Once you fully apprehend the vacuity of a life without struggle, you are equipped with the basic means of salvation.

In modern life nothing produces such an effect as a good platitude. It makes the whole world kin.

For time and the world do not stand still. Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or the present are certain to miss the future.

The world is a stage, but the play is badly cast.

When I chased after money, I never had enough. When I got my life on purpose and focused on giving of myself and everything that arrived into my life, then I was prosperous.

Our character is not so much the product of race and heredity as of those circumstances by which nature forms our habits, by which we are nurtured and live.

Old age: the crown of life, our play’s last act.

I know my country has not perfected itself. At times, we’ve struggled to keep the promise of liberty and equality for all of our people. We’ve made our share of mistakes, and there are times when our actions around the world have not lived up to our best intentions.

Life is an adventure, it’s not a package tour.

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

I’ll die a crazy old man!

Man alone is born crying, lives complaining, and dies disappointed.

Bread without flesh is a good diet, as on many botanical excursions I have proved. Tea also may easily be ignored. Just bread and water and delightful toil is all I need – not unreasonably much, yet one ought to be trained and tempered to enjoy life in these brave wilds in full independence of any particular kind of nourishment.

It is better to live rich than to die rich.

Life is like a wheel. Sooner or later, it always come around to where you started again.

If you don’t know where you are going, every road will get you nowhere.

I want you to feel happy and enjoy the theatre of my life the way that I do. No matter what happens with my music and wherever I go – that heart of that glamorous girl in New York will never be gone.

I think the foundation of everything in my life is wonder.

Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.

My life is a struggle.

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.

True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, and the world around us.

Only those are fit to live who are not afraid to die.

Of life’s two chief prizes, beauty and truth, I found the first in a loving heart and the second in a laborer’s hand.

When we meet real tragedy in life, we can react in two ways – either by losing hope and falling into self-destructive habits, or by using the challenge to find our inner strength. Thanks to the teachings of Buddha, I have been able to take this second way.

People think, because we’re young, we aren’t complex, but that’s not true. We deal with life and love and broken hearts in the same way a woman a few years older might.

Freedom is never dear at any price. It is the breath of life. What would a man not pay for living?

Life is short, the art long.

When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.

The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living.

For if there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in despairing of life as in hoping for another life and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this life.

Many people are alive but don’t touch the miracle of being alive.

Our lifelong certainties about the world can be demolished in a single second.

Life could be wonderful if people would leave you alone.

If you were to destroy the belief in immortality in mankind, not only love but every living force on which the continuation of all life in the world depended, would dry up at once.

Some of the most moving experiences I’ve had are just in black churches in the South, during the Civil Rights Movement, where people were getting beaten, killed, really struggling for the most elementary rights.

The wise man does not expose himself needlessly to danger, since there are few things for which he cares sufficiently; but he is willing, in great crises, to give even his life – knowing that under certain conditions it is not worthwhile to live.

It seems to never occur to fools that merit and good fortune are closely united.

There is no love of life without despair of life.

I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I intended to be.

The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.

If you don’t live your life, then who will?

Life is a lively process of becoming.

There are few things more dreadful than dealing with a man who knows he is going under, in his own eyes, and in the eyes of others. Nothing can help that man. What is left of that man flees from what is left of human attention.

I think any life can be interesting, any surroundings can be interesting. I don’t think I could have been so brave if I had been living in a town, competing with people on what can be called a generally higher cultural level.

Don’t part with your illusions. When they are gone, you may still exist, but you have ceased to live.

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

What makes life dreary is the want of a motive.

I’ll never make it, it will never happen, because they’re never going to hear me ‚cause they’re screaming all the time.

No one can outrun death. It will catch up to all of us eventually.

This soul, or life within us, by no means agrees with the life outside us. If one has the courage to ask her what she thinks, she is always saying the very opposite to what other people say.

The worst enemy of life, freedom and the common decencies is total anarchy; their second worst enemy is total efficiency.

I’m not afraid to die, I just don’t want to be there when it happens.

My whole life and my whole career, even through my music, I tell people: let’s unify; let’s show more love.

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

When you go on your Twitter or look down your Timeline and it’s all great positivity – I love that. But at the same time, it can really divert you from what your purpose is or what you’re trying to do. And I’ve seen artists get caught up in that.

The blessed of us must save the less of us. I’m blessed, and yeah, I’m planning to go to Heaven.

That’s another hallmark of truth, is that it snaps things together. People write to me all the time and say it’s as if things were coming together in my mind. It’s like the Platonic idea that all learning was remembering. You have a nature, and when you feel that nature articulated, it’s it’s like the act of snapping the puzzle pieces together.

I will not leave South Africa, nor will I surrender. Only through hardship, sacrifice and militant action can freedom be won. The struggle is my life. I will continue fighting for freedom until the end of my days.

All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure.

Reality has a way of intruding. Reality eventually intrudes on everything.