Life is a cruel teacher. It punishes you first, and then gives you the lesson.

How withered away one can be from a life of unremitting toil.

Life is so damned hard, so damned hard... It just hurts people and hurts people, until finally it hurts them so that they can't be hurt ever any more. That's the last and worst thing it does.

"What is life? Life - that is: continually shedding something that wants to die. Life - that is: being cruel and inexorable against everything about us that is growing old and weak -and not only about us. Life - that is, then: being without reverence for those who are dying, who are wretched, who are ancient? Constantly being a murderer? -And yet old Moses said: "Thou shalt not kill.

Life is wrecked by living.

A world made to be lost, — A bitter life 'twixt pain and nothing tost.

Life shites on hope.

Life is brutal that way...the loss of irrecoverable moments amid trivia and distraction.

The terrible beautiful Life.

Hope offered, then denied. A particular cruelty.

If living is to end in pain, incompleteness, and nothingness, it seems a cruel and futile experience for beings who are born to reason, hope, create, and love.

You cannot stay at the same level as when you first practiced your truth, life won't let you.