73 Life Is Short Quotes To Help You Live To The Fullest

By Maxime Lagacé

Maxime is the founder and chief editor of WisdomQuotes. He has been collecting quotes since 2004. His goal? To help you develop a calm, powerful, and peaceful mind. Learn more about him on his about page.

Here are 73 of the best life is short quotes I’ve collected over the years.

The goal?

To remind you of one crucial thing: you only live once, and it’s very short.

And I can’t stress this point enough:

My girlfriend died in a car accident back in 2004.

It pushed me to:

Simplify my life
Stop caring about everything
Start caring about things that make a good life (my health, my people, my “mission”)

I hope these quotes will have the same effect on you.

You’ll discover quotes by Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, Socrates, and many more.

Enjoy!

We live but for a moment. Marcus Aurelius

Life is too short to waste any amount of time on wondering what other people think about you. C. JoyBell C.

Life is too short to be little. Benjamin Disraeli

Short as life is, we make it still shorter by the careless waste of time. Victor Hugo

So make haste to live, my dear Lucilius and think of each single day as a single life. Seneca

All our sweetest hours fly fastest. Virgil

Life is a blink. Hoda Kotb

People look for ways to pass the time, and later complain that life moves too quickly. James Pierce

The wiser you get, the luckier you feel. Maxime Lagacé

The days are long but the decades are short. Sam Altman

life is short quotes let go joshua fields millburn wisdom

Life’s too short not to let go. Joshua Fields Millburn

Life is short. That’s all there is to say. Get what you can from the present – thoughtfully, justly. Unrestrained moderation. Marcus Aurelius

Time takes it all, whether you want it to or not. Stephen King

There’s no refund on time poorly spent. Joshua Fields Millburn

Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs. Charlotte Brontë

Don’t get so busy making a living that you forget to make a life. Dolly Parton

Life is so short, so beautiful. Don’t be so serious about the work. Enjoy the life. Jack Ma

Life seems but a quick succession of busy nothings. Jane Austen

We do not appreciate how brief and fleeting our lives will be. It is always later than you think. Time is always more precious than you realize. Realize it now and act! James Clear

Enjoy yourself – it’s later than you think. Socrates

If you understood how short life is you wouldn’t spend it on people who waste your time. Dan Go

You have been preoccupied while life hastens on. Meanwhile death will arrive, and you have no choice in making yourself available for that. Seneca

People are frugal in guarding their personal property; but as soon as it comes to squandering time they are most wasteful of the one thing in which it is right to be stingy. Seneca (On the Shortness of Life)

We are not given a short life but we make it short, and we are not ill-supplied but wasteful of it. Seneca

Life is too short, time is too precious, and the stakes are too high to dwell on what might have been. Hilary Clinton

Eventually, all of us will pass away and slowly be forgotten. We should enjoy this brief time we have on earth — not be enslaved to emotions that make us miserable and dissatisfied. Ryan Holiday

Cut the crap. Literally, cut the unnecessary distractions out of your life — delete apps, unfriend and unfollow toxic people, stop committing to activities you don’t care about. Life is too short. Mark Manson (Source)

At some point we all must admit the inevitable: life is short, not all of our dreams can come true, so we should carefully pick and choose what we have the best shot at and then commit to it. Mark Manson

How do you suppose time works? A slippery succession of long hours adding up to ever-shorter days and years that disappear like falling dominoes? Dani Shapiro

Quotes About Life Being Short

Look after each other. Life is short – the fruit of this life is a good character and acts for the common good. Marcus Aurelius

Suspect each moment, for it is a thief, tiptoeing away with more than it brings. John Updike

Ordinary people merely think how they shall ‘spend’ their time; a man of talent tries to ‘use’ it. Arthur Schopenhauer

The shortness of life, so often lamented, may be the best thing about it. Arthur Schopenhauer

Life is too short to be miserable. Rita Mae Brown

Life is short and progress is slow. Gabriel Lippmann

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

Life is short. Smile while you still have teeth. Unknown

Life is very short… One should have no time to dally. Jack London

Life is far too short to pursue things that do not genuinely interest you. James Pierce

Related

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You’re only here for a short visit. Don’t hurry, don’t worry. And be sure to smell the flowers along the way. Walter Hagen

Be impatient with progress but patient with people. Shane Parrish

Life is so, so short. Bible says it’s like a vapor. Muhammad Ali

Life is too short to harbor any hostilities towards anybody. Peabo Bryson

Be patient and understanding. Life is too short to be vengeful or malicious. Phillips Brooks

If you want something, don’t wish for it. Life is too short to wait. Stephen Hines

Life is short, and truth works far and lives long: let us speak the truth. Arthur Schopenhauer

Let no one rob me of a single day who is not going to make me an adequate return for such a loss. Seneca

But life is very short and anxious for those who forget the past, neglect the present, and fear the future. Seneca

One day your life will flash before your eyes. Make sure it’s worth watching. Gerard Way

Life’s too short to deal with people who don’t fit your vibe. Dan Go

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

Wasted time is worse than wasted money. Paulo Coelho

Wake up and see that life is too short. The realization that life is short will bring dynamism to your life. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

Enjoy every moment you have. Because in life, there are no rewinds, only flashbacks. Anmol Andore

The greatest obstacle to having a meaningful life is the sense one has too much life left. Alain de Botton

No man can have a peaceful life who thinks too much about lengthening it. Seneca

life is short quotes limit time assigned free yourself gone return marcus aurelius wisdom

There is a limit to the time assigned you, and if you don’t use it to free yourself it will be gone and will never return. Marcus Aurelius

Slow down and enjoy life. It’s not only the scenery you miss by going too fast – you also miss the sense of where you are going and why. Eddie Cantor

Right now your life is passing away. This is your life, right here right now. Not at some other time in the future. Seize it now. Don’t let it slip away unnoticed. @TheAncientSage

Begin doing what you want to do now. We are not living in eternity. We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand – and melting like a snowflake. Francis Bacon

Time flies, whether you’re wasting it or not. Crystal Woods

Life is long enough, and it has been given in sufficiently generous measure to allow the accomplishment of the very greatest things if the whole of it is well invested. Seneca

Pray for your parents every day and spend as much time with them as you can. Gal Shapira

Life is short. You have to be able to laugh at our pain or we never move on. Jeff Ross

Life is short and death is long. Fritz Shoulder

Life is short, and your time for learning and creativity is limited. Robert Greene (Mastery)

The irony of life is realizing that a lifetime is barely long enough to figure out how it should have been lived. Thibaut

Life is short, and we should respect every moment of it. Orhan Pamuk

You know, some people say life is short and that you could get hit by a bus at any moment and that you have to live each day like it’s your last. Bullshit. Life is long. You’re probably not gonna get hit by a bus. And you’re gonna have to live with the choices you make for the next fifty years. Chris Rock

One day you will wake up and there won’t be any more time to do the things you’ve always wanted. Do it now. Paulo Coelho (Source)

If we take care of the moments, the years will take care of themselves. Maria Edgeworth

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Expect an early death – it will keep you busier. Martin H. Fischer

Related: How to Live Life to the Fullest and Enjoy Each Day (lifehack.org)

Conclusion

Go to table of contents

And then, one day, you look in the mirror — you’re old — and you say, “Where does the time go?” Nina Simone

Relentlessly prune bullshit, don’t wait to do things that matter, and savor the time you have. That’s what you do when life is short. Paul Graham

A few thoughts on life being short…

There are great benefits to remembering that life is short.

You’ll worry less
You’ll laugh more
You’ll ignore the little stuff
You’ll do less of what you hate
You’ll do more of what you truly love
You’ll be more generous and kind
You’ll forgive people more easily
You’ll spend more time outside
You’ll watch the sky more often
You’ll observe the birds more often
You’ll spend more time with your friends and family
You’ll appreciate the little things more (chocolate and ice cream are good for mental health, right?)
You’ll feel more grateful to be alive

Check out this related article for more benefits: Eight Reasons Why Awe Makes Your Life Better (greatergood.berkeley.edu)

On the flip side,

you should never forget to be responsible, disciplined, and rational human beings too.

If you can learn to turn the switch on and off, you’ll live a good and satisfying life.

73 Life Is Short Quotes To Help You Live To The Fullest

Quotes About Life Being Short

Conclusion

A few thoughts on life being short…

Further Readings

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