Happy “What are you waiting for?” Day

 

…Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
~Mary Oliver

 

It is only when we truly know and understand that we have a limited time on earth-and that we have no way of knowing when our time is up–that we will begin to live each day to the fullest, as if it was the only one we had.–Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

 

Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, totally worn out and proclaiming. ‘Wow, what a ride!” – author unknown but sometimes attributed to motorcycle racer Bill McKenna.

 

Use your health, even to the point of wearing it out. That is what it is for. Spend all you have before you die; do not outlive yourself. ~George Bernard Shaw

 

If you woke up breathing, congratulations! You have another chance. ~Andrea Boydston

 

I don’t want to get to the end of my life and find that I lived just the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as well. ~Diane Ackerman

 

Every day of our lives we are on the verge of making those slight changes that would make all the difference. ~Mignon McLaughlin

 

Had I not lived with Mirabeau, I never should have known all that can be done in a day, or, rather, in an interval of twelve hours. A day to him was of more value than a week or a month to others. To‑morrow to him was not the same impostor as to most others. ~Pierre Étienne Louis Dumont

 

The word “now” is like a bomb through the window, and it ticks. ~Arthur Miller

 

What to do with your one life? The same thing you would do if you had two lives, and this were the second. ~Robert Brault

 

I have spent my days stringing and unstringing my instrument, while the song I came to sing remains unsung. ~Tagore

 

One can make a day of any size. ~John Muir

 

A simple definition of life: The chance you’ve been waiting for. ~Robert Brault

 

There’s time enough, but none to spare. ~Charles W. Chesnutt

 

The more side roads you stop to explore, the less likely that life will pass you by. ~Robert Brault

 

In theory one is aware that the earth revolves, but in practice one does not perceive it, the ground upon which one treads seems not to move, and one can live undisturbed. So it is with Time in one’s life. ~Marcel Proust

 

Most of us spend our lives as if we had another one in the bank. ~Ben Irwin

 

When your life flashes before your eyes, make sure you’ve got plenty to watch. ~Author unknown

 

Begin doing what you want to do now. We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand, and melting like a snowflake. ~Marie Ray

 

How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. ~Annie Dillard, The Writing Life

 

Only that day dawns to which we are awake. ~Henry David Thoreau

 

Men for the sake of getting a living forget to live. ~Margaret Fuller

 

There was George, throwing away in hideous sloth the inestimable gift of time; his valuable life, every second of which he would have to account for hereafter, passing away from him, unused…. sprawling there, sunk in soul-clogging oblivion. ~Jerome K. Jerome

 

Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year. No man has learned anything rightly, until he knows that every day is Doomsday. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry. ~Mark Twain

 

The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and for deeds left undone. ~Harriet Beecher Stowe

 

I would I could stand on a busy corner, hat in hand, and beg people to throw me all their wasted hours. ~Bernard Berenson

 

It’s not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it.—Seneca

 

The time of life is short; to spend that shortness basely were too long.—Shakespeare

 

Out, out, brief candle! Life’s but a walking shadow.—Shakespeare

 

“When we fully understand the brevity of life, its fleeting joys and unavoidable pains; when we accept the facts that all men and women are approaching an inevitable doom: the consciousness of it should make us more kindly and considerate of each other. This feeling should make men and women use their best efforts to help their fellow travelers on the road, to make the path brighter and easier as we journey on. It should bring a closer kinship, a better understanding, and a deeper sympathy for the wayfarers who must live a common life and die a common death.”—Clarence Darrow

 

Let those who thoughtfully consider the brevity of life remember the length of eternity.—Thomas Ken

 

Life is short, God’s way of encouraging a bit of focus. ~Robert Brault

 

Live every day as if it were going to be your last; for one day you’re sure to be right. ~Harry “Breaker” Harbord Morant

 

Go for it now. The future is promised to no one. ~Wayne Dyer

 

Every man dies. Not every man really lives. ~Wiilliam Wallace, Braveheart

 

Spend the afternoon. You can’t take it with you. ~Annie Dillard

 

Dream as if you’ll live forever. Live as if you’ll die today. ~James Dean

 

Life is not lost by dying; life is lost minute by minute, day by dragging day, in all the thousand small uncaring ways. ~Stephen Vincent Benét

 

The important thing is not how many years in your life but how much life in your years. ~Edward J. Stieglitz

 

For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin — real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way. Something to be got through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life. ~Fr. Alfred D’Souza

 

To always be intending to live a new life, but never find time to set about it — this is as if a man should put off eating and drinking from one day to another till he be starved and destroyed. ~Walter Scott

 

I still find each day too short for all the thoughts I want to think, all the walks I want to take, all the books I want to read and all the friends I want to see. ~John Burroughs

 

Another day, another day,
And yet another, glides away!
Heroic plans in pleasure drown’d…
Thus, week by week, and day by day,
His life inglorious glides away…
~Walter Scott, The Bridal of Triermain, 1813

 

To change one’s life: Start immediately. Do it flamboyantly. No exceptions. ~William James

 

I cannot live fast enough!
For a swirl of rushing air
Catches the red leaves from my feet
And scatters them everywhere.
I cannot live fast enough!
Look! those trees were green and are bare
And over the cold horizon hills
The winter sun-fires glare.
I have not lived fast enough!
I must hurry, must run, must dare,
There is time yet for a red leaf
To tangle itself in my hair!
~Eda Lou Walton, “A Song,” c.1919

 

Why must conversions always come so late? Why do people always apologize to corpses? ~David Brin

 

Fear not that life shall come to an end, but rather fear that it shall never have a beginning. ~John Henry Cardinal Newman

 

You may delay, but time will not. ~Benjamin Franklin

 

We cannot waste time. We can only waste ourselves. ~George M. Adams

 

Contemplation often makes life miserable. We should act more, think less, and stop watching ourselves live. ~Nicolas de Chamfort

 

We die daily. Happy those who daily come to life as well. ~George MacDonald

 

The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time. ~Author unknown

 

What would be the use of immortality to a person who cannot use well a half an hour. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

Is there life before death? ~Author Unknown

 

When it comes time to die, make sure all you got to do is die. ~ Jim Elliot

 

The greatest surprise in life to me is the brevity of life.—Billy Graham

 

Today is the first day I am not dead… And we’re having a party. ~Garth Stein

 

The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough. ~Rabindranath Tagore

 

The question for each man is not what he would do if he had the means, time, influence, and educational advantages, but what he will do with the things he has. ~Hamilton

 

If you were going to die soon and had only one phone call you could make, who would you call and what would you say? And why are you waiting? ~Stephen Levine

 

May you live all the days of your life. ~Jonathan Swift

 

How did it get so late so soon?
It’s night before it’s afternoon.
December is here before it’s June.
My goodness how the time has flewn.
How did it get so late so soon?
~Dr. Seuss

 

Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.—the Bible, James 4:14

 

Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop to look around once in a while you could miss it. ~Ferris Bueller, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off

 

#lifeisamist #jamesfour14