The significance of life is doing something.
— from Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern, English and Foreign Sources Including Phrases, Mottoes, Maxims, Proverbs, Definitions, Aphorisms, and Sayings of Wise Men, in Their Bearing on Life, Literature, Speculation, Science, Art, Religion, and Morals, Especially in the Modern Aspects of Them by Wood, James, Rev.

Anyway, the big pang came to me to speak out, like it does sometimes, when you have to say what's in you or die.
— from Peace in Friendship Village by Zona Gale

The girls you know don’t live the sort of life I do,” said the range girl, rather wistfully.
— from Frances of the Ranges; Or, The Old Ranchman's Treasure by Amy Bell Marlowe

A new section was now added, declaring that "whenever hereafter during the present insurrection against the Government of the United States, any person held to labor or service under the law of any State shall be required or permitted by the person to whom such labor or service is due to take up arms against the United States, or to work in or upon any fort, dock, navy-yard, armory, intrenchment, or in any military or naval service whatever against the Government of the United States, the person to whom such service or labor is due shall forfeit his claim thereto."
— from Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 From Lincoln to Garfield, with a Review of the Events Which Led to the Political Revolution of 1860 by James Gillespie Blaine

A Baker.—“The staff of life I do supply, by it you live and so must I.”
— from The Puzzle King Amusing arithmetic, book-keeping blunders, commercial comicalities, curious "catches", peculiar problems, perplexing paradoxes, quaint questions, queer quibbles, school stories, interesting items, tricks with figures, cards, draughts, dice, dominoes, etc., etc., etc. by John Scott

And before the tavern were tied, stamping and shaking their heads for the early flies, many fine horses, and among them Parson Downs' and the Barry brothers', and from within the tavern came the sound of laughter in discordant shouts, and now and then a snatch of a song.
— from The Heart's Highway: A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century by Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman

“Granting that she’s a spry old lady, I doubt she’d have it in her to pull off the trick.”
— from Hoofbeats on the Turnpike by Mildred A. (Mildred Augustine) Wirt