A lot of people ask me, ‚How did you have the courage to walk up to record labels when you were 12 or 13 and jump right into the music industry?‘ It’s because I knew I could never feel the kind of rejection that I felt in middle school. Because in the music industry, if they’re gonna say no to you, at least they’re gonna be polite about it.

Being shoved into the top-40 scene was an unusual experience. It was great I’d become accessible to a huge audience but not terribly fulfilling.

I guess I have a little bit of an ego. I’m confidently cocky, you might say.

The only thing I know is I ain’t changing my brand. I know what I believe. I’m confident in what I know. And I’m gonna say it. And if folks like it, wonderful. If they don’t like it, I understand.

I remember auditioning for record labels and having them tell me, ‚Well, the country-radio demographic is the thirty-five-year-old female housewife. Give us a song that relates to the thirty-five-year-old female, and we’ll talk.‘

I always knew I was going to be rich. I don’t think I ever doubted it for a minute.

I have nothing to declare except my genius.

The valiant never taste of death but once.

Rock stars are good at making noise.

Because of a great love, one is courageous.

If you are surrounded by your competition and you are outworking these people, outmaneuvering these people, it’s hard not to let your confidence take over. It just builds and builds and builds.

Falsehood is cowardice, the truth courage.

A great part of courage is the courage of having done the thing before.

Wisdom, compassion, and courage are the three universally recognized moral qualities of men.

It takes a lot of courage to show your dreams to someone else.

If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.

Courage – you develop courage by doing small things like just as if you wouldn’t want to pick up a 100-pound weight without preparing yourself.

Strangely, some songs you really don’t want to write.

I’m not offended by all the dumb blonde jokes because I know I’m not dumb… and I also know that I’m not blonde.

With pop music, the format dictates the form to a big degree. Just think of the pop single. It has endured as a form even in the download age because bands conform to a strict format, and work, often very productively, within the parameters.

‚Royal Beatings‘ was my first story, and it was published in 1977. But I sent all my early stories to ‚The New Yorker‘ in the 1950s, and then I stopped sending for a long time and sent only to magazines in Canada. ‚The New Yorker‘ sent me nice notes, though – penciled, informal messages. They never signed them. They weren’t terribly encouraging.

Courage that grows from constitution often forsakes a man when he has occasion for it; courage which arises from a sense of duty acts; in a uniform manner.

We all gonna die eventually from something or other, but don’t be a wimp. Put up a good fight.

Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful.

We was able to become real successful in the mixtape space.

I have as much authority as the Pope, I just don’t have as many people who believe it.

Confidence is that feeling by which the mind embarks in great and honorable courses with a sure hope and trust in itself.

Now, we are selling over 5 million songs a day now. Isn’t that unbelievable? That’s 58 songs every second of every minute of every hour of every day.

People who have given us their complete confidence believe that they have a right to ours. The inference is false, a gift confers no rights.

I don’t see that my majority opinions are going to be undone.

It requires more courage to suffer than to die.

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

Trust your instinct to the end, though you can render no reason.

I’ve copyrighted 3,000 songs.

I was bold in the pursuit of knowledge, never fearing to follow truth and reason to whatever results they led, and bearding every authority which stood in their way.

Every time I get in the McLaren I feel more comfortable, my confidence increases and I feel more at home with the team.

The first test of a truly great man is his humility. By humility I don’t mean doubt of his powers or hesitation in speaking his opinion, but merely an understanding of the relationship of what he can say and what he can do.

When we tackle obstacles, we find hidden reserves of courage and resilience we did not know we had. And it is only when we are faced with failure do we realise that these resources were always there within us. We only need to find them and move on with our lives.

You will find as you grow older that courage is the rarest of all qualities to be found in public life.

Courageous people do not fear forgiving, for the sake of peace.

Immense power is acquired by assuring yourself in your secret reveries that you were born to control affairs.

In 2013, the week before I dropped ‚Crenshaw,‘ ‚Complex‘ wrote an article that said that Nipsey Hussle is one of the top 25 underperforming artists. I was so offended that I responded with my own opinion about these journalists – their point of view is not validated in our culture.

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.

I wanted to sell a million records, and I sold a million records. I wanted to go platinum; I went platinum. I’ve been working nonstop since I was 15. I don’t even know how to chill out.

I grew up around lots of men – my father, my brothers, my uncles – so I wasn’t intimidated by them.

I have seen how the foundations of the world are laid, and I have not the least doubt that it will stand a good while.

Who wants to leave the door open to being dominated physically by another human being? Jiu Jitsu gives you the ability to not be dominated by that person, and to me, that’s real peace of mind. I don’t have to worry about that when I’m walking around in the world.

Super-envious of the fact that Daft Punk can wear robot helmets and be one of the most famous bands in the world, while also understanding that will never be my situation.

Do the thing you fear to do and keep on doing it… that is the quickest and surest way ever yet discovered to conquer fear.

Fear of death makes us devoid both of valour and religion. For want of valour is want of religious faith.

I think Ye is important to hip-hop.

There is a lot of pressure put on me, but I don’t put a lot of pressure on myself. I feel if I play my game, it will take care of itself.

Courage is the most important of all the virtues, because without courage you can’t practice any other virtue consistently. You can practice any virtue erratically, but nothing consistently without courage.

A coward is much more exposed to quarrels than a man of spirit.

I’ve used my femininity and my sexuality as a weapon and a tool… but that’s just natural.

My mom and I have always been really close. She’s always been the friend that was always there. There were times when, in middle school and junior high, I didn’t have a lot of friends. But my mom was always my friend. Always.

Courage is a kind of salvation.

But by reading them again and again finally I was able to grasp the essential part. What emotion, enthusiasm, enlightenment and confidence they communicated to me! I wept for joy.

I’d rather give my life than be afraid to give it.

I’m not the sort to back away from a fight. I don’t believe in shrinking from anything. It’s not my speed; I’m a guy who meets adversities head on.

My mom, she was a very, very soft woman. It was hard for her to yell or even curse. But when it came to fighting for her kids, she found a strength she didn’t always know she had.