Amiri Baraka Quotes

Is it better to have had a good thing and lost it, or never to have had it?

What made something precious? Losing it and finding it.

When you don't do something anymore, all of a sudden everyone treasures it.

We all yearn for what we have lost. But sometimes, we forget what we have.

Well you only need the light when it's burning low, only miss the sun when it starts to snow.

If you shed tears when you miss the sun, you also miss the stars.

We never discover the value of things till we have lost them.

We only appreciate what we have when we lose it.

I don't mourn the loss of my childhood; I mourn because everything, including (my) childhood, is lost.

Funny, 'ow you can 'old a jewel in your 'and, and toss it away, and not even know what you 'ad until it's gone.

Is to have had and lost/Better than not having at all?

I think about my mother every day. But usually the thoughts are fleeting - she crosses my mind like a spring cardinal that flies past the edge of your eye: startling, luminous, lovely... gone.

The paradox is, I can't miss the good things about my father while he is alive, but I will of course miss him... when he is dead.

When you have things taken away, you promise you'll never take anything for granted ever again.

'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.

When you're in danger of losing a thing it becomes precious and when it's around us, it's in tedious abundance and we take it for granted as if we're going to live forever, which we're not.

No one wants life to end. It was bad enough when my last tour came to an end.

We do not realize what we have on Earth until we leave it.

When something is at risk or in danger or about to be lost, those are the moments you start to realize how much it means to you.

The mind that is wise mourns less for what age takes away; than what it leaves behind.

When the well is dry, we learn the worth of water.

Life is a precious gift - a gift we often take for granted until it is threatened.

It's just a fact of life that you don't realize what you've got until it's gone.

The ancients waited for cherry blossoms, grieved when they were gone, and lamented their passing in countless poems. How very ordinary the poems had seemed to Sachiko when she read them as a girl, but now she knew, as well as one could know, that grieving over fallen cherry blossoms was more than a fad or convention.

We know well only what we are deprived of.