Life is too short to waste doing drudgery-type work that drains your energy and makes you feel miserable – that is not a recipe for happiness. Life is too precious for that, and instead we want to be involved in things that turn us on.
The Roman philosopher Lucius Seneca said in his essay, On the Shortness of Time, “It’s not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it.”
This is called Carpe Diem, or Seize the Day.
When you live by the Carpe Diem mantra, of Seizing the Day, you know that life is too important and to vital to waste even a single breath doing the things that aren’t in synch with your soul.
The most integral thing in your life then becomes doing what you love and living that way each and every day.
In the spirit of Carpe Diem, I give you quotes on the subject. May they inspire you to Seize the Day and live your dreams to the fullest.
Here they are:
Waiting for the fish to bite or waiting for wind to fly a kite. Or waiting around for Friday night or waiting perhaps for their Uncle Jake or a pot to boil or a better break or a string of pearls or a pair of pants or a wig with curls or another chance. Everyone is just waiting. ~ Dr. Seuss
And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years. ~ Abraham Lincoln
There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval. ~ George Santayana, “War Shrines,” Soliloquies in England and Later Soliloquies, 1922
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
To change one’s life: Start immediately. Do it flamboyantly. No exceptions. ~ William James
You may delay, but time will not. ~ Benjamin Franklin
How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. ~ Annie Dillard, The Writing Life
Many people die with their music still in them. Why is this so? Too often it is because they are always getting ready to live. Before they know it, time runs out. ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes
If you wait, all that happens is that you get older. ~ Larry McMurtry, Some Can Whistle
The word “now” is like a bomb through the window, and it ticks. ~ Arthur Miller, After the Fall, 1964
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
Life happens too fast for you ever to think about it. If you could just persuade people of this, but they insist on amassing information. ~ Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced. Live your life in such a manner that when you die the world cries and you rejoice. ~ Indian Saying
though love be a day and life be nothing, it shall not stop kissing. ~ e.e. cummings
Life is always walking up to us and saying, “Come on in, the living’s fine,” and what do we do? Back off and take its picture. ~ Russell Baker
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
The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time. ~ Mark Twain
What would be the use of immortality to a person who cannot use well a half an hour. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Those who make the worst use of their time are the first to complain of its shortness. ~ Jean de La Bruyère
Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once. ~ William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, 1600
I think I don’t regret a single ‘excess’ of my responsive youth – I only regret, in my chilled age, certain occasions and possibilities I didn’t embrace. ~ Henry James
May you live all the days of your life. ~ Jonathan Swift
Many people take no care of their money till they come nearly to the end of it, and others do just the same with their time. ~ Johann von Goethe
Life is what happens to us while we are making other plans. ~ Thomas La Mance
I wasted time, and now doth time waste me. ~ William Shakespeare
You don’t get to choose how you’re going to die. Or when. You can only decide how you’re going to live. Now. ~ Joan Baez
We’re fools whether we dance or not, so we might as well dance. ~ Japanese Proverb
There are but three events in a man’s life: birth, life, and death. He is not conscious of being born, he dies in pain, and he forgets to live. ~ Jean de la Bruyère
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