All art really does is keep you focused on questions of humanity, and it really is about how do we get on with our maker.

With all due respect, the Mona Lisa is overrated.

Pursue one great decisive aim with force and determination.

I draw from the crowd a lot.

In art, the hand can never execute anything higher than the heart can imagine.

Few are those who see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts.

To accuse others for one’s own misfortunes is a sign of want of education. To accuse oneself shows that one’s education has begun. To accuse neither oneself nor others shows that one’s education is complete.

A man does not know what he is saying until he knows what he is not saying.

To err is human; to forgive, divine.

A work of art is the unique result of a unique temperament.

My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together.

If I could, I would not do anything else. I’d just be in the studio for my whole life. I would never go to parties, events, and red carpets. I would rather just be in the studio for the whole time. I don’t even care. Nobody has to know what I look like. I just want to make music.

What could I say to you that would be of value, except that perhaps you seek too much, that as a result of your seeking you cannot find.

I wanted very much to learn to draw, for a reason that I kept to myself: I wanted to convey an emotion I have about the beauty of the world.

The darkness is really out there. It’s not something that’s in my head, just. It’s in my work because it’s in the world.

No, it’s not a very good story – its author was too busy listening to other voices to listen as closely as he should have to the one coming from inside.

Let’s pray that the human race never escapes from Earth to spread its iniquity elsewhere.

Music helps me tell my story. That’s where I can really be heard. But there’s so much focus on the things that aren’t music.

How can I be useful, of what service can I be? There is something inside me, what can it be?

If one by one we counted people out For the least sin, it wouldn’t take us long To get so we had no one left to live with. For to be social is to be forgiving.

We thought that we had the answers, it was the questions we had wrong.

Humanity, you never had it to begin with.

Glorious bouquets and storms of applause are the trimmings which every artist naturally enjoys.

The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was: ‚If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?‘ But… the good Samaritan reversed the question: ‚If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?‘

Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art… It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival.

A lot of people are focused on taking over the world or doing the biggest thing and getting the most users. I think part of making a difference and doing something cool is focusing intensely.

What I am looking for is not out there, it is in me.

My music seems to have a bigger mission than I have, which is very soothing but also very strange because people see more in me than I see, which can be terrifying.

We are the first species capable of self-annihilation.

It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive.

We continue to shape our personality all our life. If we knew ourselves perfectly, we should die.

I think the idea of art kills creativity.

Meditation is a great way to keep my body well-centered while juggling shooting schedules and recording sessions.

I get naturally uncomfortable when I’m put under a magnifying glass.

I’m sure a lot of people out there make mistakes.

Let every man be respected as an individual and no man idolized.

When I was 11, the whole world was closed to me. I just felt I was on the outside of the world.

I long for the time when all human history is taught as one history, because it really is.

I think that God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated his ability.

It is not what a lawyer tells me I may do; but what humanity, reason, and justice tell me I ought to do.

Music belongs to the people. To no one else. To no one else.

I tend not to really think about what other people say. I’d rather just try and focus on what I’m doing, try and win basically.

Poetry is the art of substantiating shadows, and of lending existence to nothing.

I am more afraid of my own heart than of the pope and all his cardinals. I have within me the great pope, Self.

In my studio, it is unkempt and unattractive. Once I’m in my work, I don’t notice where I am.

I like having my hands in the clay. I like the movie-making process.

Tell me what you like and I’ll tell you what you are.

There are as many pillows of illusion as flakes in a snow-storm. We wake from one dream into another dream.

Art is not a treasure in the past or an importation from another land, but part of the present life of all living and creating peoples.

My life has been one great big joke, a dance that’s walked a song that’s spoke, I laugh so hard I almost choke when I think about myself.

I always had a sense of discipline in me. However, there was a time when I couldn’t divide my time properly between off-field things and on-field assignments. The focus would be missing at times, and that would affect my preparation for matches. I managed to change that.

The enemy is within the gates; it is with our own luxury, our own folly, our own criminality that we have to contend.

I’m interested in the dream and subconscious mind, the peculiar dream-like quality of our lives, sometime nightmare quality of our lives.

If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.

From a young age, I learned to focus on the things I was good at and delegate to others what I was not good at. That’s how Virgin is run. Fantastic people throughout the Virgin Group run our businesses, allowing me to think creatively and strategically.

Chance gives rise to thoughts, and chance removes them; no art can keep or acquire them.

I tend not to look back and dwell on a project once it is finished.

The sculptor produces the beautiful statue by chipping away such parts of the marble block as are not needed – it is a process of elimination.

In my case Pilgrim’s Progress consisted in my having to climb down a thousand ladders until I could reach out my hand to the little clod of earth that I am.

I do not know myself, and God forbid that I should.

Entrepreneurs are natural problem-solvers, which means that we always have ideas for new businesses popping into our heads. Having a lot of options is great, but sometimes it can be hard to focus on one when you are keen to move onto the next.