Quotes about Life

Our sages teach us that two angels attach themselves to a man at birth and never leave him. One walks before and helps him climb mountains, the other follows in the shadows and pushes him toward his fall.

One must not rely on the dead," he said. "One must rely on the living—and on God who gives life to the living.

If I were to refuse to obey orders I should betray my living friends. And the living have more rights over us than the dead. You told me that yourself. Therefore choose life, it is written in the Scriptures. I have espoused the cause of the living, and that is no betrayal.

Why do you pray? he asked me, after a moment. Why did I pray? A strange question. Why did I live? Why did I breathe?

To love God is to love His will. It is to wait quietly for life to be measured by One who knows us through and through. It is to be content with His timing and His wise appointment.

We are not meant to die merely in order to be dead. God could not want that for the creatures to whom He has given the breath of life. We die in order to live.

One does not surrender a life in an instant. That which is lifelong can only be surrendered in a lifetime. Nor is surrender to the will of God (per se) adequate to fullness of power in Christ. Maturity is the accomplishment of years, and I can only surrender to the will of God as I know what that will is.

George Macdonald said, 'If you knew what God knows about death you would clap your listless hands', but instead I find old people in North America just buying this whole youth obsession. I think growing older is a wonderful privilege. I want to learn to glorify God in every stage of my life.

The principles of gain through loss, of joy through sorrow, of getting by giving, of fulfillment by laying down, of life out of death is what the Bible teaches, and the people who have believed it enough to live it out in simple, humble, day-by-day practice are people who have found the gain, the joy, the getting, the fulfillment, the life.

Is the distinction between living for Christ and dying for Him so great? Is not the second the logical conclusion of the first?

Must we always comment on life? Can it not simply be lived in the reality of Christ's terms of contact with the Father, with joy and peace, fear and love full to the fingertips in their turn, without incessant drawing of lessons and making of rules?

The gate is narrow but not the life. The gate opens out into largeness of life.