It’s not morbid to talk about death. Most people don’t worry about death, they worry about a bad death.

I feel like the way I was raised was to be able to see through all the titles in this world – from religion to race.

Truth is a good dog; but always beware of barking too close to the heels of an error, lest you get your brains kicked out.

People have to talk about something just to keep their voice boxes in working order so they’ll have good voice boxes in case there’s ever anything really meaningful to say.

Man lives freely only by his readiness to die, if need be, at the hands of his brother, never by killing him.

To have no time for philosophy is to be a true philosopher.

However my parents – both of whom came from impoverished backgrounds and neither of whom had been to college, took the view that my overactive imagination was an amusing quirk that would never pay a mortgage or secure a pension.

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.

You can’t imagine parlor ballads drifting out of high-rise multi-towered buildings. That kind of music existed in a more timeless state of life.

Reason is the natural order of truth; but imagination is the organ of meaning.

If I died tomorrow, I would be a happy girl.

Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.

For my part, I consider that it will be found much better by all parties to leave the past to history, especially as I propose to write that history myself.

But we try to pretend, you see, that the external world exists altogether independently of us.

When I write, it’s like choosing which shoes I’m going to put on. More often than not, my lyrics are personal – but I sometimes have to put myself in other people’s shoes.

Now, you lose something in your life, or you come into a conflict, and there’s gonna come a time that you’re gonna know: There was a reason for that. And at the end of your life, all the things you thought were periods, they turn out to be commas. There was never a full stop in any of it.

We call a man a bigot or a slave of dogma because he is a thinker who has thought thoroughly and to a definite end.

The usual approach of science of constructing a mathematical model cannot answer the questions of why there should be a universe for the model to describe. Why does the universe go to all the bother of existing?

We all know we have a finite period of time. I just feel if I’m going to be alive, I want to be challenged – to be as immortal as possible. The path to that isn’t an easy way, but it’s a rewarding way.

A God without dominion, providence, and final causes, is nothing else but fate and nature.

An oppressive government is more to be feared than a tiger.

For every moment of triumph, for every instance of beauty, many souls must be trampled.

To attain any assured knowledge about the soul is one of the most difficult things in the world.

I think Bible principles are principles for life.

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

Leave it as it is. The ages have been at work on it and man can only mar it.

When you are young, you cannot imagine being disabled. You imagine you would conquer it somehow. As I’ve got older, I can imagine it; I can see how life narrows in. I feel compassion for my mother now.

Life, an age to the miserable, and a moment to the happy.

We are born, so to speak, twice over; born into existence, and born into life; born a human being, and born a man.

As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy.

The worst men often give the best advice.

To be in opposition is not to be a nihilist.

A worthy woman personifies the truly noble and worthwhile attributes of life.

There is no king who has not had a slave among his ancestors, and no slave who has not had a king among his.

Men can only be happy when they do not assume that the object of life is happiness.

Money can’t buy life.

Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it.

In this world there is always danger for those who are afraid of it.

The time to take counsel of your fears is before you make an important battle decision. That’s the time to listen to every fear you can imagine! When you have collected all the facts and fears and made your decision, turn off all your fears and go ahead!

Not life, but good life, is to be chiefly valued.

There are no moral phenomena at all, but only a moral interpretation of phenomena.

We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.

It is far harder to kill a phantom than a reality.

Non-violence requires a double faith, faith in God and also faith in man.

A man is a god in ruins. When men are innocent, life shall be longer, and shall pass into the immortal, as gently as we awake from dreams.

It is said that the present is pregnant with the future.

When one does away with oneself one does the most estimable thing possible: one thereby almost deserves to live.

Life is a journey. When we stop, things don’t go right.

I love Notting Hill and Westbourne Grove – there is so much life and vitality around Portobello and Ladbroke Grove. It has come up a lot since I started Virgin more than 40 years ago, but there is so much character.

Things have never been more like the way they are today in history.

From my perspective, I absolutely believe in a greater spiritual power, far greater than I am, from which I have derived strength in moments of sadness or fear. That’s what I believe, and it was very, very strong in the forest.

Except for the young or very happy, I can’t say I am sorry for anyone who dies.

The superior man thinks always of virtue; the common man thinks of comfort.

People are terrified of me, and I want them to be.

One friend in a lifetime is much, two are many, three are hardly possible. Friendship needs a certain parallelism of life, a community of thought, a rivalry of aim.

Life loves to be taken by the lapel and told: ‚I’m with you kid. Let’s go.‘

We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.

No group and no government can properly prescribe precisely what should constitute the body of knowledge with which true education is concerned.

The greatest mistake we make is living in constant fear that we will make one.

There is no unique picture of reality.

Buddhism is not a creed, it is a doubt.