Life
Life (cf. biota) is a characteristic that distinguishes objects that have signaling and self-sustaining processes from those that do not, either because such functions have ceased (death), or else because they lack such functions and are classified as inanimate. Biology is the science concerned with the study of life.
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Famous quotes containing the word life:
“I found my brother’s body at the bottom there, where they had thrown it away on the rocks, by the river. Like an old, dirty rag nobody wants. He was dead. And I felt I had killed him. I turned back to give myself up.... Because if a man’s life can be lived so long and come out this way, like rubbish, then something was horrible, and had to be ended one way or another. And I decided to help.”
—Abraham Polonsky (b. 1910)
““The life of reason”Ma phrase once used by people who thought that reading books would deliver them from their passions.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“The dialectic between change and continuity is a painful but deeply instructive one, in personal life as in the life of a people. To “see the light” too often has meant rejecting the treasures found in darkness.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)