It seems to be the fate of idealists to obtain what they have struggled for in a form which destroys their ideals.

Everything that happens happens as it should, and if you observe carefully, you will find this to be so.

The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible.

I wrote ‚Channel Orange‘ in two weeks. The end product wasn’t always that gritty, real-life depiction of the real struggle that happened.

At the outset, I want to say that the suggestion that the struggle in South Africa is under the influence of foreigners or communists is wholly incorrect. I have done whatever I did because of my experience in South Africa and my own proudly felt African background, and not because of what any outsider might have said.

There is an ecstasy that marks the summit of life, and beyond which life cannot rise. And such is the paradox of living, this ecstasy comes when one is most alive, and it comes as a complete forgetfulness that one is alive.

I can control my destiny, but not my fate. Destiny means there are opportunities to turn right or left, but fate is a one-way street. I believe we all have the choice as to whether we fulfil our destiny, but our fate is sealed.

As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods; they kill us for their sport.

Call it Nature, Fate, Fortune; all these are names of the one and selfsame God.

The unnatural, that too is natural.

Life is essentially a cheat and its conditions are those of defeat; the redeeming things are not happiness and pleasure but the deeper satisfactions that come out of struggle.

Jesters do often prove prophets.

Though men determine, the gods doo dispose: and oft times many things fall out betweene the cup and the lip.

It’s a curse. I ask God to take this away from me all the time. I do not like being an artist.

I bear a charmed life.

In my country of South Africa, we struggled for years against the evil system of apartheid that divided human beings, children of the same God, by racial classification and then denied many of them fundamental human rights.

I struggled with being a broke college graduate, and while all my friends were getting career jobs, I was working horrible part-time jobs. That’s why now, even when I get tired, I think, ‚This is what I asked for.‘

No evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death. He and his are not neglected by the gods.

The truth is that the vast majority of Americans are good, fair, and just, and they want their country to reflect those ideals.

Whatever the universal nature assigns to any man at any time is for the good of that man at that time.

Concern for man and his fate must always form the chief interest of all technical endeavors. Never forget this in the midst of your diagrams and equations.

The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just.

In the grip of a neurological disorder, I am fast losing control of words even as my relationship with the world has been reduced to them.

We are continually shaped by the forces of coincidence.

By denying scientific principles, one may maintain any paradox.

It is what a man thinks of himself that really determines his fate.

It’s always a struggle growing up in Akron.

Men do not shape destiny, Destiny produces the man for the hour.

Don’t be a writer; it’s a terrible way to live your life. There’s nothing to be gained from it but poverty and obscurity and solitude. So if you have a taste for all those things, which means that you really are burning to do it, then go ahead and do it. But don’t expect anything from anybody.

All truth is simple… is that not doubly a lie?

Education comes from within; you get it by struggle and effort and thought.

Destiny grants us our wishes, but in its own way, in order to give us something beyond our wishes.

Man never legislates, but destinies and accidents, happening in all sorts of ways, legislate in all sorts of ways.

The struggle alone pleases us, not the victory.

Gee, its lonesome in the outfield. It’s hard to keep awake with nothing to do.

The die is cast.

When it all got taken away, I was becoming a young man. So I had to sacrifice to leave my family… Sleeping in my car, getting an apartment for a month and getting evicted the next month. Staying in the $25, $50 hotels.

No other country in the world does what we do. On every issue, the world turns to us, not simply because of the size of our economy or our military might – but because of the ideals we stand for, and the burdens we bear to advance them.

I must uphold my ideals, for perhaps the time will come when I shall be able to carry them out.

Nature cannot be tricked or cheated. She will give up to you the object of your struggles only after you have paid her price.

I did suffer a lot since karting, with my size and everything, not really having a clue what to do when I started karting. So I suffered in every category: F4, F3, F2. Not so much F2 but I’ve had to kind of play catch-up quite a bit and in some ways, F1 was a bit nicer with power steering.

Everything I read about hitting a midlife crisis was true. I had such a struggle letting go of youthful things and learning how to exist and have enthusiasm while settling into the comfort of an older age.

The difficulty is to try and teach the multitude that something can be true and untrue at the same time.

Man does not control his own fate. The women in his life do that for him.

I read to my kid, but I can’t stand reading.

I have noticed even people who claim everything is predestined, and that we can do nothing to change it, look before they cross the road.

My life is a struggle.

It all went wrong with football, the thing I loved most of all, and from there, my life slowly fell apart.

I came in with Halley’s Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don’t go out with Halley’s Comet. The Almighty has said, no doubt: ‚Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together.‘

Talent and intelligence never yet inoculated anyone against the caprice of the fates.

Strength and growth come only through continuous effort and struggle.

The fact is, when men carry the same ideals in their hearts, nothing can isolate them – neither prison walls nor the sod of cemeteries. For a single memory, a single spirit, a single idea, a single conscience, a single dignity will sustain them all.

I’ve written some great things. That’s a gift, but there’s consequences. Yeah, you get this great work, but you suffer. You really, really suffer.

Why am I here? I’m not lucky. That’s God.

I had faith in Israel before it was established, I have in it now. I believe it has a glorious future before it – not just another sovereign nation, but as an embodiment of the great ideals of our civilization.

Fortune brings in some boats that are not steered.

I know I do not exaggerate, unconsciously and unintentionally, the scantiness of my resources and the difficulty of my life… I know that, but for the mercy of God, I might easily have been, for any care that was taken of me, a little robber or a vagabond.

I know what it feels like to struggle to get the education that you need.

A revolution is not a bed of roses.

My folks ain’t graduated from high school or nothing like that, so we always had to struggle in the family – and I come from a big family.

It seems a fantastic paradox, but it is nevertheless a most important truth, that no architecture can be truly noble which is not imperfect.