It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.

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

If pleasures are greatest in anticipation, just remember that this is also true of trouble.

To read without reflecting is like eating without digesting.

The soul that sees beauty may sometimes walk alone.

Doing graphic novels is cool! It’s fun! You get to write something, and then see it visually page by page, panel by panel, working with the artist, you get to see it fleshed out.

Life is very difficult. One of the most ancient of religious ideas that emerges everywhere, I would say, is that life is essentially suffering.

He not busy being born is busy dying.

Death is no more than passing from one room into another. But there’s a difference for me, you know. Because in that other room I shall be able to see.

A man lives by believing something: not by debating and arguing about many things.

A life without adventure is likely to be unsatisfying, but a life in which adventure is allowed to take whatever form it will is sure to be short.

Man weeps to think that he will die so soon; woman, that she was born so long ago.

A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.

Music is something no one can control.

If he have faith, the believer cannot be restrained. He betrays himself. He breaks out. He confesses and teaches this gospel to the people at the risk of life itself.

To live a pure unselfish life, one must count nothing as one’s own in the midst of abundance.

Philosophy is the highest music.

Death is one moment, and life is so many of them.

I wouldn’t say that anyone in fashion is on my side. I don’t think there’s anyone on my side.

There’s no one thing that is true. They’re all true.

Life is to be lived. If you have to support yourself, you had bloody well better find some way that is going to be interesting. And you don’t do that by sitting around.

People take different roads seeking fulfillment and happiness. Just because they’re not on your road doesn’t mean they’ve gotten lost.

When thou art above measure angry, bethink thee how momentary is man’s life.

Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions.

Apart from life, a strong constitution, and an abiding connection to the Thembu royal house, the only thing my father bestowed upon me at birth was a name, Rolihlahla.

Sometimes I think it would be easier to avoid old age, to die young, but then you’d never complete your life, would you? You’d never wholly know you.

If somebody thinks they’re a hedgehog, presumably you just give ‚em a mirror and a few pictures of hedgehogs and tell them to sort it out for themselves.

Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‚What are you doing for others?‘

It is clear to everyone that astronomy at all events compels the soul to look upwards, and draws it from the things of this world to the other.

I can only note that the past is beautiful because one never realises an emotion at the time. It expands later, and thus we don’t have complete emotions about the present, only about the past.

Basically, when you get to my age, you’ll really measure your success in life by how many of the people you want to have love you actually do love you.

You can’t have it all, all at once. Who – man or woman – has it all, all at once? Over my lifespan, I think I have had it all. But in different periods of time, things were rough. And if you have a caring life partner, you help the other person when that person needs it.

There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats.

Experience which was once claimed by the aged is now claimed exclusively by the young.

They consider me to have sharp and penetrating vision because I see them through the mesh of a sieve.

A tree’s a tree. How many more do you need to look at?

Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, half shut afterwards.

When we look back on all the perils through which we have passed and at the mighty foes that we have laid low and all the dark and deadly designs that we have frustrated, why should we fear for our future? We have come safely through the worst.

Every man in his lifetime needs to thank his faults.

I’ll tell you one thing, since I’m married, single people look absolutely ridiculous to me.

Homer has taught all other poets the art of telling lies skillfully.

To the people I forgot, you weren’t on my mind for some reason and you probably don’t deserve any thanks anyway.

There are definitely elements of experience and stuff that someone who’s my age wouldn’t have. But there are also things that I can do that other people wouldn’t necessarily be able to.

Life would be tragic if it weren’t funny.

A truer image of the world, I think, is obtained by picturing things as entering into the stream of time from an eternal world outside, than from a view which regards time as the devouring tyrant of all that is.

I wish every American had an opportunity to sit down, to go to a base, to meet with families, to meet with service members, to sit down with our veterans – because we would think differently about our challenges as individuals.

I should have no objection to go over the same life from its beginning to the end: requesting only the advantage authors have, of correcting in a second edition the faults of the first.

See how many are better off than you are, but consider how many are worse.

There is more to life than increasing its speed.

Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life.

I’m not trying to follow a set of rules and stuff. I’m just living my life.

I have come to believe that a great teacher is a great artist and that there are as few as there are any other great artists. Teaching might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit.

A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives.

May you live your life as if the maxim of your actions were to become universal law.

Art is going to make a bigger comeback than ever. That’s the upside to things getting challenging.

Each part of my life provided respite from the other and gave me a sense of proportion that classmates trained only on law studies lacked.

My philosophy in life is, Decide what you want to do. You have to have something to hope for.

We all die, we all get sick, we all feel hunger and lust and pain, and therefore human life is consistent from one generation to the other. We all – most of us, anyway – want connections with other people and spend our lives looking for them.

My whole life has been one big improvisation.

Man is fond of counting his troubles, but he does not count his joys. If he counted them up as he ought to, he would see that every lot has enough happiness provided for it.

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