life while all the time you sat angling after yourself, fishing yourself up in one curious disguise or another! If he could only be overwhelmed by something--life, love, passion--so that he could no longer shape it into poems, but had to let it shape him!” - Jens Peter Jacobsen

7. “The cases described in this section (The Fear of Being) may seem extreme, but I have become convinced that they are not as uncommon as one would think. Beneath the seemingly rational exterior of our lives is a fear of insanity. We dare not question the values by which we live or rebel against the roles we play for fear of putting our sanity into doubt. We are like the inmates of a mental institution who must accept its inhumanity and insensitivity as caring and knowledgeableness if they hope to be regarded as sane enough to leave. The question who is sane and who is crazy was the theme of the novel One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. The question, what is sanity? was clearly asked in the play Equus.The idea that much of what we do is insane and that if we want to be sane, we must let ourselves go crazy has been strongly advanced by R.D. Laing. In the preface to the Pelican edition of his book The Divided Self, Laing writes: "In the context of our present pervasive madness that we call normality, sanity, freedom, all of our frames of reference are ambiguous and equivocal." And in the same preface: "Thus I would wish to emphasize that our 'normal' 'adjusted' state is too often the abdication of ecstasy, the betrayal of our true potentialities; that many of us are only too successful in acquiring a false self to adapt to false realities."Wilhelm Reich had a somewhat similar view of present-day human behavior. Thus Reich says, "Homo normalis blocks off entirely the perception of basic orgonotic functioning by means of rigid armoring; in the schizophrenic, on the other hand, the armoring practically breaks down and thus the biosystem is flooded with deep experiences from the biophysical core with which it cannot cope." The "deep experiences" to which Reich refers are the pleasurable streaming sensations associated with intense excitation that is mainly sexual in nature. The schizophrenic cannot cope with these sensations because his body is too contracted to tolerate the charge. Unable to "block" the excitation or reduce it as a neurotic can, and unable to "stand" the charge, the schizophrenic is literally "driven crazy."But the neurotic does not escape so easily either. He avoids insanity by blocking the excitation, that is, by reducing it to a point where there is no danger of explosion, or bursting. In effect the neurotic undergoes a psychological castration. However, the potential for explosive release is still present in his body, although it is rigidly guarded as if it were a bomb. The neurotic is on guard against himself, terrified to let go of his defenses and allow his feelings free expression. Having become, as Reich calls him, "homo normalis," having bartered his freedom and ecstasy for the security of being "well adjusted," he sees the alternative as "crazy." And in a sense he is right. Without going "crazy," without becoming "mad," so mad that he could kill, it is impossible to give up the defenses that protect him in the same way that a mental institution protects its inmates from self-destruction and the destruction of others.” - Alexander Lowen

8. “Living is the opposite of poetry. Poetry is the recollection of living, or, more often than not, the lament of having not lived. Or worse yet, merely the contemplation of living. My advice to you, Ms. Harper, is this: Live. And keep living. And never stop to look back to write about what you have lived and observed and overcome, lest you turn into a pillar of salt. This desert life is already full of such monoliths.” - P.S. Baber

9. “What is this slow blue dream of living, and this fevered death by dreaming?” - Aberjhani

10. “All this he saw, for one moment breathless and intense, vivid on the morning sky; and still, as he looked, he lived; and still, as he lived, he wondered.” - Kenneth Grahame

11. “If I have gained anything over these months, it is the knowledge there is no starting over- only living with the mistakes you've made.” - Jodi Picoult

12. “A man approaching retirement called the retirement office to inquire about his pension. Afterward, he was asked if his wife worked. “She’s worked all her life making me happy”, he replied. “Yes sir, but has she earned money to receive her pension?” “When we got married we agreed on an arrangement”, he said. “I would earn the living, and she would make the living worthwhile”.“Make the living worthwhile”…have we forgotten the very essence of that? Have we forgotten to live for someone else, that doing so IS what makes a living worthwhile?” - Kelly Crawford

13. “Let not our longing slay the appetite of our living.” - Jim Elliot

14. “The life most of us live are lives we are forced to live by immediate needs, influences, and pressures.” - Walter Mosley

15. “(about William Blake)As for Blake's happiness--a man who knew him said: "If asked whether I ever knew among the intellectual, a happy man, Blake would be the only one who would immediately occur to me."And yet this creative power in Blake did not come from ambition. ...He burned most of his own work. Because he said, "I should be sorry if I had any earthly fame, for whatever natural glory a man has is so much detracted from his spiritual glory. I wish to do nothing for profit. I wish to live for art. I want nothing whatever. I am quite happy."...He did not mind death in the least. He said that to him it was just like going into another room. On the day of his death he composed songs to his Maker and sang them for his wife to hear. Just before he died his countenance became fair, his eyes brightened and he burst into singing of the things he saw in heaven. ” - Brenda Ueland

16. “Here's to another year and let's hope it's above ground.” - Carol Shields

17. “Good thing I'm aging, otherwise I'd be dead.” - Ana Monnar

18. “This cruel age has deflected me,like a river from this course.Strayed from its familiar shores,my changeling life has flowedinto a sister channel.How many spectacles I've missed:the curtain rising without me,and falling too. How many friendsI never had the chance to meet.” - Anna Akhmatova

19. “I consider myself a stained-glass window. And this is how I live my life. Closing no doors and covering no windows; I am the multi-colored glass with light filtering through me, in many different shades. Allowing light to shed and fall into many many hues. My job is not to direct anything, but only to filter into many colors. My answer is destiny and my guide is joy. And there you have me.” - C. JoyBell C.

20. “God and Destiny are not against us, rather they are for us, they are the ones who never forget the things we have long forgotten, the ones who hear the desires of our heart that our own heads can't hear, and they are the ones who never forget who we really are, long after our minds have forgotten the images of who we are. We come from God and we belong to Destiny, yet for some reason of ignorance we think that to be the master of our own fates and the captain of our own souls means to write everything down on a paper and plan everything out on a grid! Such great things to be done, and we think they are accomplished by our primitive ways! No. We must only know what we want. And want what we want. And then fly high enough to see all that which we want that we couldn't yet see.” - C. JoyBell C.

21. “Life is difficult.” - M. Scott Peck

22. “Because we believe that one moment is more or less like the next, we lose touch with the essential urgency of the present, the fact that each passing moment is the one moment for the practice of freedom.” - Robert Grudin

23. “If only I'd known my differentness would be an asset, then my earlier life would have been much easier.” - Bette Midler

24. “A single event can awaken within us a stranger totally unknown to us. To live is to be slowly born.” - Antoine de Saint-Exuper

25. “Freedom...is the act of releasing ourselves from the bondage of that which keeps us from living the life we were meant to live.” - Kelli Wilson

26. “...Who knows what death, anxiety of the living, Who knows what loneliness, end of the lovingI could say to myself of the love (I had): Let it not be immortal, since it is flame But let it be infinite while it lasts.” - Vinicius de Moraes

27. “Life, for the living, is a gift of opportunity; an exercise of the will to choose.” - T.F. Hodge

28. “The dead do not hurt you; only the living do.” - Tess Gerritsen

29. “I can't see that Danish episode as an adventure, or a crisis survived, or a serious quest for anything definable. It was just another happening like today's luncheon, something I got into and got out of. And it reminds me too much of how little life changes: how, without dramatic events or high resolves, without tragedy, without even pathos, a reasonably endowed, reasonably well-intentioned man can walk through the world's great kitchen from end to end and arrive at the back door hungry.” - Wallace Stegner

30. “Persistence. Perfection. Patience. Power. Prioritize your passion. It keeps you sane.” - Criss Jami

31. “The majority of people don't want to plan. They want to be free of the responsibility of planning. What they ask for is merely some assurance that they will be decently provided for. The rest is a day-to-day enjoyment of life. That's the explanation for your Father Divines; people naturally flock to anyone they can trust for the necessities of life... They are the backbone of a community--solid, trust-worthy, essential.” - B.F. Skinner

32. “Think little goals and expect little achievements. Think big goals and win big success.” - David Joseph Schwartz

33. “Memory haunts me from age to age, and passion leads me by the hand--evil have I done, and with sorrow have I made acquaintance from age to age, and from age to age evil shall I do, and sorrow shall I know till my redemption comes.” - H. Rider Haggard

34. “Now every mortal has painand sweat is constant,but if there is anything dearer than being alive,it's dark to me.We humans seem disastrously in love with this thing(whatever it is) that glitters on the earth--we call it life. We know no other.The underworld's a blankand all the rest just fantasy.” - Anne Carson

35. “Human suffering has been caused because too many of us cannot grasp that words are only tools for our use.The mere presence in the dictionary of a word like 'living' does not mean it necessarily has to refer to something definite in the real world.” - Richard Dawkins

36. “And sometimes we die to prove that we lived.” - Fábio Moon

37. “To live is - to war with trolls In the holds of the heart and mind” - Henrik Ibsen

38. “I know now, after fifty years, that the finding/losing, forgetting/remembering, leaving/returning, never stops. The whole of life is about another chance, and while we are alive, till the very end, there is always another chance.” - Jeanette Winterson

39. “How nice-to feel nothing, and still get full credit for being alive.” - Kurt Vonnegut

40. “The details of life have a tendency to interfere with the actual living of life.” - Richard Diaz

41. “Dying isn’t like living; it requires no effort at all.” - Ann Aguirre

42. “Être élu est une notion théologique qui veut dire : sans aucun mérite, par un verdict surnaturel, par une volonté libre, sinon capricieuse, de Dieu, on est choisi pour quelque chose d'exceptionnel et d'extraordinaire. C'est dans cette conviction que les saints ont puisé la force de supporter les plus atroces supplices. Les notions théologiques se reflètent, telle leur propre parodie, dans la trivialité de nos vies ; chacun de nous souffre (plus ou moins) de la bassesse de sa vie trop ordinaire et désire y échapper et s'élever. Chacun de nous a connu l'illusion (plus ou moins forte) d'être digne de cette élévation, d'être prédestiné et choisi pour elle. (chapitre 15)” - Milan Kundera

43. “Living erotically is opening oneself up to nature-- externally and within.” - Kristie LeVangie

44. “I don't want to earn my living, I want to live.” - Oscar Wilde

45. “What is this life if, full of care,We have no time to stand and stare.No time to stand beneath the boughsAnd stare as long as sheep or cows.No time to see, when woods we pass,Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.No time to see, in broad daylight,Streams full of stars, like skies at night.No time to turn at Beauty's glance,And watch her feet, how they can dance.No time to wait till her mouth canEnrich that smile her eyes began.A poor life this if, full of care,We have no time to stand and stare.- Leisure” - W.H. Davies

46. “There are so many ways to be alive, but only one way to be dead.” - Nicole Krauss

47. “Be in love with your life, every detail of it.” - Jack Kerouac

48. “It is a subliminal thing. It is the tick of a clock that has ticked so long one no longer notices. Something is in a room when a man lives in it. Something is not in the room when a man is dead in it.” - Ray Bradbury

49. “No one has it all figured out, especially not the people who are acting like they do and judging you because of it. Pretending to be something you aren't because you're trying to please a bunch of judgmental hypocrites and shitheads is not the way to be happy. Living the life you want to live is. It really is that simple.” - Tucker Max

50. “Death twitches my ear;'Live,' he says... 'I'm coming.” - Virgil

51. “Finally, everybody agrees that no one pursuit can be successfully followed by a man who is preoccupied with many things—eloquence cannot, nor the liberal studies—since the mind, when distracted, takes in nothing very deeply, but rejects everything that is, as it were, crammed into it. There is nothing the busy man is less busied with than living: there is nothing that is harder to learn.” - seneca

52. “The impetus to grow and live intensely is so powerful in me I cannot resist it. I will work, I will love my husband, but I will fulfill myself.” - Anais Nin

53. “We have an internal check and balance system. By design we are so filled with possibility, opportunity, with greatness that when we live small, within the bottom of our capability, we innately know we should be living greater than that, and it creates a disconnect inside that leads us to feeling empty, unhappy, maybe even depressed.” - Steve Maraboli

54. “Staring and staring into the mirror, it sees many faces within its face - the face of the child, the boy, the young man, the not-so-young man - all present still, preserved like fossils on superimposed layers, and, like fossils, dead. Their message to this live dying creature is: Look at us - we have died - what is there to be afraid of?It answers them: But that happened so gradually, so easily. I'm afraid of being rushed.” - Christopher Isherwood

55. “I wanted the past to go away, I wantedto leave it, like another country; I wantedmy life to close, and openlike a hinge, like a wing, like the part of the songwhere it fallsdown over the rocks: an explosion, a discovery;I wantedto hurry into the work of my life; I wanted to know,whoever I was, I wasalivefor a little while.” - Mary Oliver

56. “The difference between the one who remembers Allah and the one who doesn’t is like the living and the dead.” - Habib Kadhim al-Saqqaf

57. “When Death ComesWhen death comes like the hungry bear in autumn; when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse to buy me, and snaps the purse shut; when death comes like the measle-pox when death comes like an iceberg between the shoulder blades, I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering: what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness? And therefore I look upon everything as a brotherhood and a sisterhood, and I look upon time as no more than an idea, and I consider eternity as another possibility, and I think of each life as a flower, as common as a field daisy, and as singular, and each name a comfortable music in the mouth, tending, as all music does, toward silence, and each body a lion of courage, and something precious to the earth. When it's over, I want to say all my life I was a bride married to amazement. I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms. When it's over, I don't want to wonder if I have made of my life something particular, and real. I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened, or full of argument. I don't want to end up simply having visited this world” - Mary Oliver

58. “Jetzt habe ich es kapiert: Es geht nicht um Fortschritt. Es geht nicht um eine Erfahrung. Nein. Es geht in jedem einzelnen Moment einfach nur darum, in genau diesem Moment das Richtige zu tun.” - Matthias B. Krause

59. “Be in love with your life. Every minute of it.” - Jack Kerouac

60. “All human activity is prompted by desire.” - Bertrand Russel

61. “I have lost and loved and won and cried myself to the person I am today.” - Charlotte Eriksson

62. “You can't love a person till you know him or her inside out, until you've lived with them and shared experience: sadness, joy, living - you've got to share living before you can find love. Being in love doesn't last, but you can find love to take its place.” - Stan Barstow

63. “I’ve realized the most effective writing and living are done when we are willing to be vulnerable. I think we spend most of our lives trying to cover up our insecurities.” - Katie Kiesler