Life Celebration Quotes
Crafted with the reader in mind, this collection is clearly divided by themes:
Agatha Christie
I don't think necessity is the mother of invention. Invention . . . arises directly from idleness, possibly also from laziness. To save oneself trouble.
Alan Watts
The art of living… is neither careless drifting on the one hand nor fearful drifting on the other. It consists in being sensitive to each moment, in regarding it as utterly new and unique, in having the mind open and wholly receptive.
Albert Einstein
Creativity is contagious, pass it on.
Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.
Creativity is intelligence having fun.
Aldous Huxley
Perhaps it’s good for one to suffer. Can an artist do anything if he’s happy? Would he ever want to do anything? What is art, after all, but a protest against the horrible inclemency of life?
Carl Jung
What did you do as a child that made the hours pass like minutes? Therein lies the key to your earthly pursuits.
Charles Bukowski
If something burns your soul with fand desire it’s your duty to be reduced to ashes by it. Any other form of existence will be yet another dull book in the library of life.
Confucius
It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.
Imagination is more important than knowledge.
Deepak Chopra
The best use of imagination is creativity. The worst use of imagination is anxiety.
Non-judgment quiets the internal dialogue, and this opens once again the doorway to creativity.
Douglas Adams
Don't you understand that we need to be childish in order to understand? Only a child sees things with perfect clarity, because it hasn't developed all those filters which prevent us from seeing things that we don't expect to see.
Freddie Mercury
You can do whatever you like with my image, my music, remix it, re-release it, whatever… just never make me boring.
Friedrich Nietzsche
The philosopher’s product is his life.
Without music, life would be a mistake.
We have art in order not to die of the truth.
George Bernard Shaw
You use a glass mirror to see your face; you use works of art to see your soul.
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
Imagination is the beginning of creation.
Georgia O'Keeffe
I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way... things I had no words for.
Jack Kerouac
The only truth is music.
John Cleese
Nothing will stop you from being creative so effectively as the fear of making a mistake.
Jean Cocteau
An original artist is unable to copy. So he has only to copy in order to be original.
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Jiddu Krishnamurti
When pure feeling is corrupted by intellect, there is
mediocrity. That is what most of us are doing.
Joseph Campbell
You can get a lot of work done if you stay with it and are excited and it’s play instead of work.
Leonard Cohen
Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash.
Leo Tolstoy
Music makes me forget my real situation. It transports me into a state which is not my own. Under the influence of music I really seem to feel what I do not feel, to understand what I do not understand, to have powers which I cannot have.
Margaret Atwood
What matters is how the art makes you feel.
Any novel is hopeful in that it presupposes a reader. It is, actually, a hopeful act just to write anything, really, because you’re assuming that someone will be around to [read] it.
The genesis of a poem for me is usually a cluster of words. The only good metaphor I can think of is a scientific one: dipping a thread into a supersaturated solution to induce crystal formation.
Maya Angelou
You can’t use up creativity. The more you use it, the more you have.
Michel Foucault
What strikes me is the fact that in our society, art has become something which is only related to objects, and not to individuals, or to life.
Madness is the absolute break with the work of art; it forms the constitutive moment of abolition, which dissolves in time the truth of the work of art.
Nikola Tesla
The mind is sharper and keener in seclusion and uninterrupted solitude. No big laboratory is needed in which to think. Originality thrives in seclusion free of outside influences beating upon us to cripple the creative mind. Be alone, that is the secret of invention; be alone, that is when ideas are born. That is why many of the earthly miracles have had their genesis in humble surroundings.
Pablo Picasso
The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.
Bad artists copy. Good artists steal.
Every child is an artist, the problem is staying an artist when you grow up.
Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.
Art is the elimination of the unnecessary.
Every act of creation is first an act of destruction.
I begin with an idea and then it becomes something else.
The hidden harmony is better than the obvious.
The chief enemy of creativity is 'good' sense.
Art is a lie that makes us realize the truth.
Paul Gauguin
Art is either plagiarism or revolution.
Salvador Dali
Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing.
Sir Isaac Newton
The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you. Don’t go back to sleep. You must ask for what you really want. Don’t go back to sleep.
My powers are ordinary. Only my application brings me success.
No great discovery was ever made without a bold guess.
Steve Jobs
If you are working on something exciting that you really care about you don’t have to be pushed. The vision pulls you.
Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while.
Vincent van Gogh
If you hear a voice within you say you cannot paint, then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced.
Art is to console those who are broken by life.
A grain of madness is the best of art.
Voltaire
Originality is nothing but judicious imitation.
The secret to being boring is to say everything.
Other Voices
For these sections without caricature the quote comes first, the cited person after. In case you are using text-to-speech be aware.
I think some young people want a deeper experience. Some people just wanna be hit over the head and, you know, if then they [get] hit hard enough maybe they'll feel something. You know? But some people want to get inside of something and discover, maybe, more richness. And I think it will always be the same; they're not going to be the great percentage of the people. A great percentage of the people don't want a challenge. They want something to be done to them -- they don't want to participate. But there'll always be maybe 15% maybe, 15%, that desire something more, and they'll search it out -- and maybe that's where art is, I think.
Bill Evans
Every book, every volume you see here, has a soul. The soul of the person who wrote it and of those who read it and lived and dreamed with it. Every time a book changes hands, every time someone runs his eyes down its pages, its spirit grows and strengthens.
Carlos Ruiz Zafón
Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.
Cesar A. Cruz
Anyone can make the simple complicated. Creativity is making the complicated simple.
Charles Mingus
The desire to create is one of the deepest yearnings of the human soul.
Dieter F. Uchtdorf
Painting is very easy when you don't know how, but very difficult when you do.
Edgar Degas
People hate their own art because it looks like they made it. They think if they get better, it will stop looking like they made it. A better person made it. But there’s no level of skill beyond which you stop being you. You hate the most valuable thing about your art.
Elicia Donze
Simplify, slow down, be kind. And don’t forget to have art in your life – music, paintings, theater, dance, and sunsets.
Eric Carle
People need art in their houses. They don’t need Bed Bath and Beyond dentist-office art. They need weird stuff.
Ezra Croft
Art gives us the illusion of liberation from the sordid business of being.
Fernando Pessoa
Humans have both the urge to create and destroy.
Hayao Miyazaki
Don’t worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you’ll have to ram them down people’s throats.
Howard Aiken
Go into the arts. I'm not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.
To practice any art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow.
Kurt Vonnegut
The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.
Michelangelo
The one thing you have that nobody else has is you. Your voice, your mind, your story, your vision. So write and draw and build and play and dance and live as only you can.
The moment that you feel, just possibly, you are walking down the street naked, exposing too much of your heart and your mind, and what exists on the inside, showing too much of yourself...That is the moment, you might be starting to get it right.
Neil Gaiman
There are some themes, some subjects, too large for adult fiction; they can only be dealt with adequately in a children’s book.
Philip Pullman
Free access to human creativity is a birthright.
Creativity is its own reward. If allowed, it feeds itself,
so never let it go hungry.
Sean Thompson
The secret to life is to put your self in the right lighting. For some, it’s a Broadway spotlight; for others, a lamplit desk. Use your natural powers - of persistence, concentration, and insight - to do work you love and work that matters. Solve problems. Make art. Think deeply.
Susan Cain
The purpose of literature is to turn blood into ink.”
T.S. Eliot
Some people will always be deaf to your song. Don’t stop signing.
Trudy Jane
The creative adult is the child who survived.
Ursula K. Le Guin
What is Poetry? To see a world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wild flower. Hold infinity in the palm of your hand and eternity in a hour.
William Blake
Pocketbook of Quotes: From Socrates to Lebowski is an absolute gem that belongs in everyone’s library. This compact book is a treasure trove of wisdom, inspiration, and wit, offering timeless insights from some of the greatest minds in history. From philosophers like Socrates and Camus to unexpected gems from pop culture, every quote invites you to pause, reflect, and marvel at the depth of human thought.
What I love most about this book is its versatility. You can read it in one sitting and feel enriched, or you can take your time, turning to any random page for a moment of insight whenever you need it. Whether you're looking for motivation, contemplating life’s mysteries, or simply need a laugh, there’s always something in here that hits the right note.
The carefully curated selection, with quotes like Albert Camus’s poetic reflections on love and absurdity or Schopenhauer’s timeless truths, makes this book as profound as it is entertaining. The added touch of humor from quotes like Charles Bukowski’s stark yet thought-provoking outlook on life makes this book even more captivating.
It’s perfect for students, professionals, or anyone on a journey of lifelong learning. If you want to nourish your mind and soul with wisdom that has stood the test of time—and still makes sense in our modern world—this pocketbook is a must-have. Highly recommended!
Perhaps the only way to put creativity into a reference book is putting appeal into its presentation, and that is what this volume of helpful and inspirational quotes has done.
Like many similar books, the quotes are divided by subject, but the cleanliness of the typesetting and clearness of the presentation make this volume more accessible than some of the alternatives. A nice touch is the portraits to accompany the most notable contributors, which not only give a visual cue to the reader but also serve to break up what would otherwise be a giant wall of text.
The presentation was spot on, and this will probably make a better book for your desk or coffee table than a lot of its thicker, clunkier competitors. The Kindle version is also particularly clean in its layout, with scarce typesetting errors.
A solid reference, through and through.
This is an excellent book on quotes on all sorts of topics regarding "Life."
There are almost 400 pages of insightful and witty comments that are broken into twenty-four categories, which are too many to list in its entirety but include such topics as art, courage, education, happiness, inspiration, power, time, wisdom, etc.
The layout of the book is straight forward and sorted first by category and then by the person making the statement. Even the icons of the person making the quote referenced are well done.
There's a tremendous amount of insight and humour in this single book. It is a light read and can be enjoyed over time or all at once.