Physicians ought not to give their judgment of religion, for the same reason that butchers are not admitted to be jurors upon life and death. Jonathan Swift
Religion ... is a mans total reaction upon life. William James
We properly judge a critic's virtue not by his freedom from error but by the nature of the mistakes he does make, for he makes them, if he is worth reading, because he has in mind something besides his perceptions about art in itself - he has in mind the demands that he makes upon life. Lionel Trilling
I look upon life as a gift from God. I did nothing to earn it. Now that the time is coming to give it back, I have no right to complain. Joyce Cary
The advantage of meditating upon life and death is being able to say anything at all about them. Emil Cioran
She had turned her back upon them all and no awful fate had overtaken her; instead, she had taken a firm hold upon life and made of it a fine, even glittering, success; and this is a thing which is not easily forgiven. Louis Bromfield