The Congo was the most difficult shoot of my life but was also maybe the greatest adventure of my life.

People who don’t like my work say that the connections seem too arbitrary. But that’s how life is.

Life cannot subsist in society but by reciprocal concessions.

Those who do not know how to live must make a merit of dying.

Next to knowing when to seize an opportunity, the most important thing in life is to know when to forego an advantage.

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.

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.

It is a common saying, and in everybody’s mouth, that life is but a sojourn.

This life is worth living, we can say, since it is what we make it.

The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.

Old age is like a plane flying through a storm. Once you’re aboard, there’s nothing you can do.

Land on Mars, a round-trip ticket – half a million dollars. It can be done.

Civilisations have been destroyed many times, and this civilisation is no different. It can be destroyed. We can think of time in terms of millions of years and life will resume little by little. The cosmos operates for us very urgently, but geological time is different.

The aim of life is appreciation; there is no sense in not appreciating things; and there is no sense in having more of them if you have less appreciation of them.

I definitely connected to the fact that life gets out of control and you end up doing things and wishing you were doing other things instead.

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

Without music, life would be a mistake.

We spend our lives, all of us, waiting for the great day, the great battle, or the deed of power. But that external consummation is not given to many: nor is it necessary. So long as our being is tensed, directed with passion, towards that which is the spirit of all things, then that spirit will emerge from our own hidden, nameless effort.

Passions are the gales of life.

An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered.

Life is a lively process of becoming.

Every step of life shows much caution is required.

Everything happens to everybody sooner or later if there is time enough.

Each life is made up of mistakes and learning, waiting and growing, practicing patience and being persistent.

I draw pleasure in governance, in doing new things and bringing people together. That pleasure is all I need from life.

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.

It’s not catastrophes, murders, deaths, diseases, that age and kill us; it’s the way people look and laugh, and run up the steps of omnibuses.

Things in themselves have no life in them. A car can’t comfort or encourage you. A house means nothing if there’s no life and love inside.

The great quest of life has always been to discover truth.

The choicest pleasures of life lie within the ring of moderation.

How did it get so late so soon? Its night before its afternoon. December is here before its June. My goodness how the time has flewn. How did it get so late so soon?

This is the highest wisdom that I own; freedom and life are earned by those alone who conquer them each day anew.

And die of nothing but a rage to live.

Actor’s life is very long.

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.

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.

The truth is I love being alive. And I love feeling free. So if I can’t have those things then I feel like a caged animal and I’d rather not be in a cage. I’d rather be dead. And it’s real simple. And I think it’s not that uncommon.

Those who have never known the deep intimacy and the intense companionship of mutual love have missed the best thing that life has to give.

Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness. It is far better take things as they come along with patience and equanimity.

I still make sure to go, at least once every year, to a country where things cannot be taken for granted, and where there is either too much law and order or too little.

Of course humans like to explore, and we should. There’s nothing wrong with that. But it’s more than that. It’s essential for your children and your children’s children.

But men must know, that in this theatre of man’s life it is reserved only for God and angels to be lookers on.

Nobody can write the life of a man but those who have eat and drunk and lived in social intercourse with him.

The true object of all human life is play. Earth is a task garden; heaven is a playground.

Part of the secret of a success in life is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside.

I love traveling all over the world; but it’s true: there’s nothing like home.

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

God gave us the gift of life; it is up to us to give ourselves the gift of living well.

If you lose a big fight, it will worry you all of your life. It will plague you – until you get your revenge.

Water is life, and clean water means health.

If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans.

If I wished to do something, even if I couldn’t find anyone who wanted to make the effort with me, I would go out solo climbing. I did find solo climbing very challenging and a little frightening. You knew that you were completely on your own, and you had to overcome all the problems and possible dangers.

The devil has put a penalty on all things we enjoy in life. Either we suffer in health or we suffer in soul or we get fat.

The courage we desire and prize is not the courage to die decently, but to live manfully.

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

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

Life would pall if it were all sugar; salt is bitter if taken by itself; but when tasted as part of the dish, it savours the meat. Difficulties are the salt of life.

I’m not the sort of person who gives up on things. The first time we crossed the Atlantic in the balloon, it crashed, and we went on and did the Pacific. First time we crossed the Atlantic in a boat, it sank, and we went on and got the record. So, generally speaking, we will pick ourselves up, brush ourselves down, and carry on.

It was wonderful to find America, but it would have been more wonderful to miss it.

Step with care and great tact, and remember that Life’s a Great Balancing Act.

This is not a bad life.