Best 263 quotes in «carpe diem quotes» category

The definition of a professional is one who does a job well even when they don't like it.

The hour of spring was dark at last, sensuous memories of sunlight past, I stood alone in garden bowers and asked the value of my hours. Time was spent or time was tossed, Life was loved and life was lost. I kissed the flesh of tender girls, I heard the songs of vernal birds. I gazed upon the blushing light, aware of day before the night. So let me ask and hear a thought: Did I live the spring I’d sought? It's true in joy, I walked along, took part in dance, and sang the song. and never tried to bind an hour to my borrowed garden bower; nor did I once entreat a day to slumber at my feet. Yet days aren't lulled by lyric song, like morning birds they pass along, o'er crests of trees, to none belong; o'er crests of trees of drying dew, their larking flight, my hands, eschew Thus I’ll say it once and true... From all that I saw, and everywhere I wandered, I learned that time cannot be spent, It only can be squandered.

Vivir es una tarea urgente

The people we consider successful in our society are all people that seize every moment and make the best of each situation.

There are two contradicting universal principles which, when joined together, can help you lead a most satisfactory life: the first is to seize ever opportunity, and the second is to allow the will of the universe to be done through you.

This moment is yours and yours alone! Take charge, seize this moment and allow it to propel you to the high levels of an empowered life. Allow upon this fertile moment to be planted the seeds of your happiness and success.

TIME: Today Is My Everything

Try to be happy in this present moment, and put not off being so to a time to come--as though that time should be of another make from this which has already come and is ours.

Then I wondered why on earth would anyone ever stand in the world as if standing in the cornucopic middle of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon but inside a tiny white-painted rectangle about the size of a single space in a car park, refusing to come out of it, and all around her or him the whole world, beautiful, various, waiting?

The straight line will take you only to death.

The unfailing rhythm of the seasons, the ever-turning wheel of life, the four facets of the earth which are lit in turn by the sun, the passing of life--all these filled me once more with a feeling of oppression. Once more there sounded within me, together with the cranes' cry, the terrible warning that there is only one life for all men, that there is no other, and that all that can be enjoyed must be enjoyed here. In eternity no other chance will be given to us. A mind hearing this pitiless warning--a warning which, at the same time, is so compassionate--would decide to conquer its weakness and meanness, its laziness and vain hopes and cling with all its power to every second which flies away forever. Great examples come to your mind and you see clearly that you are a lost soul, your life is being frittered away on petty pleasures and pains and trifling talk. "Shame! Shame!" you cry, and bite your lips.

To live like you've had no yesterdays is a triumph that is both sublime and stupid.

Vivo espantado de estar vivo.

West Wind #2 You are young. So you know everything. You leap into the boat and begin rowing. But listen to me. Without fanfare, without embarrassment, without any doubt, I talk directly to your soul. Listen to me. Lift the oars from the water, let your arms rest, and your heart, and heart’s little intelligence, and listen to me. There is life without love. It is not worth a bent penny, or a scuffed shoe. It is not worth the body of a dead dog nine days unburied. When you hear, a mile away and still out of sight, the churn of the water as it begins to swirl and roil, fretting around the sharp rocks – when you hear that unmistakable pounding – when you feel the mist on your mouth and sense ahead the embattlement, the long falls plunging and steaming – then row, row for your life toward it.

Well, it does make you realize that life, even at its longest, is still very short.

What are you willing to have left undone in your life? Don’t let yourself be another example of a life gambled but not lived. Do not waste another day! If not now, when?

...we were doing this...this weird circling thing, like we needed to figure out every single line of the script before we could even start the movie. I knew, and he knew, and we didn’t do a damn thing about it... It’s like we thought everything had to be perfect, or it wouldn’t work. Like it was a story.

What is the date? What is the time? … Great, that’s what Now is. And every second, your ‘Now’ changes. Because all we have is Now. We are continuously living in the Now. Not yesterday, not tomorrow, but Now. Today. The present. And I need you to live in it. To truly appreciate it. To breathe and feel yourself breathing.

What do you care if people talk? Those who talk cannot harm you. Why should you be worried? You should only think about those things that please you. You have only one life in this world: soon you'll reach your eternal rest.

What if you treated each day like it was your last? What would you do differently? What would you be grateful for? What would be important to you? How mindful would you be? What would your interactions with others be like? How meaningful would your day be? How much depth would that add to your experience?

[What Rushdie took away from reading Gunter Grass's The Tin Drum]: Go for broke. Always try and do too much. Dispense with safety nets. Take a deep breath before you begin talking. Aim for the stars. Keep grinning. Be ruthless. Argue with the world. And never forget that writing is as close as we get to keeping a hold on the thousand and one things--childhood, certainties, cities, doubts, dreams, instants, phrases, parents, loves--that go on slipping like sand, through our fingers.

When life gives you lemons, don't waste your time making lemonade.

When did your flight plan become a holding pattern, always circling happiness, but never allowed to land? Distracted by in-flight movies, drinks, and snacks, until the fuel runs out. Is this really all there is? Is this what you want out of life?

Why bother to go through life if you can't do interesting shit?

When people are to busy to survive they forget to live.

Whether it is the best of times or the worst of times, it is the only time we have.

You can never get a moment back once it has passed. Are you trading your moments for something worthwhile, for something meaningful?

Aeschylus and Plato are remembered today long after the triumphs of Imperial Athens are gone. Dante outlived the ambitions of thirteenth century Florence. Goethe stands serenely above the politics of Germany, and I am certain that after the dust of centuries has passed over cities, we too will be remembered not for victories or defeats in battle or in politics, but for our contribution to the human spirit.

Above all you must illumine your own soul with its profundities and its shallows, and its vanities and its generosities, and say what your beauty means to you or your plainness, and what is your relation to the ever-changing and turning world.

A man may be so much of everything that he is nothing of anything.

Against Him those women sin who torment their skin with potions, stain their cheeks with rouge and extend the line of their eyes with black coloring. Doubtless they are dissatisfied with God's plastic skill. In their own persons they convict and censure the Artificer of all things.

All the gold in the world cannot buy a dying man one more breath--so what does that make today worth?

Art is fundamental, unique to each of us...Even in difficult economic times - especially in difficult economic times, the arts are essential.

An idea is a feat of association.

Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.

A spiritual life means: It is now or never.

But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.

Beauty in things exists in the mind which contemplates them.

By plucking her petals, you do not gather the beauty of the flower.

By God, I will not obey this filthy enactment!

Carpe diem, quam minime credula postero. Enjoy the present day, trusting very little to the morrow.

Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero'Snatch at today and trust as little as you can in tomorrow' - (Odes) Often translated as 'Seize the day'.

Carpe Jugulum," read Agnes aloud. "That's... well, Carpe Diem is 'Sieze the Day,' so this means-" "Go for the throat

Do you know that disease and death must needs overtake us, no matter what we are doing?... what do you wish to be doing when it overtakes you?... If you have anything better to be doing when you are so overtaken, get to work on that.

Don't talk about yourself; it will be done when you leave.

Don't think, but look! (PI 66)

History is a pact between the dead, the living, and the yet unborn.

Each day is an opportunity to travel back into tomorrow's past and change it.

Eggheads, unite! You have nothing to lose but your yolks.

Find what it is you love to do and do it well. Make the world a better place.