I was willing to accept what I couldn’t change.

The curse of me and my nation is that we always think things can be bettered by immediate action of some sort, any sort rather than no sort.

I worked out early on to give up things I couldn’t do well at all.

Death is acceptable only if it represents the physically necessary passage toward a union, the condition of a metamorphosis.

By any accepted standard, I have had more than nine lives. I counted them up once, and there were 13 times I almost and maybe should have died.

I’m not a complete psychopath. Am I partially? Sure. I’ll accept that. But I’m not a complete psychopath.

Difficulties are things that show a person what they are.

I don’t want to be called a point guard, but I can’t stop it.

To do the same thing over and over again is not only boredom: it is to be controlled by rather than to control what you do.

My purpose is to help people look at themselves and begin to shift their concepts. Remember, we are not our country, our race, or religion. We are eternal spirits. Seeing ourselves as spiritual beings without label is a way to transform the world and reach a sacred place for all of humanity.

Some people carry their heart in their head and some carry their head in their heart. The trick is to keep them apart yet working together.

I worked with someone who told me they’d never like me. But for some reason, I just felt like I needed her approval. So I started changing myself to please her. It made me stop being social and friendly. I was so unhappy.

I have offended God and mankind because my work didn’t reach the quality it should have.

If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid.

Fear is not a lasting teacher of duty.

I intend to inspire people with my story: motivate young people that grew up like myself, or even not like myself. Just, you know, go through the human experience.

You have to develop ways so that you can take up for yourself, and then you take up for someone else. And so sooner or later, you have enough courage to really stand up for the human race and say, ‚I’m a representative.‘

People want to tear me down, they were going to knife me anyway.

I’m inconsistent, even to myself.

Life is a gamble. You can get hurt, but people die in plane crashes, lose their arms and legs in car accidents; people die every day. Same with fighters: some die, some get hurt, some go on. You just don’t let yourself believe it will happen to you.

Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.

As a vulnerability researcher, the greatest barrier I see is our low tolerance for vulnerability. We’re almost afraid to be happy. We feel like it’s inviting disaster.

This lady is not for turning.

There may sometimes be ungenerous attempts to keep a young man down; and they will succeed, too, if he allows his mind to be diverted from its true channel to brood over the attempted injury.

By the time you’ve reached your sixties, you do know that one day you will die, and knowing that is at least the beginning of wisdom.

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.

Before I can live with other folks I’ve got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.

Every one of my regrets has produced a song I’m proud of.

I am not happy, and the quest for happiness as a principal objective is not part of my world. Of course, ever since I can remember, I have done what I felt like doing.

The day you stop doing the small things is the day you think you’re above everybody else.

The ideal man bears the accidents of life with dignity and grace, making the best of circumstances.

Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.

Lord Jesus, we come just as we are; this is how we came at first, and this is how we come still, with all our failures, with all our transgressions, with all and everything that is what it ought not to be, we come to Thee.

It doesn’t matter where you are coming from. All that matters is where you are going.

One of the most important decisions you’ll ever make is choosing the kind of universe you exist in: is it helpful and supportive or hostile and unsupportive? Your answer to this question will make all the difference in terms of how you live your life and what kind of Divine assistance you attract.

It’s an offseason. These days are valuable for everybody.

It is better to be the hammer than the anvil.

I think, for years, people have been pushed down by religion, and I don’t say that disrespectfully, but they’ve been shown a God that you can’t measure up to.

In difficult times, we’re not supposed to quit believing; we’re not supposed to quit growing.

Black people in America, people from the struggle, immigrants, it’s no generational wealth that we are attached to, so we are tasked to create – in one generation – closing the gap. That’s why we so Doomsday about getting to the check: ‚cause it’s life or death for real.

I am sure there’s going to be times when I do things wrong that no one’s going to like and everyone’s going to think I’m terrible and rubbish but I know I’m going to go through those times, and it’s just about understanding that that’s going to happen.

Great tragedy has come to us, and we are meeting it with the best that is in our country, with courage and concern for others because this is America. This is who we are.

In other words, don’t expect to always be great. Disappointments, failures and setbacks are a normal part of the lifecycle of a unit or a company and what the leader has to do is constantly be up and say ‚we have a problem, let’s go and get it‘.

I have a personal ambition to live my life honestly and honor the true love that I’ve had and also the people I’ve had around me.

Everything is political. I will never be a politician or even think political. Me just deal with life and nature. That is the greatest thing to me.

In 7th grade, I believe, I wrote my first rap song. It was about everything I was seeing, everything that was going on around me.

When defeat comes, accept it as a signal that your plans are not sound, rebuild those plans, and set sail once more toward your coveted goal.

The hell to be endured hereafter, of which theology tells, is no worse than the hell we make for ourselves in this world by habitually fashioned our characters in the wrong way.

The difference between average people and achieving people is their perception of and response to failure.

Military school was great and especially great for leadership and then I spent two years in Vietnam.

A woman has the age she deserves.

As our enemies have found we can reason like men, so now let us show them we can fight like men also.

The more you like yourself, the less you are like anyone else, which makes you unique.

Get mad, then get over it.

Honor thy error as a hidden intention.

I put Catholic guilt to work pretty good for a rich rock star.

There are phases in life which surface at times, and it makes you understand that despite you working hard, everything what you are doing is probably not enough. That’s when you need to look around, and beyond.

Don’t despair, not even over the fact that you don’t despair.

Life is a series of experiences, each one of which makes us bigger, even though sometimes it is hard to realize this. For the world was built to develop character, and we must learn that the setbacks and grieves which we endure help us in our marching onward.

I write for no other purpose than to add to the beauty that now belongs to me. I write a book for no other reason than to add three or four hundred acres to my magnificent estate.

Nobody can hurt me without my permission.