'I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot ... The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.'

'All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost; the old that is strong does not wither, deep roots are not reached by the frost.'

- "The Lord of the Rings" author JRR Tolkien (1892-1973)

'Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.'

- Inventor Thomas Edison (1847 - 1931)

'I honestly think it is better to be a failure at something you love than to be a success at something you hate.'

-Comedian George Burns (1896-1996)

'No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another.'

-Charles Dickens (1812-1870), in "Our Mutual Friend"

'Why am I trying to become what I don't want to be … when all I want is out there, waiting for me the minute I say I know who I am.'

-Author Arthur Miller (1915-2005) in "Death of a Salesman"

'And I knew that it was better to live out one's absurdity than to die for that of others.'

-Ralph Ellison, from "Invisible Man" (1913-1994)

'Life's short. Anything could happen, and it usually does, so there is no point in sitting around thinking about all the ifs, ands, and buts.'

A quote by Magic Johnson

"Celebrate the life you had, not the life you could've had."

'How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.' - Anne Frank

'Let us learn to show our friendship for a man when he is alive and not after he is dead.'

Meyer Wolfsheim in F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby"

'If you want to succeed, you should strike out on new paths, rather than travel the worn paths of accepted success.'

- Billionaire John D. Rockefeller (1839-1937)

'The man who views the world at 50 the same as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life.'

- Boxing champion Muhammad Ali (1942-2016)

Friedrich Nietzsche theorized that we will live our lives over and over again: the myth of eternal recurrence

Rather than a theory of physics, the idea is designed as a moral argument. While Nietzsche famously eschewed the Christian afterlife, he wanted to avoid the nihilism that results from no longer having such an ultimate horizon. In a mystical moment, the philosopher came to believe that the fleeting moments of our lives would be repeated, presenting a test: would you want to relive this moment? If not, he would argue, you're not living well.

'You don't get to choose how you're going to die or when. You can only decide how you're going to live. Now.'

- Musician and activist Joan Baez (1941-present)

'The man who can drive himself further once the effort gets painful is the man who will win.'

- Roger Bannister (1929-2018)

A quote by scientist Nikola Tesla

"The scientific man does not aim at an immediate result ... His duty is to lay the foundation for those who are to come, and point the way."

'I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.'

- Author Douglas Adams (1952-2001)

A quote by Herman Melville

"Whoever is not in the possession of leisure can hardly be said to possess independence."

A quote by award-winning actor Tom Hanks

"We are still in the position of waking up and having a choice. Do I make the world better today somehow, or do I not bother?"

'The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe about us, the less taste we shall have for destruction.'

- Marine biologist and environmentalist Rachel Carson (1907-1964)

'Art is the human disposition of sensible or intelligible matter for an aesthetic end.'

- Author James Joyce (1882 -1941)

'When you're climbing Mount Everest, nothing is easy. You just take one step at a time, never look back and always keep your eyes glued to the top.'

- Author Jacqueline Susann (1918-1974)

'A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives.'

- Jackie Robinson, the first Black MLB player (1919-1972)

'In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on.'

-Poet Robert Frost (1874-1963)

'Don’t try to be young. Just open your mind. Stay interested in stuff. There are so many things I won’t live long enough to find out about, but I’m still curious about them.'

- Actress Betty White (1922-2021)

Beats emphasized the importance of 'spontaneous prose'

Beat writer Jack Kerouac believed literature should aim to be more like jazz, using improvisation to burrow down to the root of the subconscious. In this video from the University of Pennsylvania’s Modern and Contemporary Poetry course, Professor Al Filreis directs a conversation of Kerouac’s manifesto, “Essential of Spontaneous Prose.”

A quote from Robin Williams

"There’s no shame in failing. The only shame is not giving things your best shot."

Robert Louis Stevenson wrote the entire first draft of 'The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde' in a frantic three days, only to burn it out of disgust.

'Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world.'

- Albert Einstein

'The true measure of all our actions is how long the good in them lasts.'

- Queen Elizabeth II (1926-2022)

'Men and nature must work hand in hand. The throwing out of balance of the resources of nature throws out of balance also the lives of men.'

- President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)

'I'm always thinking about creating. My future starts when I wake up every morning ... Every day I find something creative to do with my life.'

- Miles Davis (1926-1991)

'Don't gain the world and lose your soul; wisdom is better than silver or gold.'

-Reggae pioneer Bob Marley (1945-1981)

'Everybody else is working to change, persuade, tempt and control them. The best readers come to fiction to be free of all that noise.'

- Author Philip Roth (1933-2018)

'Unfortunately, many people do not consider fun an important item on their daily agenda. For me, that was always a high priority in whatever I was doing.'

-Chuck Yeager, the first pilot to break the sound barrier (1923-2020)

Watch writer John Steinbeck's Nobel Prize acceptance speech.

'I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.'

-Inventor and businessman Thomas Edison (1847-1931)

'Her own thoughts and reflections were habitually her best companions.'

- Legendary author Jane Austen (1775 -1817)

Writer DH Lawrence, a 20th-century writer known for challenging social conventions, argued that the novel is the height of literary expression.

'Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.'

- Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) in "Elenora"

'In life, unlike chess, the game continues after checkmate.'

- Isaac Asimov

'The urge to explore has propelled evolution since the first water creatures reconnoitered the land. Like all living systems, cultures cannot remain static; they evolve or decline. They explore or expire.'

- Astronaut Buzz Aldrin (1930-present)

'Live a life so when I die, there's standing room only.'

- Tim McGraw (1967-present)

'We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out.'

- Science fiction writer Ray Bradbury

'We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.'

- Playwright Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

'Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.'

- Bobby Kennedy

'Life is like a ten speed bicycle. Most of us have gears we never use.'

- "Peanuts" cartoonist Charles M. Schulz (1922-2000)

'Keep working on a plan. Make no little plans. Make the biggest one you can think of, and spend the rest of your life carrying it out.'

- President Harry Truman (1884-1972)

'The fact is always obvious much too late, but the most singular difference between happiness and joy is that happiness is a solid and joy a liquid.'

-Writer J.D. Salinger (1919-2010)

'To live is to choose. But to choose well, you must know who you are and what you stand for, where you want to go and why you want to get there.'

- Diplomat Kofi Annan (1938-2018)