Echoes

As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.

The measure of a man's life is the well spending of it, and not the length.

In the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years.

The value of life lies not in the length of days, but in the use we make of them... Whether you find satisfaction in life depends not on your tale of years, but on your will.

The point is, not how long you live, but how nobly you live. And often this living nobly means that you cannot live long.

It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives. The act of dying is not of importance, it lasts so short a time.

Life is a journey, not a destination.

Wherever your life ends, it is all there. The utility of living consists not in the length of days, but in the use of time; a man may have lived long, and yet lived but a little. Make use of time while it is present with you. It depends upon your will, and not upon the number of days, to have a sufficient length of life. Is it possible you can imagine never to arrive at the place towards which you are continually going? and yet there is no journey but hath its end. And, if company will make it more pleasant or more easy to you, does not all the world go the self-same way?

We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.

Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn't matter to me … Going to bed at night saying we've done something wonderful... that's what matters to me.

A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life.

Even death is not to be feared by one who has lived wisely.

Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all.

I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.

It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a great deal of it.

As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so a life well spent brings happy death.

It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.

Do not seek pleasure for its own sake.

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.

He who does not value life does not deserve it.

Do not, my soul, seek immortal life, but exhaust the limits of the possible.

What speaks to the soul escapes our measurements.

He who lives sees much. He who travels sees more.

To live is not merely to breathe; it is to act, to make use of our organs, senses, faculties — of all those parts of ourselves which give us the feeling of existence.

Beware lest you lose the substance by grasping at the shadow.