Great Quotes About Life: Bartlett's Familiar Quotations

Great quotes about life can only come from truly great sources. One of the finest sources of quotations is a volume that was originally composed almost 100 years ago.

John Bartlett collected some of the most important and most often repeated quotations of his time. The early editions of his work are widely regarded as the definitive source for truly thoughtful and literate quotations.

there are times when great quotes seem have been reduced to simple sound bytes. Attribution and accuracy can often take second place to flashy, attention-grabbing sayings. Some quotes about life tend to be more shallow and amusing than anything else.

While there is certainly a place for amusement, great quotes about life should really be carefully researched, thoughtful, literate, and clearly documented. Otherwise, what is the worth of their advice?

Some of the quotes here may take a bit of thinking to truly understand their meaning, but they are well worth the effort.

Is life worth living? Yes, so long As there is wrong to right.

-- Alfred Austin

We learn wisdom from failure much more than from success. We often discover what will do by finding out what will not do; and probably he who never made a mistake never made a discovery.

--Samuel Smiles

That best portion of a good man’s life,

—His little, nameless, unremembered acts

Of kindness and of love.

--William Wordsworth

Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

--John Keats

The reward of a thing well done is to have done it.

--Ralph Waldo Emerson

...Do not distinguish by the eye, but by the mind, which is the proper judge of the man.

--Seneca

It matters not how long you live, but how well.

--Publius Syrius

Life is a voyage. The winds of life come strong From every point; yet each will speed thy course along If thou with steady hand when tempests blow Canst keep thy course aright and never once let go.

--Theodore Chickering Williams

Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.

--Benjamin Franklin

Life is not life at all without delight.

--Coventry Patmore

Life is not so short but that there is always time enough for courtesy.

--Ralph Waldo Emerson

In life there is nothing more unexpected and surprising than the arrivals and departures of pleasure. If we find it in one place to-day, it is vain to seek it there to-morrow. You can not lay a trap for it.

--Alexander Smith

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

But how carve way in the life that lies before, If bent on groaning ever for the past?

--Robert Browning

The good man prolongs his life; to be able to enjoy one’s past life is to live twice

--Martial

Nor love thy life, nor hate; but what thou liv’st Live well: how long or short permit to heaven.

--John Milton

The great end of life is not knowledge but action.

--Thomas Huxley