“Skills can be taught. Character you either have or you don't have.”
Anthony Bourdain
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Life Quotes
LifeLife Lessons
459 quotes on life and the lessons it teaches — from the classics to the everyday.
“I cook, I eat, I travel. That's my life. It could be worse.”
Anthony Bourdain
“I wanted adventure. I wanted to go up the Mekong like Conrad's character went up the Congo.”
Anthony Bourdain · Kitchen Confidential, 2000
“If I'm an advocate for anything, it's to move. As far as you can, as much as you can. Across the ocean, or simply across the river.”
Anthony Bourdain · Parts Unknown
“Travel changes you. As you move through this life and this world you change things slightly, you leave marks behind, however small. And in return, life — and travel — leaves marks on you.”
Anthony Bourdain · The Nasty Bits, 2006
“Your body is not a temple, it's an amusement park. Enjoy the ride.”
Anthony Bourdain · Kitchen Confidential, 2000
“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”
Oscar Wilde · Lady Windermere's Fan, 1892
“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”
Oscar Wilde · The Soul of Man Under Socialism, 1891
“Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes.”
Oscar Wilde · Lady Windermere's Fan, 1892
“With freedom, books, flowers, and the moon, who could not be happy?”
Oscar Wilde · attributed, widely documented
“The books one reads in childhood, and perhaps most of all the bad and good bad books, create in one's mind a sort of false map of the world.”
Oscar Wilde · De Profundis, 1905
“The soul is born old but grows young. That is the comedy of life. And the body is born young and grows old. That is life's tragedy.”
Oscar Wilde · A Woman of No Importance, 1893
“Yet each man kills the thing he loves.”
Oscar Wilde · The Ballad of Reading Gaol, 1898
“Some things are worth more after they've been broken. The repair is the evidence that they were worth saving.”
Original
“The break is part of the object's story. Making it invisible doesn't heal it. It just makes you carry it alone.”
Original
“Keep close to nature's heart and break clear away, once in a while, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods.”
John Muir · John of the Mountains, 1938
“Take rest; a field that has rested gives a bountiful crop.”
Ovid · Ars Amatoria, Book II
