89 Heart Touching Quotes about Life from Famous People

What is life? I believe life is what you make of it. The way we live it — good or bad — defines our own happiness and success in this world.

And instead of asking yourself, “what is life?” rephrase it to “what do you want your life to be about?”

Heart Touching Quotes from Famous People

Learn from this collection of heart touching quotes about life from your favorite celebrities, philosophers, and authors.

1. “We are always getting ready to live but never living.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

2. “Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone.” — Pablo Picasso

3. “You’re not obligated to win. You’re obligated to keep trying. To the best, you can do every day.” — Jason Mraz

4. “When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.” — Hellen Keller

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

6. “And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.” — Abraham Lincoln

7. “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.” — Oscar Wilde

8. “If you can do what you do best and be happy, you are further along in life than most people.” — Leonardo DiCaprio

9. “I was born to make mistakes, not to fake perfection.” — Drake

10. “Even though you’re fed up, you gotta keep your head up.” — Tupac

11. “He whose face gives no light shall never become a star.” — William Blake

12. “If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.” — Maya Angelou

13. “I believe life is a prize. But to live doesn’t mean you’re alive.” — Nicki Minaj

14. “Listen, smile, agree. And then do whatever the fuck you were gonna do anyway.” — Robert Downey Jr.

15. “Do not pray for an easy life, pray for the strength to endure a difficult one.” — Bruce Lee

16. “No matter what happens in life, be good to people. Being good to people is a wonderful legacy to leave behind.” — Taylor Swift

17. “It isn’t the mountains ahead to climb that wear you down. It’s the pebble in your shoe.” — Muhammad Ali

18. “The first step is you have to say that you can.” — Will Smith

19. “What you think, you become. What you feel, you attract. What you imagine, you create.” — Buddha

20. “I keep telling myself that I’m a human being, an imperfect human being who’s not made to look like a doll, and that who I am as a person is more important than whether at that moment I have a nice figure.” — Emma Watson

21. “Schools teach kids irrelevant things, but not how to cope with real life.” — Rowan Atkinson

22. “Don’t be afraid to feel as angry or as loving as you can, because when you feel nothing, it’s just death.” — Lena Horne

23. “Everybody dies, but not everybody lives.” — Drake

24. “As far as I can tell, it’s just about letting the universe know what you want and working toward it while letting go of how it might come to pass.” — Jim Carrey

25. “I used to think the worst thing in life is to end up all alone. It’s not. The worst thing in life is to end up with people who make you feel all alone.” — Robin Williams

26. “There comes a certain point in life when you have to stop blaming other people for how you feel or the misfortunes in your life. You can’t go through life obsessing about what might have been.” — Hugh Jackman

27. “Those who dare to fail miserably can achieve greatly.” — John F. Kennedy

28. “Before you act, listen. Before you react, think. Before you spend, earn. Before you criticize, wait. Before you pray, forgive. Before you quit, try.” — Ernest Hemmingway

29. “If I think more about death than some other people, it is probably because I love life more than they do.” — Angelina Jolie

30. “If life gives you lemons, make some kind of fruit juice.” — Conan O’Brien

31. “If you don’t follow your heart, you might spend the rest of your life wishing you had.” — Brigitte Nicole

32. “I know who I am, I know what I believe, and that’s all I need to know.” — Will Smith

33. “A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks others have thrown at him.” — David Brinkley

34. “The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge.” — Bertrand Russell

35. “Life is full of beauty. Notice it. Notice the bumble bee, the small child, and the smiling faces. Smell the rain, and feel the wind. Live your life to the fullest potential, and fight for your dreams.” — Ashley Smith

36. “He that falls in love with himself will have no rivals.” — Benjamin Franklin

37. “If you must look back, do so forgivingly. If you must look forward, do so prayerfully. However, the wisest thing you can do is be present in the present. Gratefully.” — Maya Angelou

38. “Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead.” — Oscar Wilde

39. “Just keep moving forward and don’t give a shit about what anybody thinks. Do what you have to do, for you.” — Johnny Depp

40. “Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.” — Martin Luther King Jr.

41. “The best and most beautiful things in this world cannot be seen or even heard, but must be felt with the heart.” — Hellen Keller

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

43. “This life is like a swimming pool. You dive into the water, but you can’t see how deep it is.” — Dennis Rodman

44. “Get busy living or get busy dying.” — Stephen King

45. “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do, so throw off the bowlines, sail away from safe harbor, catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore, Dream, Discover.” — Mark Twain

46. “Saying it is impossible to live without failing at something is impossible. Unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all, in which case you have failed by default.” — J. K. Rowling

47. “If life were predictable it would cease to be life, and be without flavor.” — Eleanor Roosevelt

48. “Love yourself first and everything else falls into line. You really have to love yourself to get anything done in this world.” — Lucille Ball

49. “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” — Maya Angelou

50. “The purpose of our life is to be happy.” — The Dalai Lama

51. “The only impossible journey is the one you never begin.” — Anthony Robbins

52. “Remember that the happiest people are not those getting more, but those giving more.” — H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

53. “Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.” — John Lennon

54. “Life is a flower of which love is honey.” — Victor Hugo

55. “It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.” — J. K. Rowling

56. “You’ll never find a rainbow if you’re looking down.” — Charlie Chaplin

57. “Always go with your passions. Never ask yourself if it’s realistic or not.” — Deepak Chopra

58. “I believe that everything happens for a reason. People change so that you can learn to let go, things go wrong so that you can appreciate them when they’re right, you believe lies so you eventually learn to trust no one but yourself, and sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together.” — Marilyn Monroe

59. “I just wish people would realize that anything is possible if you try. Dreams are made if people try.” — Terry Fox

60. “You will face many defeats in life, but never let yourself be defeated.” — Maya Angelou

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

62. “Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

63. “Challenges are what make life interesting and overcoming them is what makes life meaningful.” – Joshua J. Marine

64. “Never be bullied into silence, never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one’s definition of your life, define yourself.” — Robert Frost

65. “It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” — Charles Darwin

66. “Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.” — Thomas Edison

67. “You’ve gotta dance like there’s nobody watching, love like you’ll never be hurt, sing like there’s nobody listening, and live like its heaven on earth.” — William W. Purkey

68. “Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow know what you truly become.” — Steve Jobs

69. “Don’t take life too seriously. You’ll never get out of it alive.” — Elbert Hubbard

70. “Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.” — Oscar Wilde

71. “If you’re going to be thinking anything, you might as well think big.” — Donald Trump

72. “Without deep reflection, one knows from daily life that one exists for other people.” — Abert Einstein

73. “If you truly love life, don’t waste time; because time is what life is made of.” — Bruce Lee

74. “Think big and don’t listen to people who tell you it can’t be done. Life is too short to think small.” — Tim Ferris

75. “Life is inherently risky. There is only one big risk you should avoid at all costs, and that is the risk of doing nothing.” — Denis Waitley

76. “I refuse to accept other people’s ideas of happiness for me. As if there’s a one size fits all standard for happiness.” — Kanye West

77. “Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.” — Robert Louis Stevenson

78. “Don’t worry about failures, worry about the chances you miss when you don’t even try.” — Jack Canfield

79. “Do what you have to do until you can do what you want to do.” — Oprah Winfrey

80. “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

81. “It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.” — Theodore Roosevelt

82. “When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.” — Lao Tzu

83. “If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten.” — Tony Robinsons

84. “Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” — Harold R. McAlindon

85. “There are two ways of spreading light: To be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.” — Edith Wharton

86. “I am grateful for every precious moment life offers me. It allows me to see the miracle in each experience.” — Emmanuel Dagher

87. “It is hard to beat a person who never gives up.” — Babe Ruth

88. “We shall see but a little way if we require to understand what we see.” — Henry David Thoreau

89. “Life is the art of drawing without an eraser.” — John W. Gardner

Final Thoughts

Sometimes, it is quite easy to forget how amazing life can be, especially when nothing seems to be going our way.

Sure, life has its ups and downs. However, what we do not realize is that life’s true gift lies in our freedom to design it as we want; with every sunrise that God gives you, you get the opportunity to chase and fill your days with happiness and meaning— to live your life the way you have always wanted and choose it to be.