The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.

Mark Twain

Life is full of questions, twists, and moments of self-discovery. At some point, we all search for its purpose.

The answers aren’t always easy to find, but there are some great quotes about life that are full of wisdom.

Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work.

Steve Jobs

In this collection, you’ll discover 120 quotes about life that go beyond the surface. These quotes offer understanding and inspiration to live fully and intentionally.

Meaningful Quotes About Life to Find Your Purpose

Quotes about Life by Famous Philosophers

1. “The unexamined life is not worth living.” – Socrates
2. “He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
3. “To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.” – Oscar Wilde

Quotes about Life by Motivational Speakers

4. “Your purpose in life is to find your purpose and give your whole heart and soul to it.” – Buddha
5. “The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.” – Pablo Picasso
6. “Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.” – Albert Schweitzer

Quotes about Life by Spiritual Leaders

7. “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.” – Mahatma Gandhi
8. “We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.” – Winston Churchill
9. “Life isn’t about finding yourself. It’s about creating yourself.” – George Bernard Shaw

Quotes about Life by Authors and Poets

10. “You were put on this earth to achieve your greatest self, to live out your purpose, and to do it fearlessly.” – Steve Maraboli
11. “The purpose of life is a life of purpose.” – Robert Byrne
12. “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.” – Steve Jobs

Quotes on Overcoming Obstacles

13. “The human capacity for burden is like bamboo – far more flexible than you’d ever believe at first glance.” – Jodi Picoult
14. “Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.” – Mahatma Gandhi
15. “Fall seven times, stand up eight.” – Japanese Proverb

16. “The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.” – Nelson Mandela
17. “Hardships often prepare ordinary people for an extraordinary destiny.” – C.S. Lewis
18. “Courage is not having the strength to go on; it is going on when you don’t have the strength.” – Theodore Roosevelt

19. “The only way out of the labyrinth of suffering is to forgive.” – John Green
20. “Challenges are what make life interesting. Overcoming them is what makes life meaningful.” – Joshua J. Marine
21. “What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Quotes on Happiness and Fulfillment

22. “Happiness is not something ready-made. It comes from your own actions.” – Dalai Lama
23. “The purpose of our lives is to be happy.” – Dalai Lama
24. “Happiness is the secret to all beauty. There is no beauty without happiness.” – Christian Dior

25. “Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without.” – Buddha
26. “Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
27. “Do not let the behavior of others destroy your inner peace.” – Dalai Lama

28. “Gratitude turns what we have into enough.” – Anonymous
29. “Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues but the parent of all others.” – Cicero
30. “When I started counting my blessings, my whole life turned around.” – Willie Nelson

Quotes on Love and Relationships

31. “Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
32. “To love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides.” – David Viscott
33. “Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.” – Aristotle

34. “The quality of your life is the quality of your relationships.” – Tony Robbins
35. “We are most alive when we’re in love.” – John Updike
36. “A loving heart is the truest wisdom.” – Charles Dickens

Quotes about Self-Love

37. “To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.” – Oscar Wilde
38. “You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.” – Buddha
39. “Self-love, my liege, is not so vile a sin as self-neglecting.” – William Shakespeare

Quotes on Wisdom and Knowledge

40. “Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.” – Mahatma Gandhi
41. “The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.” – Socrates
42. “Wisdom is not a product of schooling but of the lifelong attempt to acquire it.” – Albert Einstein

43. “Experience is the teacher of all things.” – Julius Caesar
44. “Turn your wounds into wisdom.” – Oprah Winfrey
45. “The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

46. “Knowledge is power. Information is liberating. Education is the premise of progress, in every society, in every family.” – Kofi Annan
47. “The more I read, the more I acquire, the more certain I am that I know nothing.” – Voltaire
48. “An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.” – Benjamin Franklin

Quotes on Courage and Bravery

49. “Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.” – Mark Twain
50. “Do one thing every day that scares you.” – Eleanor Roosevelt
51. “Everything you’ve ever wanted is on the other side of fear.” – George Addair

52. “Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.” – Helen Keller
53. “The biggest risk is not taking any risk.” – Mark Zuckerberg
54. “Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.” – T.S. Eliot

55. “Speak your mind, even if your voice shakes.” – Maggie Kuhn
56. “Stand up for what you believe in, even if it means standing alone.” – Andy Biersack
57. “You must never be fearful about what you are doing when it is right.” – Rosa Parks

Quotes on Change and Transformation

58. “Change is the only constant in life.” – Heraclitus
59. “The greatest discovery of all time is that a person can change his future by merely changing his attitude.” – Oprah Winfrey
60. “Your life does not get better by chance, it gets better by change.” – Jim Rohn

61. “The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new.” – Socrates
62. “Transformation is a process, and as life happens, there are tons of ups and downs. It’s a journey of discovery.” – Rick Warren
63. “We can’t become what we need to be by remaining what we are.” – Oprah Winfrey

64. “It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” – Charles Darwin
65. “The measure of intelligence is the ability to change.” – Albert Einstein
66. “Adaptability is about the powerful difference between adapting to cope and adapting to win.” – Max McKeown

Quotes on Success and Achievement

67. “Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success.” – Albert Schweitzer
68. “Success is not how high you have climbed, but how you make a positive difference to the world.” – Roy T. Bennett
69. “To succeed in life, you need three things: a wishbone, a backbone, and a funny bone.” – Reba McEntire

70. “The road to success and the road to failure are almost exactly the same.” – Colin R. Davis
71. “Success is a journey, not a destination. The doing is often more important than the outcome.” – Arthur Ashe
72. “Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.” – Henry David Thoreau

73. “Set your goals high, and don’t stop till you get there.” – Bo Jackson
74. “The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt
75. “Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.” – Arthur Ashe

Quotes on Mindfulness and Presence

76. “The best way to capture moments is to pay attention. This is how we cultivate mindfulness.” – Jon Kabat-Zinn
77. “Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.” – Buddha
78. “Be happy in the moment, that’s enough. Each moment is all we need, not more.” – Mother Teresa

79. “Mindfulness means being awake. It means knowing what you are doing.” – Jon Kabat-Zinn
80. “The present moment is the only time over which we have dominion.” – Thích Nhất Hạnh
81. “Mindfulness is the aware, balanced acceptance of the present experience. It isn’t more complicated than that.” – Sylvia Boorstein

82. “Wherever you are, be all there.” – Jim Elliot
83. “Life is available only in the present moment.” – Thích Nhất Hạnh
84. “Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift of God, which is why we call it the present.” – Bil Keane

Quotes on Creativity and Innovation

85. “Creativity takes courage.” – Henri Matisse
86. “You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.” – Maya Angelou
87. “Every artist was first an amateur.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

88. “Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.” – Steve Jobs
89. “Originality is the best form of rebellion.” – Mike Sasso
90. “The heart and soul of the company is creativity and innovation.” – Bob Iger

91. “Creativity is intelligence having fun.” – Albert Einstein
92. “Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known.” – Oscar Wilde
93. “Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions.” – Albert Einstein

Quotes on Compassion and Kindness

94. “Empathy is seeing with the eyes of another, listening with the ears of another, and feeling with the heart of another.” – Alfred Adler
95. “Whenever you are about to find fault with someone, ask yourself the following question: What fault of mine most nearly resembles the one I am about to criticize?” – Marcus Aurelius
96. “Empathy is about finding echoes of another person in yourself.” – Mohsin Hamid

97. “No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.” – Aesop
98. “Kindness is a language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.” – Mark Twain
99. “Carry out a random act of kindness, with no expectation of reward, safe in the knowledge that one day someone might do the same for you.” – Princess Diana

100. “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.” – Mahatma Gandhi
101. “Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.” – William James
102. “Never believe that a few caring people can’t change the world. For, indeed, that’s all who ever have.” – Margaret Mead

Quotes on Health and Well-being

103. “Mental health is not a destination, but a process. It’s about how you drive, not where you’re going.” – Noam Shpancer
104. “You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.” – Buddha
105. “What mental health needs is more sunlight, more candor, and more unashamed conversation.” – Glenn Close

106. “To keep the body in good health is a duty… otherwise we shall not be able to keep our mind strong and clear.” – Buddha
107. “Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best relationship.” – Buddha
108. “The greatest wealth is health.” – Virgil

109. “Take care of your body. It’s the only place you have to live.” – Jim Rohn
110. “Healing is a matter of time, but it is sometimes also a matter of opportunity.” – Hippocrates
111. “Your body hears everything your mind says.” – Naomi Judd

Quotes on Spirituality and Inner Peace

112. “The spiritual journey is the unlearning of fear and the acceptance of love.” – Marianne Williamson
113. “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.” – Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
114. “The only journey is the one within.” – Rainer Maria Rilke

115. “Peace begins with a smile.” – Mother Teresa
116. “Inner peace begins the moment you choose not to allow another person or event to control your emotions.” – Pema Chödrön
117. “The life of inner peace, being harmonious and without stress, is the easiest type of existence.” – Norman Vincent Peale

118. “Prayer is the key of the morning and the bolt of the evening.” – Mahatma Gandhi
119. “Faith is the bird that feels the light when the dawn is still dark.” – Rabindranath Tagore
120. “God enters by a private door into every individual.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson