Last week I was making a weekly video on the topic of quotes about life, and there are so many beautiful, powerful and inspiring quotes on this topic that I have compiled a list of my top 50 famous quotes about life.

Many famous people have written on the subject of life and there is a lot of wisdom in the quotes. Also, many quotes can be a daily affirmation for a positive touch of the day.

Inspirational Quotes About Life

1. “You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.”
Mae West

2. “In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.”
Robert Frost

3. “To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”
Oscar Wilde

4. “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”
Albert Einstein

5. “Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.”
Mark Twain

6. “Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.”
George Bernard Shaw

7. “Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.”
Albert Einstein

8. “The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”
Mark Twain

9. “The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.”
Isaac Asimov

10. “Where there is love there is life.”
Mahatma Gandhi

11. “May you live every day of your life.”
Jonathan Swift

12. “We have to dare to be ourselves, however frightening or strange that self may prove to be.”
May Sarton

13. “Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.”
Oscar Wilde

14. “When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.”
John Lennon

15. “A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.”
George Bernard Shaw

16. “Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win.”
Stephen King

17. “Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson

18. “The most important thing is to enjoy your life—to be happy—it’s all that matters.”
Audrey Hepburn

19. “Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal.”
Albert Camus

20. “Unbeing dead isn’t being alive.”
E. E. Cummings

21. “It’s only after you’ve stepped outside your comfort zone that you begin to change, grow, and transform.”
Roy T. Bennett

22. “The things you do for yourself are gone when you are gone, but the things you do for others remain as your legacy.”
Kalu Ndukwe Kalu

23. “The most wasted of all days is one without laughter.”
Nicolas Chamfort

24. “If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain.”
Emily Dickinson

25. “Life is to be enjoyed, not endured”
Gordon B. Hinckley

26. “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.”
Friedrich Nietzsche

27. “No matter how much suffering you went through, you never wanted to let go of those memories.”
Haruki Murakami

28. “Don’t part with your illusions. When they are gone you may still exist, but you have ceased to live.”
Mark Twain

29. “Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.”
Anais Nin

30. “Life becomes easier and more beautiful when we can see the good in other people.”
Roy T. Bennett

31. “Don’t waste your time in anger, regrets, worries, and grudges. Life is too short to be unhappy.”
Roy T. Bennett

32. “That it will never come again is what makes life so sweet.”
Emily Dickinson

33. “If you ask me what I came to do in this world, I, an artist, will answer you: I am here to live out loud.”
Émile Zola

34. “The past has no power over the present moment.”
Eckhart Tolle

35. “Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them; that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.”
Lao Tzu

36. “A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving.”
Lao Tzu

37. “We can never judge the lives of others, because each person knows only their own pain and renunciation. It’s one thing to feel that you are on the right path, but it’s another to think that yours is the only path.”
Paulo Coelho

38. “Wisdom comes from experience. Experience is often a result of lack of wisdom.”
Terry Pratchett

39. “You can have it all. Just not all at once.”
Oprah Winfrey

40. “It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.”
Confucius

41. “The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.”
Eleanor Roosevelt

42. “To shine your brightest light is to be who you truly are.”
Roy T. Bennett

43. “Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one’s definition of your life, but define yourself.”
Harvey Fierstein

44. “Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.”
Marie Curie

45. “It is not the length of life, but the depth.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson

46. “Be steady and well-ordered in your life so that you can be fierce and original in your work.”
Gustave Flaubert

47. “Each player must accept the cards life deals him or her; but once they are in hand, he or she alone must decide how to play the cards in order to win the game.”
Voltaire

48. “I feel very adventurous. There are so many doors to be opened, and I’m not afraid to look behind them.”
Elizabeth Taylor

49. “People who fit don’t seek. The seekers are those that don’t fit.”
Shannon L. Alder

50. “Each of us is a unique strand in the intricate web of life and here to make a contribution.”
Deepak Chopra

In this selection of inspirational quotes about life, famous people described life in their own words.

Have you ever written anything about life? Do you have any unique explanation of what life is? I will be happy if you share your thoughts with me in the comments. You can also tell which one is your favorite quote from the ones listed, or add one that isn’t in this post.

All the best,

Nina