Carpe Diem Quotes

“The only dream worth having, I told her, is to dream that you will live while you're alive and die only when you're dead.”
― Arundhati Roy, The Cost of Living

“Do something instead of killing time. Because time is killing you.”
― Paulo Coelho, Aleph

“That's why we seize the moment try to freeze it and own it, squeeze it and hold it.”
― Eminem

“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.”
― Mary Oliver, West Wind

“The definition of a professional is one who does a job well even when they don't like it.”
― Alan Sheinwald, Alan Sheinwald is Building a Perfect Home

“TIME: Today Is My Everything”
― Richie Norton

“It's a terrible thing, I think, in life to wait until you're ready. I have this feeling now that actually no one is ever ready to do anything. There's almost no such thing as ready. There's only now. And you may as well do it now. I mean, I say that confidently as if I'm about to go bungee jumping or something--I'm not. I'm not a crazed risk taker. But I do think that, generally speaking, now is as good a time as any.”
― Hugh Laurie

“Take too much time, and time will take you.”
― Lisa Kleypas, Love in the Afternoon

“Rich or poor it’s nice to have money”
― Alan Sheinwald, Alan Sheinwald is Building a Perfect Home

“Not to waste the spring
I threw down everything,
And ran into the open world
To sing what I could sing...
To dance what I could dance!
And join with everyone!
I wandered with a reckless heart
beneath the newborn sun.

First stepping through the blushing dawn,
I crossed beneath a garden bower,
counting every hermit thrush,
counting every hour.

When morning's light was ripe at last,
I stumbled on with reckless feet;
and found two nymphs engaged in play,
approaching them stirred no retreat.
With naked skin, their weaving hands,
in form akin to Calliope's maids,
shook winter currents from their hair
to weave within them vernal braids.

I grabbed the first, who seemed the stronger
by her soft and dewy leg,
and swore blind eyes,
Lest I find I,
before Diana, a hunted stag.

But the nymphs they laughed,
and shook their heads.
and begged I drop beseeching hands.
For one was no goddess, the other no huntress,
merely two girls at play in the early day.

"Please come to us, with unblinded eyes,
and raise your ready lips.
We will wash your mouth with watery sighs,
weave you springtime with our fingertips."

So the nymphs they spoke,
we kissed and laid,
by noontime's hour,
our love was made,
Like braided chains of crocus stems,
We lay entwined, I laid with them,
Our breath, one glassy, tideless sea,
Our bodies draping wearily.
We slept, I slept so lucidly,
with hopes to stay this memory.

I woke in dusty afternoon,
Alone, the nymphs had left too soon,
I searched where perched upon my knees
Heard only larks' songs in the trees.

"Be you, the larks, my far-flung maids?
With lilac feet and branchlike braids...
Who sing sweet odes to my elation,
in your larking exaltation!"

With these, my clumsy, carefree words,
The birds they stirred and flew away,
"Be I, poor Actaeon," I cried, "Be dead…
Before they, like Hippodamia, be gone astray!"
Yet these words, too late, remained unheard,
By lark, that parting, morning bird.
I looked upon its parting flight,
and smelled the coming of the night;
desirous, I gazed upon its jaunt,
as Leander gazes Hellespont.

Now the hour was ripe and dark,
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.”
― Roman Payne, Rooftop Soliloquy

“Everything is so fleeting and impermanent. It’s enough to drive you bat shit crazy.”
― Shane Kuhn, The Intern's Handbook

“It's All About The Ride”
― Nicholas A. Cress

“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.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek

“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.”
― Roman Payne, Rooftop Soliloquy

“Forget seizing the moment. Seize the opportunity.”
― Tim Fargo

“When we realize the shortness of life, we begin to see the importance of making every moment count.”
― Dillon Burroughs, Hunger No More: A 1-Year Devotional Journey Through the Psalms

“Let's just enjoy what we have now and worry about tomorrow when tomorrow comes.”
― James Hampton, Offer Him Roses

“Life is too short to follow the speed limit”
― Paula Antonia Purpera

“Remember that your days on this earth are counted and you might as well make the best of those you have left.”
― Yann Martel, Beatrice and Virgil

“[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.”
― Salman Rushdie

“But bid life seize the present?
It lives less in the present
Than in the future always,
And less in both together
Than in the past.
The present
Is too much for the senses,
Too crowding, too confusing—
Too present to imagine.”
― Robert Frost

“Just breathe," my mom would say, "Ten tiny breaths... Seize them. Feel them. Love them.”
― K.A. Tucker, Ten Tiny Breaths

“Nostalgia"

How often we use this word reminiscing about the past - our childhood, school days, college days..

We feel nostalgic, we dwell in the memories of the past, we talk about how great those days were and how we would do anything to just go back in time and live those days again..

Perhaps we fail to realize the fact that tomorrow we will say the same things about today, about the days we are living in now, about the emotions we are feeling now, about the time we are spending now..

I love this day. I love this weird feeling I feel today. I belong here.”
― Sanhita Baruah

“Quiero vivir antes de morir. Es lo único que tiene sentido”
― Jenny Downham, Before I Die

“Then to this earthen Bowl did I adjourn
My Lip the secret Well of Life to learn:
And Lip to Lip it murmur'd--'While you live,
Drink!--for once dead you never shall return.”
― Omar Khayyam, Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám

“Oh mein Sohn, es wird auch berichtet, dass Luqman (der Weise) seinem Sohn riet: "Oh Sohn, du möchtest doch nicht, dass der Hahn gescheiter ist als du. Er kräht zur Morgendämmerung und du schläfst weiter.”
― Imam al-Ghazali

“Isaac basically knew just one thing for sure: Many are born, few flourish, all die. If you didn’t die as a sacrifice for God today, you would die of an incomprehensible plague tomorrow, or of undeserved starvation the day after, or of good old-fashioned senseless human slaughter before the next harvest. Life was short in those days and people were grateful for whatever they could get. They didn’t expect wireless video game consoles, fast German cars, dental insurance, anti-depressants, and a pension.”
― Chris F. Westbury, The Bride Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors, Even

“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?”
― Steve Maraboli, Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience

“I don't pay no mind to rules. Seems to me, rules are things made up by scared people too afraid to die, so they can't live. Or too lazy to make their own decisions. Rules are for breakin', as far as I'm concerned.”
― Suzanne Palmieri, The Witch of Belladonna Bay

“He rolled the other way and watched the digital display of his alarm ticking seconds off he'd never get back. This is the life we're given. One life. One opportunity to be happy, to make others happy, and I'm letting it slip through my fingers because I'm afraid.”
― Barbara Elsborg, With or Without Him