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.

I hated to be treated as a child. I thought it was the worst situation.

College isn’t in everyone’s hearts. I am living proof, though, that school doesn’t mess up your plans. It gives you more experiences to write about.

Me not finishing school – in my head, I still have this insecurity when I’m talking to someone educated.

Control your own destiny! Control your own destiny!

It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of nonviolence to cover impotence.

I say what I want to say and do what I want to do. There’s no in between. People will either love you for it or hate you for it.

God has given you one face, and you make yourself another.

I’m very proud to be black, but black is not all I am. That’s my cultural historical background, my genetic makeup, but it’s not all of who I am nor is it the basis from which I answer every question.

When you are full of pride on the inside, it makes you stiff, stubborn, and creates strife with others.

I vividly remember a conversation I had many years ago in 1974, which marked a turning point in my leadership journey. I was sitting at a Holiday Inn with my friend, Kurt Campmeyer, when he asked me if I had a personal growth plan. I didn’t. In fact, I didn’t even know you were supposed to have one.

You’ll never get ahead of anyone as long as you try to get even with him.

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

I never expected to be anybody important.

If you are living out of a sense of obligation you are slave.

The happiest people in the world are those who feel absolutely terrific about themselves, and this is the natural outgrowth of accepting total responsibility for every part of their life.

I was brought up to believe that the worst thing you could do was ‚call attention to yourself,‘ or ‚think you were smart.‘ My mother was an exception to this rule and was punished by the early onset of Parkinson’s disease.

There’s certainly a side of me that isn’t completely… sane. Or completely ‚even‘ all the time. We all have our dark sides.

The proper study of Man is anything but Man; and the most improper job of any man, even saints (who at any rate were at least unwilling to take it on), is bossing other men. Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity.

We must be our own before we can be another’s.

I think that’s the single best piece of advice: constantly think about how you could be doing things better and questioning yourself.

Since many of you do not belong to the Catholic Church and others are non-believers, from the bottom of my heart I give this silent blessing to each and every one of you, respecting the conscience of each one of you but knowing that each one of you is a child of God.

How far you can go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without?

I don’t do research. I never have.

If you wish to achieve worthwhile things in your personal and career life, you must become a worthwhile person in your own self-development.

Don’t try to be like Jackie. There is only one Jackie. Study computers instead.

When I think over what I have said, I envy dumb people.

‚Victory‘ is like, you won, so the question is, what? What did you win? I think that the songs go into that. It’s just about reaching a place in myself.

To wear your heart on your sleeve isn’t a very good plan; you should wear it inside, where it functions best.

My father, who was jailed for stealing on more than one occasion, just abandoned his fatherly responsibilities and disappeared. I grew up working from the time I was nine years of age. Money was a big issue everywhere I lived.

God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another.

The stories are not autobiographical, but they’re personal in that way. I seem to know only the things that I’ve learned. Probably some things through observation, but what I feel I know surely is personal.

As for accomplishments, I just did what I had to do as things came along.

The essential lesson I’ve learned in life is to just be yourself. Treasure the magnificent being that you are and recognize first and foremost you’re not here as a human being only. You’re a spiritual being having a human experience.

You aren’t your work, your accomplishments, your possessions, your home, your family… your anything. You’re a creation of your Source, dressed in a physical human body intended to experience and enjoy life on Earth.

Healthy discontent is the prelude to progress.

I need to keep working on myself for a while.

If a person doesn’t change, there’s something really wrong with him.

Factoring in millions of people when I’m writing a song is not a good idea. I don’t ever do it.

I spend a lot of time balancing between faith and disbelief.

Our deeds determine us, as much as we determine our deeds.

When one’s expectations are reduced to zero, one really appreciates everything one does have.

Every mind must make its choice between truth and repose. It cannot have both.

My dad seemed comfortable with his decision to be a ‚have-not,‘ but I knew that I wasn’t.

A person who is truly authentic doesn’t need to play a role in life, we think, but can simply be him – or herself.

If there are people you haven’t forgiven, you’re not going to really awaken. You have to let go.

Resist the need to be ‚right‘ all the time or to always have the last word.

Never marry someone in hope that they’ll change later.

I have taken more out of alcohol than alcohol has taken out of me.

If some years were added to my life, I would give fifty to the study of the Yi, and then I might come to be without great faults.

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

The final forming of a person’s character lies in their own hands.

You will not be punished for your anger, you will be punished by your anger.

Day by day we should weigh what we have granted to the spirit of the world against what we have denied to the spirit of Jesus, in thought and especially in deed.

While you’re saving your face, you’re losing your ass.

Books are like a mirror. If an ass looks in, you can’t expect an angel to look out.

Most people treat the present moment as if it were an obstacle that they need to overcome. Since the present moment is life itself, it is an insane way to live.

I feel you’re in charge of your own situation.

I hope not to define myself by suffering.

Seeing myself on the screen makes me cringe. I understand that I am that way – pouty.

The person who goes farthest is generally the one who is willing to do and dare. The sure-thing boat never gets far from shore.