Quotations: Carpe Diem

Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow.

Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forward.

Live every day as if it were your last and then some day you'll be right. ~H.H. "Breaker" Morant


Go for it now. The future is promised to no one. ~Wayne Dyer


I have died so little today, friend, forgive me. ~Thomas Lux


Every man dies. Not every man really lives. ~Braveheart


Do not take life too seriously. You will never get out of it alive. ~Elbert Hubbard


As you grow older, you'll find the only things you regret are the things you didn't do. ~Zachary Scott


Spend the afternoon. You can't take it with you. ~Annie Dillard


Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die today. ~James Dean


Why always "not yet"? Do flowers in spring say "not yet"? ~Norman Douglas


As if you could kill time without injuring eternity. ~Henry David Thoreau, "Economy," Walden, 1854


Life is not lost by dying; life is lost minute by minute, day by dragging day, in all the thousand small uncaring ways. ~Stephen Vincent Benét


And in the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years. ~Abraham Lincoln


There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval. ~George Santayana, "War Shrines," Soliloquies in England and Later Soliloquies, 1922


For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin - real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way. Something to be got through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life. ~Fr. Alfred D'Souza


Time! where didst thou those years inter
Which I have seene decease?
~William Habington


Be happy while you're living, for you're a long time dead. ~Scottish Proverb


To always be intending to live a new life, but never find time to set about it - this is as if a man should put off eating and drinking from one day to another till he be starved and destroyed. ~Walter Scott


I still find each day too short for all the thoughts I want to think, all the walks I want to take, all the books I want to read and all the friends I want to see. ~John Burroughs


Never forget that you must die; that death will come sooner than you expect... God has written the letters of death upon your hands. In the inside of your hands you will see the letters M.M. It means "Memento Mori" - remember you must die. ~J. Furniss, Tracts for Spiritual Reading


There are a million ways to lose a work day, but not even a single way to get one back. ~Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister


To change one's life: Start immediately. Do it flamboyantly. No exceptions. ~William James


Why must conversions always come so late? Why do people always apologize to corpses? ~David Brin


A man that is young in years may be old in hours, if he has lost no time. ~Francis Bacon, Essays


You will never find time for anything. If you want time you must make it. ~Charles Buxton


Men for the sake of getting a living forget to live. ~Margaret Fuller


Death twitches my ear. "Live," he says, "I am coming." ~Virgil (Publius Vergilius Maro), Minor Poems, Copa


He has spent all his life in letting down empty buckets into empty wells; and he is frittering away his age in trying to draw them up again. ~Sydney Smith


Fear not that life shall come to an end, but rather fear that it shall never have a beginning. ~John Henry Cardinal Newman


You live longer once you realize that any time spent being unhappy is wasted. ~Ruth E. Renkl


You may delay, but time will not. ~Benjamin Franklin


We cannot waste time. We can only waste ourselves. ~George M. Adams


How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. ~Annie Dillard, The Writing Life


I would I could stand on a busy corner, hat in hand, and beg people to throw me all their wasted hours. ~Bernard Berenson


I have spent my days stringing and unstringing my instrument, while the song I came to sing remains unsung. ~Tagore


Many people die with their music still in them. Why is this so? Too often it is because they are always getting ready to live. Before they know it, time runs out. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes


Contemplation often makes life miserable. We should act more, think less, and stop watching ourselves live. ~Nicolas de Chamfort


I held a moment in my hand, brilliant as a star, fragile as a flower, a tiny sliver of one hour. I dripped it carelessly, Ah! I didn't know, I held opportunity. ~Hazel Lee


We die daily. Happy those who daily come to life as well. ~George MacDonald


Gather ye rose-buds while ye may;
Old Time is still a-flying;
And this same flower that smiles today,
Tomorrow will be dying.
~Robert Herrick


Most of us spend our lives as if we had another one in the bank. ~Ben Irwin


If you wait, all that happens is that you get older. ~Larry McMurtry, Some Can Whistle


When your life flashes before your eyes, make sure you've got plenty to watch. ~Author unknown, from a television commercial


In theory one is aware that the earth revolves, but in practice one does not perceive it, the ground upon which one treads seems not to move, and one can live undisturbed. So it is with Time in one's life. ~Marcel Proust, The Past Recaptured, 1927


Our time consumes like smoke, and posts away;
Nor can we treasure up a month or day:
The sand within the transitory glass
Doth haste, and so our silent minutes pass.
~Rowland Watkyns


If I could only remember that the days were, not bricks to be laid row on row, to be built into a solid house, where one might dwell in safety and peace, but only food for the fires of the heart. ~Edmund Wilson



If we would only give, just once, the same amount of reflection to what we want to get out of life that we give to the question of what to do with a two weeks' vacation, we would be startled at our false standards and the aimless procession of our busy days. ~Dorothy Canfield Fisher


Every day of our lives we are on the verge of making those slight changes that would make all the difference. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960


The word "now" is like a bomb through the window, and it ticks. ~Arthur Miller, After the Fall, 1964


Use your health, even to the point of wearing it out. That is what it is for. Spend all you have before you die; do not outlive yourself. ~George Bernard Shaw


The clock talked loud. I threw it away, it scared me what it talked. ~Tillie Olsen, Tell Me a Riddle


Life happens too fast for you ever to think about it. If you could just persuade people of this, but they insist on amassing information. ~Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.


Here I am trying to live, or rather, I am trying to teach the death within me how to live. ~Jean Cocteau


When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced. Live your life in such a manner that when you die the world cries and you rejoice. ~Indian Saying


Warning: Dates in Calendar are closer than they appear. ~Author Unknown


Whether it's the best of times or the worst of times, it's the only time we've got. ~Art Buchwald


If you woke up breathing, congratulations! You have another chance. ~Andrea Boydston


though love be a day and life be nothing, it shall not stop kissing. ~e.e. cummings


There are many To-morrows, my Love, my Love, -
There is only one To-day.
~Joaquin Miller


Life is always walking up to us and saying, "Come on in, the living's fine," and what do we do? Back off and take its picture. ~Russell Baker


Catch, then, oh catch the transient hour;
Improve each moment as it flies!
Life's a short summer, man a flower;
He dies - alas! how soon he dies!
~Samuel Johnson


There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want. ~Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes


To-morrow - oh, 'twill never be,
If we should live a thousand years!
Our time is all to-day, to-day,
The same, though changed; and while it flies
With still small voice the moments say:
"To-day, to-day, be wise, be wise."
~James Montgomery, To-day


I don't want to get to the end of my life and find that I lived just the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as well. ~Diane Ackerman


Men talk of killing time, while time quietly kills them. ~Dion Boucicault


If you were going to die soon and had only one phone call you could make, who would you call and what would you say? And why are you waiting? ~Stephen Levine


The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time. ~Mark Twain


What would be the use of immortality to a person who cannot use well a half an hour. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson


Remember you must die whether you sit about moping all day long or whether on feast days you stretch out in a green field, happy with a bottle of Falernian from your innermost cellar. ~Horace


Time wears all his locks before;
Take thy hold upon his forehead;
When he flies, he turns no more,
And behind his scalp is naked.
~Robert Southwell


Time is painted with a lock before, and bald behind, signifying thereby that we must take time by the forelock; for, when it is once past, there is no recalling it. ~Jonathan Swift


Our repugnance to death increases in proportion to our consciousness of having lived in vain. ~William Hazlitt, On the Love of Life, 1815


Those who make the worst use of their time are the first to complain of its shortness. ~Jean de La Bruyère


Is there life before death? ~Author Unknown


It's a mere moment in a man's life between an All-Star Game and an Old-timers' Game. ~Vin Scully


Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.
~William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, 1600


When we lose one we love, our bitterest tears are called forth by the memory of hours when we loved not enough. ~Maurice Maeterlinck, Wisdom and Destiny, 1901, translated by Alfred Sutro


When it comes time to die, make sure all you got to do is die. ~Attributed to Jim Elliot


I think I don't regret a single 'excess' of my responsive youth - I only regret, in my chilled age, certain occasions and possibilities I didn't embrace. ~Henry James


When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully. ~Samuel Johnson


Expect an early death - it will keep you busier. ~Martin H. Fischer


Fields can lie fallow, but we can't; we have less time. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966


No! no arresting the vast wheel of time,
That round and round still turns with onward might.
~Charles Cowden Clarke


Every day is an opportunity to make a new happy ending. ~Author Unknown


The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough. ~Rabindranath Tagore


The question for each man is not what he would do if he had the means, time, influence, and educational advantages, but what he will do with the things he has. ~Hamilton


May you live all the days of your life. ~Jonathan Swift


Now is the time to get drunk! To stop being the martyred slaves of time, to get absolutely drunk - on wine, poetry, or on virtue, as you please. ~Charles Baudelaire, "Enivrez-vous," Paris Spleen, 1869


Live as you will wish to have lived when you are dying. ~Christian Furchtegott Gellert


Life is not long, and too much of it must not pass in idle deliberation how it shall be spent. ~Samuel Johnson


The swift years slip and slide adown the steep;
The slow years pass; neither will come again.
~William Sharp


The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. ~Jack London


Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year. No man has learned anything rightly, until he knows that every day is Doomsday. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson


Later never exists. ~Author Unknown


Many people take no care of their money till they come nearly to the end of it, and others do just the same with their time. ~Johann von Goethe


If you believe in forever, then life is just a one-night stand. ~Righteous Brothers, "Rock & Roll Heaven"


That it will never come again
Is what makes life so sweet.
~Emily Dickinson


Let us endeavor to live so that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry. ~Mark Twain


Life is what happens to us while we are making other plans. ~Thomas La Mance


The value of moments, when cast up, is immense, if well employed; if thrown away, their loss is irrevocable. ~Lord Chesterfield


Waste not the smallest thing created, for grains of sand make mountains, and atomies infinity. Waste not the smallest time in imbecile infirmity, for well thou knowest that seconds form eternity. ~E. Knight


Lost time is never found again. ~Benjamin Franklin


Stop waiting. Twenty years is the first bomb of the future. ~The Quote Garden


The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and for deeds left undone. ~Harriet Beecher Stowe, Little Foxes, 1865


I wasted time, and now doth time waste me. ~William Shakespeare


Those who make the worst use of their time most complain of its brevity. ~Jean de La Bruyere


Only that day dawns to which we are awake. ~Henry David Thoreau


Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop to look around once in a while you could miss it. ~From the movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off


Many a man gets weary of clamping down on his rough impulses, which if given occasional release would encourage the living of life with salt in it, in place of dust. ~Henry S. Haskins


Every second is of infinite value. ~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe


We are always getting ready to live but never living. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson


The future has a way of arriving unannounced. ~George F. Will


We do not do what we want and yet we are responsible for what we are - that is the fact. ~Jean Paul Sartre, Situations, 1939


Time goes, you say? Ah no!
Alas, Time stays, we go.
~Henry Austin Dobson


Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time; it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable. ~Sydney J. Harris


No man is quick enough to enjoy life to the full. ~Spanish Proverb


How did it get so late so soon?
It's night before it's afternoon.
December is here before it's June.
My goodness how the time has flewn.
How did it get so late so soon?
~Dr. Seuss


Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils. ~Hector Berlioz


Waste your money and you're only out of money, but waste your time and you've lost a part of your life. ~Michael Leboeuf


You don't get to choose how you're going to die. Or when. You can only decide how you're going to live. Now. ~Joan Baez


The follies which a man regrets most in his life are those which he didn't commit when he had the opportunity. ~Helen Rowland


Who well lives, long lives; for this age of ours should not be numbered by years, days, and hours. ~Guillaume de Salluste Du Bartas, Divine Weeks and Works, 1578


You only live once; but if you live it right, once is enough. ~Adam Marshall


Life, if well lived, is long enough. ~Seneca, De Ira


There are but three events in a man's life: birth, life, and death. He is not conscious of being born, he dies in pain, and he forgets to live. ~Jean de la Bruyère


What a folly to dread the thought of throwing away life at once, and yet have no regard to throwing it away by parcels and piecemeal. ~John Howe


So much of our time is preparation, so much is routine, and so much retrospect, that the path of each man's genius contracts itself to a very few hours. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson


'Tis better to buy a small bouquet
And give to your friend this very day,
Than a bushel of roses white and red
To lay on his coffin after he's dead.
~Author Unknown


The tragedy of life is not that it ends so soon, but that we wait so long to begin it. ~Author Unknown


All the windows of my heart I open to the day. ~John Greenleaf Whittier


When one has a great deal to put into it a day has a hundred pockets. ~Friedrich Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human


Each day comes bearing its own gifts. Untie the ribbons. ~Ruth Ann Schabacker


Present your family and friends with their eulogies now - they won't be able to hear how much you love them and appreciate them from inside the coffin. ~Anonymous


The moment when you first wake up in the morning is the most wonderful of the twenty-four hours. No matter how weary or dreary you may feel, you possess the certainty that, during the day that lies before you, absolutely anything may happen. And the fact that it practically always doesn't, matters not a jot. The possibility is always there. ~Monica Baldwin


We're fools whether we dance or not, so we might as well dance. ~Japanese Proverb


When one subtracts from life infancy (which is vegetation), sleep, eating and swilling, buttoning and unbuttoning - how much remains of downright existence? The summer of a dormouse. ~Lord Byron


Don't ever save anything for a special occasion. Being alive is the special occasion. ~Author Unknown