Everything is political. I will never be a politician or even think political. Me just deal with life and nature. That is the greatest thing to me.

I have lived long enough to satisfy both nature and glory.

Do not think of your faults, still less of other’s faults; look for what is good and strong, and try to imitate it. Your faults will drop off, like dead leaves, when their time comes.

When you cease to make a contribution, you begin to die.

If I am no longer disturbed myself, I will deal less with disturbed people, but I don’t regret having concerned myself with them because I think most of us are disturbed.

Life is a series of experiences, each one of which makes us bigger, even though sometimes it is hard to realize this. For the world was built to develop character, and we must learn that the setbacks and grieves which we endure help us in our marching onward.

The theoretical understanding of the world, which is the aim of philosophy, is not a matter of great practical importance to animals, or to savages, or even to most civilised men.

Prison life, fortunately, I spent a lot of years, about 18 years with other prisoners, and, as I say, they enriched your soul.

If some years were added to my life, I would give fifty to the study of the Yi, and then I might come to be without great faults.

When you look at the sun during your walking meditation, the mindfulness of the body helps you to see that the sun is in you; without the sun there is no life at all and suddenly you get in touch with the sun in a different way.

Personally I’m always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught.

I’m mortified to be on the stage, but then again, it’s the only place where I’m happy.

I believe that every human has a finite number of heartbeats. I don’t intend to waste any of mine running around doing exercises.

Life is better than death, I believe, if only because it is less boring, and because it has fresh peaches in it.

He who doesn’t pray to the Lord prays to the devil.

When you stop caring what people think, you lose your capacity for connection. When you’re defined by it, you lose our capacity for vulnerability.

Even the securest financial plan and the finest health coverage aren’t enough to hold us steady when the challenges come… We need something more, something deeper and unshakeable, something that will see us through life’s hard times.

Ignorant men raise questions that wise men answered a thousand years ago.

Every man is more than just himself; he also represents the unique, the very special and always significant and remarkable point at which the world’s phenomena intersect, only once in this way, and never again.

Let each know that for each the body, the mind and the soul have been freed to fulfill themselves.

When I came to Johannesburg from the countryside, I knew nobody, but many strangers were very kind to me. I then was dragged into politics, and then, subsequently, I became a lawyer.

If you love life, don’t waste time, for time is what life is made up of.

I don’t have the best track record with quotes.

I pledge allegiance to the Christian flag, and to the Savior, for whose Kingdom it stands, one Savior, crucified, risen, and coming again, with life and liberty for all who believe.

I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing.

I don’t know what drives me to succeed.

Seventy percent of success in life is showing up.

We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances.

It’s not just a matter of whether you support Obama or Romney. It’s who they have coming with them. I always keep my powder dry, as they say in the military.

True happiness arises, in the first place, from the enjoyment of one’s self, and in the next, from the friendship and conversation of a few select companions.

Each day is a little life: every waking and rising a little birth, every fresh morning a little youth, every going to rest and sleep a little death.

It is often said that before you die your life passes before your eyes. It is in fact true. It’s called living.

When you go to the mountains, you see them and you admire them. In a sense, they give you a challenge, and you try to express that challenge by climbing them.

I think I was identified as a failed president because I wasn’t re-elected.

Politics is just like show business. You have a hell of an opening, coast for a while, and then have a hell of a close.

Society exists only as a mental concept; in the real world there are only individuals.

It is possible to provide security against other ills, but as far as death is concerned, we men live in a city without walls.

I’m totally myself.

Political necessities sometime turn out to be political mistakes.

As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.

I am a child but I have to think and act like a woman, this business forces you to.

Life is neither good or evil, but only a place for good and evil.

Man’s true nature being lost, everything becomes his nature; as, his true good being lost, everything becomes his good.

I had the classic 40 meltdown. I did. It’s embarrassing. It was pretty funny. But then I recovered. To me, it was like a second adolescence. Hormonally, my body was changing, my mind was changing, and so my relationship to myself and the world around me came to this assault of finiteness.

Chaos often breeds life, when order breeds habit.

He who loves practice without theory is like the sailor who boards ship without a rudder and compass and never knows where he may cast.

Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of man will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint.

Give whatever you are doing and whoever you are with the gift of your attention.

I have wondered about time all my life.

A man who has not passed through the inferno of his passions has never overcome them.

The curse of me and my nation is that we always think things can be bettered by immediate action of some sort, any sort rather than no sort.

Sports are such a great teacher. I think of everything they’ve taught me: camaraderie, humility, how to resolve differences.

If anything is certain, it is that I myself am not a Marxist.

There’s an ecstatic side to writing. It’s like jazz. It just has a life.

I’m not a conservative of any kind.

The best thing to hold onto in life is each other.

The ideal man bears the accidents of life with dignity and grace, making the best of circumstances.

Nurture your minds with great thoughts. To believe in the heroic makes heroes.

Self-interest is the enemy of all true affection.

The one thing that I keep learning over and over again is that I don’t know nothing. I mean, that’s my life lesson.

In nature, nothing is perfect and everything is perfect. Trees can be contorted, bent in weird ways, and they’re still beautiful.