I have met 18 million youth, and each wants to be unique.

I didn’t leave bodybuilding until I felt that I had gone as far as I could go. It will be the same with my film career. When I feel the time is right, I will then consider public service. I feel that the highest honor comes from serving people and your country.

It’s better to be unhappy alone than unhappy with someone – so far.

The most happy man is he who knows how to bring into relation the end and beginning of his life.

The good part about youngsters is that they are so fearless. You want to be like them.

I knew ‚Crenshaw‘ had elevated me and distinguished me.

I never expected anyone to take care of me, but in my wildest dreams and juvenile yearnings, I wanted the house with the picket fence from June Allyson movies. I knew that was yearning like one yearns to fly.

Any hand that I’ve shaken, any person that I met when I was Joe Blow, now that I’m this guy Kevin Hart, has come back. That’s why I treat everybody with respect. I’m always a nice pleasant guy to meet because when they come back to you, they remember.

What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal.

Whenever a youth is ascertained to possess talents meriting an education which his parents cannot afford, he should be carried forward at the public expense.

The mind of a 19-year-old is very different from the mind of a 26-year-old. You grow. You get into better relationships. You experience more, meet more people, better people. But when you’re in a dark hole at an earlier point in your life – you write about the mindset you’re in at that moment.

Whenever I climb I am followed by a dog called ‚Ego‘.

You hear doom and gloom about the Internet ruining young people’s command of English – that’s nonsense.

I think writing really helps you heal yourself. I think if you write long enough, you will be a healthy person. That is, if you write what you need to write, as opposed to what will make money, or what will make fame.

When you smoke the herb, it reveals you to yourself.

A man wrapped up in himself makes a very small bundle.

Men take only their needs into consideration – never their abilities.

When a hundred men stand together, each of them loses his mind and gets another one.

Even the securest financial plan and the finest health coverage aren’t enough to hold us steady when the challenges come… We need something more, something deeper and unshakeable, something that will see us through life’s hard times.

You are remembered for the rules you break.

Without forgiveness, there’s no future.

Everything you are against weakens you. Everything you are for empowers you.

People always say that you can’t please everybody. I think that’s a cop-out. Why not attempt it? ‚Cause think of all the people you will please if you try.

I disagree with everything I used to say.

I am absolutely my own biggest critic.

One’s real life is so often the life that one does not lead.

I put my flaws on front street. So the world accepted my flaws, so I don’t have any flaws.

What humility does for one is it reminds us that there are people before me. I have already been paid for. And what I need to do is prepare myself so that I can pay for someone else who has yet to come but who may be here and needs me.

I don’t like it when people who are young act like they’re 40. That’s taking too much on. Putting up a shield and trying to act like you’re so mature or whatever – I don’t try to act mature. Some people might say I’m mature for my age, but it’s not something I’m trying to do, you know? I’m just me.

I got the stern end of the stick. It was kind of that iron fist. I am who I am today because of my mother.

I always tell young girls, surround yourself with goodness. I learned early on how to get the haters out of my life.

People will try to bring you down, but you gotta go up.

Where would I be without baseball? Who am I without baseball?

There are definitely elements of experience and stuff that someone who’s my age wouldn’t have. But there are also things that I can do that other people wouldn’t necessarily be able to.

In the beginning, I was very insecure. I hated how I looked in pictures.

I was so ashamed of who I was.

Nature that framed us of four elements, warring within our breasts for regiment, doth teach us all to have aspiring minds.

We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think. When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves.

Every now and then I read a poem that does touch something in me, but I never turn to poetry for solace or pleasure in the way that I throw myself into prose.

You cannot see the changes that you’re dreaming about, because they’re internal.

No work or love will flourish out of guilt, fear, or hollowness of heart, just as no valid plans for the future can be made by those who have no capacity for living now.

If you are not willing to risk the unusual, you will have to settle for the ordinary.

The more successful I become, the more I need a man.

Ever since I was a child I have had this instinctive urge for expansion and growth. To me, the function and duty of a quality human being is the sincere and honest development of one’s potential.

It’s better to hang out with people better than you. Pick out associates whose behavior is better than yours and you’ll drift in that direction.

No untroubled day has ever dawned for me.

Genius, when young, is divine.

If someone you know makes a bad decision or uses bad judgment, it doesn’t mean you have to allow that to alter your attitude. Why should you allow anyone else’s bad decisions to send you into a tailspin of misery?

The thing to do, it seems to me, is to prepare yourself so you can be a rainbow in somebody else’s cloud. Somebody who may not look like you. May not call God the same name you call God – if they call God at all. I may not dance your dances or speak your language. But be a blessing to somebody. That’s what I think.

When I was in college, I wanted to be involved in things that would change the world.

How to gain, how to keep, how to recover happiness is in fact for most men at all times the secret motive of all they do, and of all they are willing to endure.

The thing I always say to people is this: ‚If you avoid failure, you also avoid success.‘

Not what I have, but what I do is my kingdom.

I’ve always felt that if I examine myself too much, I’ll find out what I know and don’t know, and I’ll burst the bubble. I’ve gotten so lucky relying on my animal instincts, I’d rather keep a little bit of the animal alive.

A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.

The more one does and sees and feels, the more one is able to do, and the more genuine may be one’s appreciation of fundamental things like home, and love, and understanding companionship.

Ordinary readers, forgive my paradoxes: one must make them when one reflects; and whatever you may say, I prefer being a man with paradoxes than a man with prejudices.

For me, education was power.

Many people resented my impatience and honesty, but I never cared about acceptance as much as I cared about respect.

Have the humility to learn from those around you.

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