Blessed are the hearts that can bend; they shall never be broken.

Black people in America, people from the struggle, immigrants, it’s no generational wealth that we are attached to, so we are tasked to create – in one generation – closing the gap. That’s why we so Doomsday about getting to the check: ‚cause it’s life or death for real.

If your determination is fixed, I do not counsel you to despair. Few things are impossible to diligence and skill. Great works are performed not by strength, but perseverance.

Her body calculated to a millimeter to suggest a bud yet guarantee a flower.

I’ve never thought about any kind of prejudice about women in country music because I never felt like it affected me. I was fortunate enough to come about in a time when I didn’t feel that kind of energy at all, and it was always my theory that if you want to play in the same ballgame as the boys, you’ve got to work as hard as them.

Do something everyday for no other reason than you would rather not do it, so that when the hour of dire need draws nigh, it may find you not unnerved and untrained to stand the test.

In crises the most daring course is often safest.

Where there is love there is life.

We may stumble and fall but shall rise again; it should be enough if we did not run away from the battle.

False face must hide what the false heart doth know.

Failure at some point in your life is inevitable, but giving up is unforgivable.

Remember, if you ever need a helping hand, it’s at the end of your arm, as you get older, remember you have another hand: The first is to help yourself, the second is to help others.

I am impelled, not to squeak like a grateful and apologetic mouse, but to roar like a lion out of pride in my profession.

In spite of everything I shall rise again: I will take up my pencil, which I have forsaken in my great discouragement, and I will go on with my drawing.

Life isn’t meant to be easy. It’s hard to take being on the top – or on the bottom. I guess I’m something of a fatalist. You have to have a sense of history, I think, to survive some of these things… Life is one crisis after another.

A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving.

Who could refrain that had a heart to love and in that heart courage to make love known?

There’s many ups and downs in the fight game.

We are Divine enough to ask and we are important enough to receive.

Only the educated are free.

God helps those who help themselves.

You must be the change you wish to see in the world.

Whilst shame keeps its watch, virtue is not wholly extinguished in the heart; nor will moderation be utterly exiled from the minds of tyrants.

I can’t believe that God put us on this earth to be ordinary.

The highest reward that God gives us for good work is the ability to do better work.

I am above the weakness of seeking to establish a sequence of cause and effect, between the disaster and the atrocity.

The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing.

There is a road from the eye to heart that does not go through the intellect.

Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat.

‚9 to 5,‘ that little song, that little story, just won’t ever end. Just like ‚I Will Always Love You,‘ it just keeps comin‘ back, popping up its head in one way or another.

My mother raised me with God. We were poor financially, but we were rich spiritually.

I approach love differently now that I know it’s hard for it to work out.

Men often take their imagination for their heart; and they believe they are converted as soon as they think of being converted.

We know the truth, not only by the reason, but also by the heart.

Tears come from the heart and not from the brain.

A woman’s heart must be of such a size and no larger, else it must be pressed small, like Chinese feet; her happiness is to be made as cakes are, by a fixed recipe.

My attitude has always been, if you fall flat on your face, at least you’re moving forward. All you have to do is get back up and try again.

The path we have chosen for the present is full of hazards, as all paths are. The cost of freedom is always high, but Americans have always paid it. And one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of surrender, or submission.

Why is it so hard for people to believe that white people are poor?! I wouldn’t say I lived in a ghetto; I’d say I lived in the ‚hood. The same friends I had back then are the same people on tour with me now.

Through every victory and every setback, I’ve insisted that change is never easy and never quick; that we wouldn’t meet all of our challenges in one term, or one presidency, or even in one lifetime.

Our heart glows, and secret unrest gnaws at the root of our being. Dealing with the unconscious has become a question of life for us.

As an athlete, you’d better laugh at yourself when you slip in the mud.

If patience is worth anything, it must endure to the end of time. And a living faith will last in the midst of the blackest storm.

Everything you are against weakens you. Everything you are for empowers you.

Exercise is labor without weariness.

Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve.

If it’s stress of things that we cannot control, what you have to do is you mitigate that stress as much as possible. You’ve planned, you’ve trained, you’ve done everything you can in your power to mitigate the stress that’s facing you. And then after that, there’s nothing you can do. So, you have to let that one go.

A cat is only itself, representative of the strong forces of life that won’t let go.

I think a big test we all face in life on a regular basis is that discouragement test. Life’s not always fair, but I believe if you keep doing the right thing, God will get you to where you are.

I am a tough guy.

Remember that life’s big changes rarely give advance warning.

We should be too big to take offense and too noble to give it.

I read everything, but generally more fact than fiction – especially autobiographies and biographies. I’ve read ‚Long Walk to Freedom‘ by Nelson Mandela at least twice on holiday. Every time, I’m totally awed by his vision, strength and forgiveness. I feel honoured to have got to know him and his wonderful wife Graca over the years.

The cut of a garment speaks of intellect and talent and the color of temperament and heart.

I don’t lose any sleep at night over the potential for failure. I cannot even spell the word.

A good leader can engage in a debate frankly and thoroughly, knowing that at the end he and the other side must be closer, and thus emerge stronger. You don’t have that idea when you are arrogant, superficial, and uninformed.

A Scout smiles and whistles under all circumstances.

Look at a book. A book is the right size to be a book. They’re solar-powered. If you drop them, they keep on being a book. You can find your place in microseconds. Books are really good at being books, and no matter what happens, books will survive.

I’m trying to show everybody that I’m a girl, and I’m five foot four, and you can do anything you want, no matter your gender. It’s your world, too!

Most of us have far more courage than we ever dreamed we possessed.

‚Mean‘ is a song I wrote about somebody who wrote things that were so mean so many times that it would ruin my day. Then it would ruin the next day. And it would level me so many times, I just felt like I was being hit in the face every time this person would take to their computer.