Malcolm X was the first political person in this country that I really identified with. If he had lived and not been purged, I probably would have joined the Muslims.

Desperation is sometimes as powerful an inspirer as genius.

We have art in order not to die of the truth.

Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings.

All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking.

Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.

I learned from the guys before me – Bill Cosby, Eddie Murphy, Chris Rock, Richard Pryor, just to name a few. These are guys that let it all hang out. What they lived is what they took to the stage.

All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost; the old that is strong does not wither, deep roots are not reached by the frost.

You know, watching Dan Marino and Steve Young get nominated to the Hall of Fame… those guys are unbelievable and they did it for so long. I’d love to play like those guys, but there’s still a long way to go and a lot of growing.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made straight and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.

Men shrink less from offending one who inspires love than one who inspires fear.

I like to work with artists from around the world. There are so many new inspiring filmmakers.

Before I do anything, I think, well what hasn’t been seen. Sometimes, that turns out to be something ghastly and not fit for society. And sometimes that inspiration becomes something that’s really worthwhile.

Growing up I’ve watched Lewis and aspired to have some of his attributes, mainly his speed. His raw pace is probably the best of everyone on the whole grid, so there are bits you want from different drivers.

Men must live and create. Live to the point of tears.

All great deeds and all great thoughts have a ridiculous beginning. Great works are often born on a street corner or in a restaurant’s revolving door.

If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else.

Most of my songs have names of people I’ve met or are dear to me. There are people who have privacy issues and about people knowing about their private life. But for me, I like to include few special names and few details about them to make the song very special to me.

When I start to write, I don’t have any plan at all. I just wait for the story to come.

When a person is going through hell, and she encounters someone who went through hellish hell and survived, then she can say, ‚Mine is not so bad as all that. She came through, and so can I.‘

Almost everything that is great has been done by youth.

You see something, then it clicks with something else, and it will make a story. But you never know when it’s going to happen.

Everyone here has the sense that right now is one of those moments when we are influencing the future.

All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.

There have to be reasons that you get up in the morning and you want to live. Why do you want to live? What’s the point? What inspires you? What do you love about the future? If the future does not include being out there among the stars and being a multi-planet species, I find that incredibly depressing.

Courage is like love; it must have hope for nourishment.

Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once.

If you don’t know where you are going, every road will get you nowhere.

Susceptibility to the highest forces is the highest genius.

History shows that the majority of people that have done anything great have passed their youth in seclusion.

I want people to draw strength from me.

I didn’t have nothin‘ going for me… school, home… until I found something I loved, which was music, and that changed everything.

If you only believe that you’re an artist when you have a big advance in your pocket and a single coming out, I would say that’s quite soulless. You have to have a sense of your own greatness and your own ability from a very deep place inside you. I am the one with the litmus test in my hands of what people need to hear next.

I find a lot of inspiration through visuals. When I was 12, I saw Aurora’s ‚Runaway‘ music video. Something inside me clicked, like, ‚That is what I want to do, no matter whether it goes anywhere or not.‘

The greatest heroes are those who do their duty in the daily grind of domestic affairs whilst the world whirls as a maddening dreidel.

I draw from the crowd a lot.

At the touch of love everyone becomes a poet.

In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous.

Energy, like the biblical grain of the mustard-seed, will remove mountains.

Genius, when young, is divine.

Everybody born comes from the Creator trailing wisps of glory. We come from the Creator with creativity. I think that each one of us is born with creativity.

A lot of the stuff I do in terms of PR, I learned it from Muhammad Ali.

Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.

I got a greater purpose. God put something in my heart to get across, and that’s what I’m going to focus on, using my voice as an instrument and doing what needs to be done.

I always say I wanna work with Alicia Keys. I’m in awe of her.

My message, especially to young people is to have courage to think differently, courage to invent, to travel the unexplored path, courage to discover the impossible and to conquer the problems and succeed. These are great qualities that they must work towards. This is my message to the young people.

Ideas excite me, and as soon as I get excited, the adrenaline gets going and the next thing I know I’m borrowing energy from the ideas themselves.

A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history.

When I started Virgin from a basement in west London, there was no great plan or strategy. I didn’t set out to build a business empire… For me, building a business is all about doing something to be proud of, bringing talented people together and creating something that’s going to make a real difference to other people’s lives.

I’m honored that everybody’s inspired off my inspiration.

Once I’ve written something it does tend to run away from me. I don’t seem to have any part of it – it’s no longer my piece of writing.

In this constant battle which we call living, we try to set a code of conduct according to the society in which we are brought up, whether it be a Communist society or a so-called free society; we accept a standard of behaviour as part of our tradition as Hindus or Muslims or Christians or whatever we happen to be.

The task of the leader is to get his people from where they are to where they have not been.

Where love is, there God is also.

I don’t think of all the misery but of the beauty that still remains.

Let others lead small lives, but not you. Let others argue over small things, but not you. Let others cry over small hurts, but not you. Let others leave their future in someone else’s hands, but not you.

Where the mind goes, the man follows.

Every bit of me is devoted to love and art. And I aspire to try to be a teacher to my young fans who feel just like I felt when I was younger. I just felt like a freak. I guess what I’m trying to say is I’m trying to liberate them, I want to free them of their fears and make them feel that they can make their own space in the world.

Every secret of a writer’s soul, every experience of his life, every quality of his mind is written large in his works.

A #2 pencil and a dream can take you anywhere.

For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream.