So thoroughly and sincerely are we compelled to live, reverencing our life, and denying the possibility of change. This is the only way, we say; but there are as many ways as there can be drawn radii from one centre. All change is a miracle to contemplate; but it is a miracle which is taking place every instant.

I think, in politics, half the people are gonna like you, and half the people are not gonna like you, no matter what you do or what you say… It’s like there are no right answers. If there were, everyone would choose the right answers. They’re all opinions.

Constant development is the law of life, and a man who always tries to maintain his dogmas in order to appear consistent drives himself into a false position.

The intelligent man finds almost everything ridiculous, the sensible man hardly anything.

Love is anterior to life, posterior to death, initial of creation, and the exponent of breath.

The life so short, the craft so long to learn.

We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive.

Revolutions go not backward.

I can well conceive a man without hands, feet, head. But I cannot conceive man without thought; he would be a stone or a brute.

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.

The common question that gets asked in business is, ‚why?‘ That’s a good question, but an equally valid question is, ‚why not?‘

All time is all time. It does not change. It does not lend itself to warnings or explanations. It simply is.

When I was young, poverty was so common that we didn’t know it had a name.

Human life is far more important than just getting to the top of a mountain.

Real life? Well, I just hope mine isn’t investigated. They might find that I don’t really exist – that I’m just a hologram.

Fiction reveals truth that reality obscures.

Mortality is very different when you’re 20 to when you’re 50.

Life began with waking up and loving my mother’s face.

When we are born we cry that we are come to this great stage of fools.

Life without love is like a tree without blossoms or fruit.

Unbeing dead isn’t being alive.

Is life worth living? It all depends on the liver.

My life is mine to remember.

There are no facts, only interpretations.

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

What is important in life is life, and not the result of life.

Life is full of misery, loneliness, and suffering – and it’s all over much too soon.

Every day that is born into the world comes like a burst of music and rings the whole day through, and you make of it a dance, a dirge, or a life march, as you will.

Whoever does not regard what he has as most ample wealth, is unhappy, though he be master of the world.

I’ve got a feeling that music might not be the most interesting place to be in the world of things.

He had read much, if one considers his long life; but his contemplation was much more than his reading. He was wont to say that if he had read as much as other men he should have known no more than other men.

Little minds are interested in the extraordinary; great minds in the commonplace.

Money doesn’t make you happy. I now have $50 million but I was just as happy when I had $48 million.

If you want the present to be different from the past, study the past.

When it’s your time, it is your time.

When you are an actor, you have to stay inside this world, but when you are with the crew, on the outside, you are in the dirt, working through all the issues. It’s just a different way of working, and I think I preferred it.

People deal too much with the negative, with what is wrong. Why not try and see positive things, to just touch those things and make them bloom?

I do not like the man who squanders life for fame; give me the man who living makes a name.

Sooner or later, I hate to break it to you, you’re gonna die, so how do you fill in the space between here and there? It’s yours. Seize your space.

Neil Young is my hero, and such a great example. You know what that guy has been doing for the past 40 years? Making music. That’s what that guy does. Sometimes you pay attention, sometimes you don’t. Sometimes he hands it to you, sometimes he keeps it to himself. He’s a good man with a beautiful family and wonderful life.

Most sets of values would give rise to universes that, although they might be very beautiful, would contain no one able to wonder at that beauty.

Our greatest happiness does not depend on the condition of life in which chance has placed us, but is always the result of a good conscience, good health, occupation, and freedom in all just pursuits.

Each player must accept the cards life deals him or her: but once they are in hand, he or she alone must decide how to play the cards in order to win the game.

The first forty years of life give us the text; the next thirty supply the commentary on it.

Nature and human life are as various as our several constitutions. Who shall say what prospect life offers to another?

A useless life is an early death.

If you have the opportunity to play this game of life you need to appreciate every moment. A lot of people don’t appreciate the moment until it’s passed.

The status quo sucks.

Why are our days numbered and not, say, lettered?

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.

What makes life dreary is the want of a motive.

For me, writing has always come out of living a fairly to-the-bone kind of life, just really being present to a lot of life. The writing has been really a byproduct of that.

The basic fact about human existence is not that it is a tragedy, but that it is a bore. It is not so much a war as an endless standing in line.

The minority is sometimes right; the majority always wrong.

The ultimate value of life depends upon awareness and the power of contemplation rather than upon mere survival.

A man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age.

Life is ten percent what happens to you and ninety percent how you respond to it.

Nothing exists from whose nature some effect does not follow.

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.

As we advance in life it becomes more and more difficult, but in fighting the difficulties the inmost strength of the heart is developed.

To sit back hoping that someday, some way, someone will make things right is to go on feeding the crocodile, hoping he will eat you last – but eat you he will.