Masterpieces are not single and solitary births; they are the outcome of many years of thinking in common, of thinking by the body of the people, so that the experience of the mass is behind the single voice.

I have always believed in evolving a consensus before taking any major decision.

Aim for the sky and you’ll reach the ceiling. Aim for the ceiling and you’ll stay on the floor.

As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.

Whenever I make music, it reflects where I’m at mentally.

You may be able to read Bernard Shaw’s plays, you may be able to quote Shakespeare or Voltaire or some new philosopher; but if you in yourself are not intelligent, if you are not creative, what is the point of this education?

When I ask OGs why there’s so much division in the streets, nobody never really knows. But you know one thing that everybody always mention? A woman.

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

Most people already know what they’re doing wrong. When I get them to church I want to tell them that you can change.

My mother was always fascinated with the fact that I could rhyme so much stuff.

It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.

Great nations write their autobiographies in three manuscripts – the book of their deeds, the book of their words and the book of their art.

I’ve been pleased to work with so many wonderful stars through the years. This has been an amazing journey. I hope it continues.

Corruption is a cancer: a cancer that eats away at a citizen’s faith in democracy, diminishes the instinct for innovation and creativity; already-tight national budgets, crowding out important national investments. It wastes the talent of entire generations. It scares away investments and jobs.

All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril. Those who read the symbol do so at their peril. It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors. Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex and vital.

Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God.

No grand idea was ever born in a conference, but a lot of foolish ideas have died there.

One science only will one genius fit; so vast is art, so narrow human wit.

We are not here to curse the darkness, but to light the candle that can guide us thru that darkness to a safe and sane future.

I’m just a kid that defied the odds. I’m just a kid that ignored the doubt. I’m just a kid from a little place in Dublin, Ireland, that went all the way, and I’m going to continue to go all the way.

I just have a thing in my brain that when I’m about to do something that’s genuine or authentic, I think of it in song form. I’ll be like, ‚Yo, this is a human emotion that no one talks about.‘

You sort of start thinking anything’s possible if you’ve got enough nerve.

All my pictures are built around the idea of getting in trouble and so giving me the chance to be desperately serious in my attempt to appear as a normal little gentleman.

There’s not some idea I’m going to create a work that’s going to change everybody’s consciousness.

Every relationship should eventually become a long-term relationship. Any director that I meet now isn’t just a director. He’s potentially a friend, and someone I can call to do a project that I want or that I have.

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

I have to write because if I don’t get something down then after a while I feel it’s going to bang the side of my head off.

Tones sound, and roar and storm about me until I have set them down in notes.

Both free speech rights and property rights belong legally to individuals, but their real function is social, to benefit vast numbers of people who do not themselves exercise these rights.

I think kids are natural actors. You watch most kids; if they don’t have a toy, they’ll pick up a stick and make a toy out of it. Kids will daydream all the time.

It would be great to be 105 and still making films.

It’s kind of exhilarating, walking through a crazy, insane mob. The most miraculous process is watching a song go from a tiny idea in the middle of the night to something that 55,000 people are singing back to you.

In all seriousness, people think that it’s the ideas that are important. Well, everyone has ideas, all the time. I tend to write mine down and remember them, but at some point you have to apply the bum to the seat and knock out about sixty five thousand words – that’s how long a novel is.

Science is the captain, and practice the soldiers.

There’s no formula.

I feel, as a songwriter, it’s one of the hardest things to do – to sit down and say how you feel.

No one’s policing their own minds more than an author. You spend a lot of time in your own head analysing what you think about things, and a philosophy comes.

When you look at the light bulb above you, you remember Thomas Alva Edison. When the telephone bell rings, you remember Alexander Graham Bell. Marie Curie was the first woman to win the Nobel Prize. When you see the blue sky, you think of Sir C.V. Raman.

Music comes to me more readily than words.

The smallest seed of faith is better than the largest fruit of happiness.

The ideas I stand for are not mine. I borrowed them from Socrates. I swiped them from Chesterfield. I stole them from Jesus. And I put them in a book. If you don’t like their rules, whose would you use?

Maybe every city has a unique sensibility, but we don’t have names for what they are or haven’t identified them all. We can’t pinpoint exactly what makes each city’s people unique yet.

Admiration for a quality or an art can be so strong that it deters us from striving to possess it.

Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see a shadow.

Live to learn, and you will really learn to live.

Since I was old enough to understand what a songwriter/producer is, I’ve had a curiosity about how Max Martin creates what he creates. I wanted to see that happen. I wanted to be there. I wanted to learn from him.

My dear friend, clear your mind of cant.

Like music and art, love of nature is a common language that can transcend political or social boundaries.

I made the track ‚Si Tu Novio Te Deja Sola‘ before I met Balvin.

Let us be sure that those who come after will say of us in our time, that in our time we did everything that could be done. We finished the race; we kept them free; we kept the faith.

Being a hybrid maker off and on over the years, I’m very comfortable with the idea and have been the subject of quite a few pretty good mash-ups myself.

Sporadic thoughts will pop into my head and I’ll have to go write something down, and the next thing you know I’ve written a whole song in an hour.

Yet, it is true, poetry is delicious; the best prose is that which is most full of poetry.

In business or in life, don’t follow the wagon tracks too closely.

Religion is the masterpiece of the art of animal training, for it trains people as to how they shall think.

Those who create are rare; those who cannot are numerous. Therefore, the latter are stronger.

Bhai was my hero and he had immense influence on me.

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.

Man becomes his most creative during war.

The answer to many of the domestic problems we face is not higher taxes and more spending. It is less waste, more results and greater freedom for the individual American to earn a rightful place in his own community – and for States and localities to address their own needs in their own ways, in the light of their own priorities.

Hope is a waking dream.