What do we live for, if not to make life less difficult for each other?

I think we have to own the fears that we have of each other, and then, in some practical way, some daily way, figure out how to see people differently than the way we were brought up to.

What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.

True happiness… is not attained through self-gratification, but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.

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

He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.

Surely our job while we’re here on Earth is to learn about the world, not to create parallel universes.

A true friend encourages us, comforts us, supports us like a big easy chair, offering us a safe refuge from the world.

It is not death or pain that is to be dreaded, but the fear of pain or death.

So let’s be honest with ourselves and not take ourselves too serious, and never condemn the other fellow for doing what we are doing every day, only in a different way.

Sometimes, I think if you get away from what you’re called to do, it’s more of a distraction.

The experience of democracy is like the experience of life itself-always changing, infinite in its variety, sometimes turbulent and all the more valuable for having been tested by adversity.

My parents are my backbone. Still are. They’re the only group that will support you if you score zero or you score 40.

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.

Any man may easily do harm, but not every man can do good to another.

I would rather live my life as if there is a God and die to find out there isn’t, than live as if there isn’t and to die to find out that there is.

To hold a man down, you have to stay down with him.

The civility which money will purchase, is rarely extended to those who have none.

Nobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you care.

If in our daily life we can smile, if we can be peaceful and happy, not only we, but everyone will profit from it. This is the most basic kind of peace work.

It put our energies to sleep and made visionaries of us – dreamers and indolent… It is good to begin life poor; it is good to begin life rich – these are wholesome; but to begin it prospectively rich! The man who has not experienced it cannot imagine the curse of it.

Work is the meat of life, pleasure the dessert.

He who cannot give anything away cannot feel anything either.

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

I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.

Do not impose on others what you yourself do not desire.

The man who has no problems is out of the game.

One who is injured ought not to return the injury, for on no account can it be right to do an injustice; and it is not right to return an injury, or to do evil to any man, however much we have suffered from him.

It sometimes makes people feel better about themselves, you know, to put other people down, or make fun of them, or maybe make mockery of their work and that doesn’t make me feel good at all.

Being a good listener is absolutely critical to being a good leader; you have to listen to the people who are on the front line.

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

And know that I am with you always; yes, to the end of time.

I want someone who can trust that my big hands are going to take care of them.

Life is an unanswered question, but let’s still believe in the dignity and importance of the question.

If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same.

Everywhere in life, the true question is not what we gain, but what we do.

To all those who have suffered as a consequence of our troubled past I extend my sincere thoughts and deep sympathy. With the benefit of historical hindsight we can all see things which we would wish had been done differently or not at all.

Compassionate listening is to help the other side suffer less. If we realize that other people are the same people as we are, we are no longer angry at them.

Fiction is like a spider’s web, attached ever so slightly perhaps, but still attached to life at all four corners. Often the attachment is scarcely perceptible.

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new.

All that I know about my life, it seems, I have learned in books.

Do you know the only value life has is what life puts on itself?

I expected to die. At no time before the trial did I expect to escape with my life. Yet being executed in the gas chamber did not necessarily mean defeat. It could be one more step to bring the community to a higher level of consciousness.

Superstition is the poetry of life.

Self-sacrifice enables us to sacrifice other people without blushing.

Just as a candle cannot burn without fire, men cannot live without a spiritual life.

For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight, His can’t be wrong whose life is in the right.

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

Social Security is based on a principle. It’s based on the principle that you care about other people. You care whether the widow across town, a disabled widow, is going to be able to have food to eat.

There’s place and means for every man alive.

Any time we are misused or used for a purpose other than what God intended us for, it’s damaging.

A good objective of leadership is to help those who are doing poorly to do well and to help those who are doing well to do even better.

Life is not long, and too much of it must not pass in idle deliberation how it shall be spent.

It’s impossible to live a life totally free of feelings. God created all of us to be emotional creatures, and feelings are a big part of our lives.

A good thing to remember is somebody’s got it a lot worse than we do.

The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that’s the essence of inhumanity.

As a former resident with strong personal and ministry ties to the North Star State, I pray that the good people of Minnesota will show their support for God’s definition of marriage, between a man and a woman.

Indeed, it is as important to learn how to receive a blessing as it is to be willing to give one.

I like gaps; all my stories have gaps. It seems this is the way people’s lives present themselves.

I sometimes wish I were suffering in a good cause, or risking my life for the good of others, instead of just being a gravely endangered patient.

When people meet me, they say that I’m really kind – contrary to a lot of my music.