the breath of life

the breath of life

That which one needs or depends upon for a healthy or fulfilled life. We cannot turn our backs on the scores of people being denied their freedom, for freedom is the breath of life—to deny someone freedom is to deny them life. Unfettered creativity and imagination is the breath of life to an artist of any medium.
See also: breath, life, of
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

the breath of life

a thing that someone needs or depends on.
Breath of life is a biblical phrase: ‘And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life’ (Genesis 2:7).
See also: breath, life, of
Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary
See also:
  • which foot the shoe is on
  • whose foot the shoe is on
  • republic
  • banana republic
  • for dear life
  • lives
  • it (all) depends
  • it/that depends
  • that (all) depends
  • That depends
References in classic literature
'She is the truest woman that ever breathed the breath of life,' Lady Montbarry answered.
The cause of this is not to be found in any local superstition that attaches to the Precincts--albeit a mysterious lady, with a child in her arms and a rope dangling from her neck, has been seen flitting about there by sundry witnesses as intangible as herself--but it is to be sought in the innate shrinking of dust with the breath of life in it from dust out of which the breath of life has passed; also, in the widely diffused, and almost as widely unacknowledged, reflection:
Presently Kaviri's head began to whirl--objects became confused and dim before his eyes--there was a great pain in his chest as he struggled for the breath of life that the thing upon him was shutting off for ever.
She seemed a creature fresh from the hand of God, and waiting for the breath of life; not one who had lived and suffered death.
It may be translated into every language, and not only be read but actually breathed from all human lips; -- not be represented on canvas or in marble only, but be carved out of the breath of life itself.
Three cheers more: and as the first one rings upon our ears, the vessel throbs like a strong giant that has just received the breath of life; the two great wheels turn fiercely round for the first time; and the noble ship, with wind and tide astern, breaks proudly through the lashed and roaming water.
She's the willingest, the trewest, the honestest-helping woman, Mas'r Davy, as ever draw'd the breath of life. I have never know'd her to be lone and lorn, for a single minute, not even when the colony was all afore us, and we was new to it.
"The breath of life has come into him and puffed him out," I answered.
No nobler creature ever breathed the breath of life. Tell the stranger who sent her his portrait that her last moments were joyful moments, through his remembrance of her as expressed by his gift.
In this atmosphere of telephones and lightning communication with distant regions, I was breathing the breath of life again after long suffo- cation.
That a greater fool than Jane Eyre had never breathed the breath of life; that a more fantastic idiot had never surfeited herself on sweet lies, and swallowed poison as if it were nectar.
'But if ever John Harmon drew the breath of life on earth, that is certainly John Harmon's arm round your waist now, my pretty.
The Breath of Life Stroll begins at 810 River Avenue (near the 16th Street Bridge) and processes toward PNC Park on the North Shore.
Yul-Ifode stated this, on Wednesday, while delivering an inaugural lecture on the topic: 'The Child Beyond the Breath of Life: Our Corporate Concern,' at NOUN's headquarters in Abuja.
Cherionna Menzam-Sills; THE BREATH OF LIFE; North Atlantic Books (Nonfiction: Health & Fitness) 23.95 ISBN: 9781623172053