Miriam Makeba Quotes

We must all suffer from one of two pains: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret. The difference is discipline weighs ounces while regret weighs tons.

He is a very smart cookie, Michael. He knows what he wants, he knows what he is doing. I have nothing but admiration. Also, he is a very kind person.

Michael Jackson gave us pride. He gave us pride in our blackness, gave us pride that we can look good and be cool and be worldwide. Michael Jackson is a fucking icon. And I believe they took Michael Jackson down because he had too much power.

First he appeared in the class of inorganic things,
Next he passed therefrom into that of plants,
For years he lived as one of the plants,
Remembering naught of his inorganic state so different,
And when he passed from the vegetive to the animal state
He had no remembrance of his state as a plant.

Nobody makes me do anything I don't want to do. It's my decision. So the biggest devil is me. I'm either my best friend or my worst enemy. And that's how I have to deal with it.

Before adolescence, memory is more interested in the future than the past...

I'm out here a thousand miles from my home
Walkin' a road other men have gone down
I'm seein' your world of people and things
Your paupers and peasants and princes and kings

You can get everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want.

Anyone who perceives my message as anti-police is completely mistaken. I have so much admiration and respect for officers and the families of officers who sacrifice themselves to keep us safe. But let's be clear: I am against police brutality and injustice. Those are two separate things.

Nothing is more unbearable, once one has it, than freedom.

For this too is a very pleasant strand woven into the Cynic's pattern of life; he must needs be flogged like an ass, and while he is being flogged he must love the men who flog him, as though he were the father or brother of them all.

Much has been written of love turning to hatred, of the heart growing cold with the death of love. It is a remarkable process. It is far more terrible than anything I have ever read about it, more terrible than anything I will ever be able to say.

You sound like a hillbilly; We want folk singers here.

The opposite of work is idleness. But very few of us know what to do with idleness. When you look at the way that we distribute our lives in general, you realize that in the periods in which we have a lot of money, we have very little time. And then when we finally have time, we have neither the money nor the health.

I’ve been through hell and back, and I’m grateful for every scar, I look at the woman I was in my 20s and I see a young lady growing into confidence but intent on pleasing everyone around her. I now feel so much more beautiful, so much sexier, so much more interesting. And so much more powerful.

But look — he flicks his hand to the back of his neck. For such gesture one falls hopelessly in love for a lifetime.