Lifelong Quotes
More Lifelong Quotes
Deep in the secret chambers of my heart I muse my life-long hate, and without flinch I bear it nobly as I live my part.
Claude McKay— The White City, lines 2-4
I view the major features of my own odyssey as a set of mostly fortunate contingencies. I was not destined by inherited mentality or family tradition to become a paleontologist. I can locate no tradition for scientific or intellectual careers anywhere on either side of my eastern European Jewish background. […] I view my serious and lifelong commitment to baseball in entirely the same manner: purely as a contingent circumstance of numerous, albeit not entirely capricious, accidents.
stephen jay gould— "Seventh Inning Stretch: Baseball, Father, and Me", p. 29
To sit in solemn silence in a dull, dark dock, In a pestilential prison, with a life-long lock, Awaiting the sensation of a short, sharp shock, From a cheap and chippy chopper on a big black block!
Sir W(illiam) S(chwenck) Gilbert— 1885 Trio, The Mikado, act1.
The purpose of art is the lifelong construction of a state of wonder.
Glenn Gould— Quoted by Lorraine Monk at the Commencement Address,York University, Toronto, 6 Nov1982.
My best friend is myself? It's a lifelong relationship and divorce will never come into it.
— 2002 In the Observer,15 Sep. US inventor and painter, who demonstrated (1844) the practicability of an electrical telegraph device to Congress. He had earlier trained as an artist.
The captain, thinking over this event afterward, realized that by his own lifelong standards he had a crew composed entirely of lunatics, with himself well to the front in degree of aberration; but he was fairly sure that this particular form of insanity was going to be useful.
hal clement— Chapter 9 (Mission of Gravity (1954))
I believe that the justification of art is the internal combustion it ignites in the hearts of men and not its shallow, externalized, public manifestations. The purpose of art is not the release of a momentary ejection of adrenalin but is, rather, the gradual, lifelong construction of a state of wonder and serenity.
Glenn Gould— Attributed to Glenn Gould (1962) in Payzant (Glenn Gould: Music and Mind), p. 64
To ask may be but a moment's shame, not to ask and remain ignorant is a lifelong shame.
jigoro kano— This is quoted in several published books as a Japanese proverb, without any mention of Jigoro Kano as author.
There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.
john rogers— In an "Ephemera" blog post, quoted in "I'm Ellsworth Toohey!" by Paul Krugman.
— This also appears in Ch. 10 of The Value of Nothing (2010) by Raj Patel, who later acknowledged it was a borrowed joke in "Citation Alert!" (21 January 2010) at rajpatel.org.
And each forgets, as he strips and runs With a brilliant, fitful pace, It's the steady, quiet, plodding ones Who win in the lifelong race. And each forgets that his youth has fled, Forgets that his prime is past, Till he stands one day, with a hope that's dead, In the glare of the truth at last.
robert service— Robert Service, The Men That Don't Fit In.
Wisdom is not a product of schooling but of the lifelong attempt to acquire it.
Albert Einstein— p. 44 - From the same 24 March 1954 letter as above.
Their lives were ruined, he thought; ruined by the fundamental error of their matrimonial union: that of having based a permanent contract on a temporary feeling which had no necessary connection with affinities that alone render a lifelong comradeship tolerable.
thomas hardy— Pt. I, ch. XI
A blessed companion is a book, a book that fitly chosen is a life-long friend.
Douglas William Jerrold— Books, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
She knew the life-long martyrdom, The weariness, the endless pain Of waiting for some one to come Who nevermore would come again.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow— Vittoria Colonna.
Why does a man who is truly in love insist that this relationship must continue and be "lifelong"? Because life is pain and the enjoyment of love is an anesthetic. Who would want to wake up halfway through an operation?
cesare pavese— 1938-01-19
My father had a deep and lifelong contempt for politicians in general ("They tell lies," he used to say with wonder, "even when they don't have to").
gore vidal— "On Flying" (1985)
In this life-long fight, to be waged by every one of us singlehanded against a host of foes, the last requisite for a good fight, the last proof and test of our courage and manfulness, must be loyalty to truth the most rare and difficult of all human qualities. For such loyalty, as it grows in perfection, asks ever more and more of us, and sets before us a standard of manliness always rising higher and higher.
thomas hughes— Thomas Hughes, The Manliness of Christ? (1880), p. 29.
You have only to cast your life-long guilt, your ungodliness, your evil thoughts and wicked words, your sinful soul itself, into this crime-canceling, sin-annihilating, soul-cleansing Fountain, in order to obliterate from God's creation your foul transgressions, and yet leave the Divine perfection fair as ever. The sin which a Saviour's blood dissolves is the only sin which, after being once committed, is totally extinguished.
— P. 84. (Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895))
Thou, in our wonder and astonishment Hast built thyself a life-long monument.
john milton— John Milton, Epitaph, On Shakespeare.
I took a great deal more from my fraternity than I gave but what I took was a very great deal companionship of the highest order, self-confidence born of belonging to a group of which I was proud, enrichment of my personal life, which gave all my college career added dimension, and even an extra bond to several life-long friendships that already existed.
— Walter Cronkite, Chi Phi; CBS News Analyst (p. 18)
Getting better from depression demands a lifelong commitment. I've made that commitment for my life's sake and for the sake of those who love me.
Susan Polis Schutz— American poet and co-founder of greeting card and book publisher Blue Mountain Arts
Why does a man who is truly in love insist that this relationship must continue and be "lifelong"? Because life is pain and the enjoyment of love is an anesthetic. Who would want to wake up halfway through an operation?
cesare pavese— Cesare Pavese, This Business of Living, 1938-01-19
Seek to make life henceforth a consecrated thing; that so, when the sunset is nearing, with its murky vapors and lowering skies, the very clouds of sorrow may be fringed with golden light. Thus will the song in the house of your pilgrimage be always the truest harmony. It will be composed of no jarring, discordant notes; but with all its varied tones will form one sustained, life-long melody; dropped for a moment in death, only to be resumed with the angels, and blended with the everlasting cadences of your Father's house.
— J. R. MacDuff, p. 159. (Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895))
The purpose of art is not the release of a momentary ejection of adrenalin but is, rather, the gradual, lifelong construction of a state of wonder and serenity.
Glenn Gould— 1962 in Payzant (Glenn Gould: Music and Mind), p. 64.
Constantine may have been a lifelong pagan but he was also a pragmatist and in 325 Anno Domini he decided to unify Rome under a single religion, Christianity .… And to strengthen this new Christian tradition, Constantine held a famous ecumenical gathering known as the Council of Nicaea, and at this council the many sects of Christianity debated and voted on well, everything from the acceptance and rejection of specific gospels to the date for Easter to the ministry of sacrament, and of course, the immortality of Jesus.
— Akiva Goldsman, in the screenplay for The Da Vinci Code.
To love oneself is the beginning of a life-long romance.
oscar wilde— Oscar Wilde, Phrases and Philosophies for the use of the Young (1894), first published in the Oxford student magazine The Chameleon (December 1894) Full text online
My chief virtue (or if you like, defect) has been a tireless lifelong search for an original, individual musical idiom. I detest imitation, I detest hackneyed devices.
sergei prokofiev— Page 7. (Sergei Prokofiev: Autobiography, Articles, Reminiscences (1960))
My chief virtue (or if you like, defect) has been a tireless lifelong search for an original, individual musical idiom. I detest imitation, I detest hackneyed devices.
— Page 7. (Sergei Prokofiev: Autobiography, Articles, Reminiscences (1960))
