How strange life is, how fickle! How little is needed for one to be ruined or saved!

How life is strange and changeful, and the crystal is in the steel at the point of fracture, and the toad bears a jewel in its forehead, and the meaning of moments passes like the breeze that scarcely ruffles the leaf of the willow.

Life is fragile and absurd.

The things that make our lives are so tenuous, so unlikely, that we barely come into being, barely meet the people we're meant to love, barely find our way in the woods, barely survive catastrophe every day.

Life and the world, or whatever we call that which we are and feel, is an astonishing thing. The mist of familiarity obscures from us the wonder of our being. We are struck with admiration at some of its transient modifications, but it is itself the great miracle.

Life is incredibly contingent and unexpected.

How strange it is to be anything at all.

How mutable are our feelings, and how strange is that clinging love we have of life even in the excess of misery!

True life is lived when tiny changes occur.

The beauty of life is its sudden changes. No one knows what is going to happen next, and so we are constantly being surprised and entertained.

The art of our necessities is strange
That can make vile things precious.

All things appear incredible to us, as they differ more or less from our own manners.

A thought, even a possibility, can shatter and transform us.

Life is like an ever-shifting kaleidoscope - a slight change, and all patterns alter.