Quote Of The Day By Bob Marley: 'My Life Is Only Important If Me Can Help Plenty People. If My Life Is Just For Me ...'

Bob Marley was born in the small village of Nine Miles, Jamaica, in 1945. While he lived much of his early life in his birth town, Marley spent a short stint in Kingston after his father abducted him. This wasn't the only hardship Marley would be exposed to throughout his early life, however. The Jamaica of Marley's day was a divided one, filled with political and gang violence. But Marley was a hopeful man — as one can easily divine from his music — who wouldn't let the negative get in the way of what he believed he was meant to do with his life.

The musician would move past the chains of circumstance and bring his unique blend of rock, ska, and reggae around the globe. Marley was Rastafarian and had strong spiritual beliefs, one of them being that God was driving his life in this musical direction. He saw his music as spiritual and revolutionary, meant to wake people up to the truth.

The beliefs led Marley to popularize reggae music and Rastafarianism internationally, and eventually earn a spot in both the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and ASCAP Songwriters Hall of Fame after his death. The message of his music and the many ways it spread ideas of peace, justice, and freedom also earned him the United Nations Peace Medal of the Third World. And it's for these reasons that Bob Marley is today's quote of the day.

"My life is only important if me can help plenty people. If my life is just for me and my own security, then me no want it. My life is for people."

This quote comes from an NBC interview with Bruce Morrow in 1978, a year and a half after Bob Marley was shot in an assassination attempt. In December of 1976, a group opened fire at Marley's home production studio, Tuff Gong, and while Marley still performed at a Smile Jamaica peace concert two days later, he was injured in the attack. This particular interview discussed the attack, Marley fleeing Jamaica afterward, and his upcoming return to his home country.

Marley delivering this quote during a discussion about his near-death experience makes perfect sense. People often think about their priorities and the meaning of their lives when they've seen it nearly end. Previous Marley interviews often touched on deep topics of personal and spiritual meaning, so this quote wasn't exactly out of the norm, but it was one of the most succinct ways the reggae icon ever summed up his life's purpose.

Bob Marley's quote points to finding meaning through his service to others. However, this isn't the kind of service where you wait on someone hand and foot or perform good deeds throughout the day when convenient. While the idea certainly can include the latter, Marley seemed to mean something deeper and grander — a life devoted to making a positive impact on the world.

Marley believed his life was secondary to his purpose. As long as he and his work could benefit others, whether he lived or died wasn't important to him. Fighting injustice, inspiring, giving hope, and spreading the word of freedom and love to the disenfranchised — the same things that won him his Peace Medal — were all that truly mattered. In a way, this Bob Marley line was the core of everything that made the reggae icon what he was, and speaks to his authenticity. Such grounding in pure, immutable core values can drive us all to do good in our lives, from small acts of generosity to grander virtuous goals.

• "When people say reggae them expect a type of music. As far as me is concerned, I never give it a name. Just play music."

• "This music, man, is not music of a day. It have to be real."

• "You have wrong and you have right. Wrong is what we call Babylon, wrong things. That is what Babylon is to me. I could have born in England, I could have born in America, it make no difference where me born, because there is Babylon everywhere."

• "You have some type of direction where you're going, so you have to just keep on going. It's like a ship at sea. You don't really see the land but you know it's over east, so you just keep going east."

• "Because what really happen is that music can just play over, over again. Create new things, new music. But with the ability that reggae music really have I don't think anybody can really go above it, not right now."

• "Possession make you rich? I don't have that type of richness. My richness is life, forever."