I don’t want to have lived in vain like most people. I want to be useful or bring enjoyment to all people, even those I’ve never met. I want to go on living even after my death!

They might not need me; but they might. I’ll let my head be just in sight; a smile as small as mine might be precisely their necessity.

The sage does not hoard. The more he helps others, the more he benefits himself, The more he gives to others, the more he gets himself. The Way of Heaven does one good but never does one harm. The Way of the sage is to act but not to compete.

I believe that every human mind feels pleasure in doing good to another.

I think 9/11 affected everybody in one way or another.

I want to be remembered as iconic and different.

Many churches of all persuasions are hiring research agencies to poll neighborhoods, asking what kind of church they prefer. Then the local churches design themselves to fit the desires of the people. True faith in God that demands selflessness is being replaced by trendy religion that serves the selfish.

Make no mistake about why these babies are here – they are here to replace us.

I have done for my country, and for all mankind, all that I could do, and I now resign my soul, without fear, to my God – my daughter to my country.

That was always the difference between Muhammad Ali and the rest of us. He came, he saw, and if he didn’t entirely conquer – he came as close as anybody we are likely to see in the lifetime of this doomed generation.

Life is not accumulation, it is about contribution.

I hope when I’m dead I’ll be considered an icon, though.

None of us has any personal interest above the interests of the country. Our country is more important than our careers.

My songs are like my children – I expect them to support me when I’m old.

If you can, help others; if you cannot do that, at least do not harm them.

Honestly, I’d love to be remembered as one of the best to ever pick up a mic, but if I’m doing my part to lessen some racial tension I feel good about what I’m doing.

Charity bestowed upon those who are worthy of it is like good seed sown on a good soil that yields an abundance of fruits. But alms given to those who are yet under the tyrannical yoke of the passions are like seed deposited in a bad soil. The passions of the receiver of the alms choke, as it were, the growth of merits.

I have spent the greater part of my life in a hotel room with seven or eight kids, looking after everyone, sorting out fights, wiping noses, handing out towels, not having a clean towel left for me.

Remember that the happiest people are not those getting more, but those giving more.

We need to show mercy. I mean, because as much mercy as you show people, that’s the mercy you’re going to be receiving.

When the external factors over which one has no control in a way start to become negative, it starts to affect our creative juices.

I am not virtuous. Our sons will be if we shed enough blood to give them the right to be.

To terrify children with the image of hell… to consider women an inferior creation. Is that good for the world?

Legacy is a stupid thing! I don’t want a legacy.

There are those who give with joy, and that joy is their reward.

Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever.

A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.

Teaching is a very noble profession that shapes the character, caliber, and future of an individual. If the people remember me as a good teacher, that will be the biggest honour for me.

Giving back involves a certain amount of giving up.

For any young democracy, the most difficult but important step is burying the legacy of tyranny and establishing an economy and a government and institutions that abide by the rule of law. Every country faces challenges to the rule of law, including my own.

I hold that while man exists, it is his duty to improve not only his own condition, but to assist in ameliorating mankind.

Someone is sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.

Music can change the world because it can change people.

And were an epitaph to be my story I’d have a short one ready for my own. I would have written of me on my stone: I had a lover’s quarrel with the world.

When someone does a small task beautifully, their whole environment is affected by it.

To be able to throw one’s self away for the sake of a moment, to be able to sacrifice years for a woman’s smile – that is happiness.

There’s only one thing that can kill the movies, and that’s education.

Great men, unknown to their generation, have their fame among the great who have preceded them, and all true worldly fame subsides from their high estimate beyond the stars.

When we build, let us think that we build for ever.

It is a joy to be an artist, but it doesn’t mean very much unless that work is somehow useful in some way and contributes to others.

We really have to understand the person we want to love. If our love is only a will to possess, it is not love. If we only think of ourselves, if we know only our own needs and ignore the needs of the other person, we cannot love.

To give pleasure to a single heart by a single act is better than a thousand heads bowing in prayer.

The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.

Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth.

Every man’s life ends the same way. It is only the details of how he lived and how he died that distinguish one man from another.

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.

A real Christian is a person who can give his pet parrot to the town gossip.

I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. It is never of any use to oneself.

Let us sacrifice our today so that our children can have a better tomorrow.

In known history, nobody has had such capacity for altering the universe than the people of the United States of America. And nobody has gone about it in such an aggressive way.

What I like to do is try to make a difference with the work I do.

My father always taught me that when you help other people, then God will give you double. And that’s what has really happened to me. When I have helped other people who are in need, God has helped me more.

We just cannot worry about ourselves.

This is not Johnson’s war. This is America’s war. If I drop dead tomorrow, this war will still be with you.

Next to religion, baseball has had a greater impact on our American way of life than any other American institution.

For the introduction of a new kind of music must be shunned as imperiling the whole state; since styles of music are never disturbed without affecting the most important political institutions.

A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on.

I don’t need a successor, only willing hands to accept the torch for a new generation.

A tomb now suffices him for whom the whole world was not sufficient.

No one who knew Diana will ever forget her. Millions of others who never met her, but felt they knew her, will remember her.

If I have done the public any service, it is due to my patient thought.