When you put on a uniform, there are certain inhibitions that you accept.

When you’re just like everybody else, you’ve nothing to offer other than your conformity.

God is not upset that Gandhi was not a Christian, because God is not a Christian! All of God’s children and their different faiths help us to realize the immensity of God.

I gave in, and admitted that God was God.

You definitely want your kids to understand their heritage, but I don’t want my kids to just focus on being black. They are people. I don’t want them to judge other people or to be judged. I want them to be good people, so good people will treat them accordingly. I preach that to my kids and everything else falls into place.

I don’t suffer of anything that I’ve lost.

Jesus never said a word about homosexuality. In all of his teachings about multiple things – he never said that gay people should be condemned. I personally think it is very fine for gay people to be married in civil ceremonies.

One of the many lessons that one learns in prison is, that things are what they are and will be what they will be.

It’s nice to be included in people’s fantasies but you also like to be accepted for your own sake.

All religions must be tolerated… for every man must get to heaven in his own way.

When we’re looking for compassion, we need someone who is deeply rooted, is able to bend and, most of all, embraces us for our strengths and struggles.

Nothing happens to any man that he is not formed by nature to bear.

Everybody’s journey is individual. If you fall in love with a boy, you fall in love with a boy. The fact that many Americans consider it a disease says more about them than it does about homosexuality.

I have long understood that losing always comes with the territory when you wander into the gambling business, just as getting crippled for life is an acceptable risk in the linebacker business. They both are extremely violent sports, and pain is part of the bargain. Buy the ticket, take the ride.

Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you together, but do so with all your heart.

Wherever you are, be there totally. If you find your here and now intolerable and it makes you unhappy, you have three options: remove yourself from the situation, change it, or accept it totally. If you want to take responsibility for your life, you must choose one of those three options, and you must choose now. Then accept the consequences.

A true man hates no one.

Animals are such agreeable friends – they ask no questions; they pass no criticisms.

I’ve been called a moron since I was about four. My father called me a moron. My grandfather said I was a moron. And a lot of times when I’m driving, I hear I’m a moron. I like being a moron.

Whether you like it or not, you’re forced to come to the realisation that death is out there. But I don’t fear death, I’m a fatalist. I believe when it’s your time, that’s it. It’s the hand you’re dealt.

I believe in a passion for inclusion.

Just as the humble, unassuming, assenting ‚O.K.‘ has deposed the more affirmative ‚Yes,‘ so the little cringe and hesitation and approximation of ‚like‘ are a help to young people who are struggling to negotiate the shoals and rapids of ethnic identity, the street, and general correctness.

My great hope is to laugh as much as I cry; to get my work done and try to love somebody and have the courage to accept the love in return.

Until you have learned to be tolerant with those who do not always agree with you, you will be neither successful nor happy.

Keep in mind that no matter how perfectly you get your life in order, you will never be rid of all your problems. Problems are a way of life, always have been, always will be. But how you elect to view those problems is all up to you.

The philosophical idea that there are no more distances, that we are all just one world, that we are all brothers, is such a drag! I like differences.

Every once in a while, you let a word or phrase out and you want to catch it and bring it back. You can’t do that. It’s gone, gone forever.

Accept the terrible responsibility of life with eyes wide open.

In order to be an immaculate member of a flock of sheep, one must above all be a sheep oneself.

Happiness can exist only in acceptance.

Everybody always laughs because I feel so much more comfortable with, like, a giant paper bag on my whole body and paint on my face. Sometimes I try really hard to take it all off. But inevitably what’s underneath is still not a straight edge. And I don’t think it ever will be.

I know that a large part of my fan base is gay. They’ve shown me love from the start. I mean in this industry, everyone from my glam people to my dancers are gay. You can’t be homophobic in this line of work – I’m a pop star!

There’s always going to be people who don’t understand or accept the united science, and I will just ignore them, as I’m only acting and communicating on the science.

I am God’s vessel. But my greatest pain in life is that I will never be able to see myself perform live.

I sang a song at my sister’s wedding. My mother forced me into that, too. But that one felt all right.

Me and my dad are friends. We’re cool. I’ll never be disappointed again, because I don’t expect anything anymore from him. I just let him exist, and that’s how we get along.

I decided, very early on, just to accept life unconditionally; I never expected it to do anything special for me, yet I seemed to accomplish far more than I had ever hoped. Most of the time it just happened to me without my ever seeking it.

It is hard to be an individual in Japan.

Do not seek to bring things to pass in accordance with your wishes, but wish for them as they are, and you will find them.

Acceptance looks like a passive state, but in reality it brings something entirely new into this world. That peace, a subtle energy vibration, is consciousness.

It’s absolutely normal that different human beings want to go different ways.

Vulnerability is about showing up and being seen. It’s tough to do that when we’re terrified about what people might see or think.

All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.

I was a Marine for 41 years, and it wasn’t long enough. We enjoy putting on that uniform.

I’m not somebody that thinks about destiny and fate, but I don’t walk away from it when something unfolds.

There are two things a person should never be angry at, what they can help, and what they cannot.

We do not judge the people we love.

I’m never going to be fast, and nobody will ever mistake me for being fast.

You can’t move so fast that you try to change the mores faster than people can accept it. That doesn’t mean you do nothing, but it means that you do the things that need to be done according to priority.

Show me a poorly uniformed troop and I’ll show you a poorly uniformed leader.

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

If I make music and people hate it, you know, whatever. I’ll die someday, and one day, they will too.

Reality has a way of intruding. Reality eventually intrudes on everything.

Things that I felt absolutely sure of but a few years ago, I do not believe now. This thought makes me see more clearly how foolish it would be to expect all men to agree with me.

Adapt yourself to the things among which your lot has been cast and love sincerely the fellow creatures with whom destiny has ordained that you shall live.

The outer passes away; the innermost is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer’s no. That’s not America. Is there something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim American kid believing that he or she could be president?

I remember straightening my hair because I wanted to be like everybody else, and now the fact that anybody would emulate what I do? It’s just funny.

Nothing is more intolerable than to have to admit to yourself your own errors.

When it’s your time, it is your time.

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.