Amusing Quotes, Metaphors about Life

This is a collection of not so much quotes about life, but rather metaphors for life.

A metaphor conjures up an image in the mind that may be worth a thousand words. It shines the flash-light on the similarities between two unlike ideas or objects.

In this hub I attempted to heighten your understanding and appreciation of metaphor by create a useful and enjoyable source for examples of metaphors for life.

I hope some of these quotes about the phenomenon of life will be an inspiration for both writers and speakers.

My Favorite Quote about Life

"This life is a hospital in which every patient is possessed with a desire to change his bed."
                           (Charles Baudelaire, "Le Spleen de Paris")

1. The wheel thus set in motion. Who does not keep turning in this world.
   (The Bhagavad Gita, 3:16)
   
   
2. Life is a copycat and can be bullied into following the master artist who bids it come to heel.
   (Heywood Broun, It Seems to Me)
   
   
3. Climb the rounds of life's long ladder, one by slippery one.
   (Robert Browning, "Jochanan Hakkadosh")
   
   
4. Life is a hypocrite if I can't live the way it moves me!
   (Christopher Fry, A Sleep of Prisoners)
   
   
5. Life is a long baptism into the seas of humankind. Better immersion than to live untouched.
   (Tillie Olsen, "O Yes")
   
   
6. The game of life is a game of boomerangs. Our thoughts, deeds and words, return to us sooner or later, with astounding accuracy.
   (Florence Scovel Shin, Epigraph)
   
   
7. Whether we regard life as a lane leading to a dead wall or as a vestibule or gymnasium, where we wait our turn and prepare our faculties for some more noble destiny, a man should stop his ears against paralyzing terror, and run the race that is set before him with a single mind.
   (Robert Louis Stevenson, "Aes Triplex")
   
   
8. I still loved life. Is there anything sillier than to desire to bear continually a burden one always wishes to throw to the ground, to caress the serpent which devours us until he has eaten our heart?
   (Voltaire, Candide)
   
   
9. Life is a dance. If you're smart, you learn the steps.
   (Yiddish Proverb)
   
   
10. This life is a hospital in which every patient is possessed with a desire to change his bed.
    (Charles Baudelaire, "Le Spleen de Paris")
    
    
11. Life is a run-on sentence. The object is to punctuate it with experience.
    (William Finegan, "The Sporting Scene - Playing Doc's Games")
    
    
12. Life is a narrow vale between the cold and barren peaks of two eternities.
    (Robert Green Ingersoll, Eulogy for his brother)
    
    
13. Life is a mirror. If you smile, it smiles back at you; if you frown, it frowns back.
    (William P. Magee, United Nations NGO Briefing)
    
    
14. Life is a tale, told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
    (William Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act 5, scene 5, line 27)
    
    
15. Life is a disease; and the only difference between one man and another is the stage of the disease at which he lives.
    (George Bernard Shaw, Back to Methuselah)
    
    
16. Nowadays people seem to look on life as a speculation. It is not a speculation. It is a sacrament.
    (Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan)
    

• Also see my collection of Latin Quotes about Life.

 For amusing love quotes, read my hub, Amusing Quotes about Love.