Courage is contagious. When a brave man takes a stand, the spines of others are often stiffened.

During bad circumstances, which is the human inheritance, you must decide not to be reduced. You have your humanity, and you must not allow anything to reduce that. We are obliged to know we are global citizens. Disasters remind us we are world citizens, whether we like it or not.

I’m going to try to unite all Americans.

A good model of how to ‚work with the enemy‘ internally is presented by the Dalai Lama, in his endless caretaking of his soul as he confronts the Chinese government that invaded Tibet.

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

In my videos, I always want to be a powerful woman. That’s my mission.

There is nothing that makes its way more directly into the soul than beauty.

As this long and difficult war ends, I would like to address a few special words to the American people: Your steadfastness in supporting our insistence on peace with honor has made peace with honor possible.

Most people who ask for advice from others have already resolved to act as it pleases them.

A gender line… helps to keep women not on a pedestal, but in a cage.

Look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see, and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious.

The people will save their government, if the government itself will allow them.

Independence is a heady draught, and if you drink it in your youth, it can have the same effect on the brain as young wine does. It does not matter that its taste is not always appealing. It is addictive and with each drink you want more.

I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet.

All the president is, is a glorified public relations man who spends his time flattering, kissing, and kicking people to get them to do what they are supposed to do anyway.

Courage is fear holding on a minute longer.

He who despairs of the human condition is a coward, but he who has hope for it is a fool.

I continue to care for President Obama and for his family. I think that in many ways they are very courageous people, and I honor that, because I know what it means to live as a black person in a racist America.

God gave us the gift of life; it is up to us to give ourselves the gift of living well.

Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on offices, a rottenness begins in his conduct.

Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake.

Africa is a continent in flames. And deep down, if we really accepted that Africans were equal to us, we would all do more to put the fire out. We’re standing around with watering cans, when what we really need is the fire brigade.

Whether we’re Democrats, Republicans, or independents – it does not matter. We all understand that an attack on any one of us is an attack on all of us.

The 21st century is going to be the American century. Because we lead not only by the example of our power, but by the power of our example. That is the history of the journey of America.

I felt like, for so many years – and I still even feel it – as a girl, you can’t really expect to go on stage and dress like a boy and jump around and scream with the audience and mosh and stuff, and every time that happens, I feel really proud.

Most people dream a dream when they are asleep. But to be a writer, you have to dream while you are awake, intentionally. So I get up early in the morning, 4 o’clock, and I sit at my desk and what I do is just dream. After three or four hours, that’s enough. In the afternoon, I run. The next day, the dream will continue.

The presidency has made every man who occupied it, no matter how small, bigger than he was; and no matter how big, not big enough for its demands.

I’m very disappointed in Obama. I was very much in support of him in the beginning, but I cannot support war. I cannot support droning. I cannot support capitulating to the banks.

The eye of the master will do more work than both his hands.

One man cannot hold another man down in the ditch without remaining down in the ditch with him.

For most of my life I let women do the driving and was happy to let them.

If you can’t make it good, at least make it look good.

If you deserve it, go get it.

When I take action, I’m not going to fire a $2 million missile at a $10 empty tent and hit a camel in the butt. It’s going to be decisive.

My whole life and my whole career, even through my music, I tell people: let’s unify; let’s show more love.

The events of October 1962 are widely hailed as Kennedy’s finest hour.

I do love being in my studio. Especially at night.

Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another, but let him work diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built.

Show me someone who has done something worthwhile, and I’ll show you someone who has overcome adversity.

The valiant never taste of death but once.

Stuff your eyes with wonder, live as if you’d drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It’s more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories.

A leader who confines his role to his people’s experience dooms himself to stagnation; a leader who outstrips his people’s experience runs the risk of not being understood.

How can any man be weak who dares to be at all?

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

The authority you establish must emerge naturally from your character, from the particular strengths you possess.

I don’t think that much about my relationship with my mother and what it did to me. I sometimes feel terrible regret about her, what her life must have been like. Often, when I’m enjoying something, I think of how meager her rewards were and how much courage, in a way, she needed to go on living.

It usually helps me write by reading – somehow the reading gear in your head turns the writing gear.

Art’s everything we hope life would be, a lot of times.

Songwriting is my way of channeling my feelings and my thoughts. Not just mine, but the things I see, the people I care about. My head would explode if I didn’t get some of that stuff out.

Being a Puerto Rican artist, I support all kinds of projects that are developed on my beautiful island that in some way or another put our Puerto Rican flag up.

The story being told in ‚Star Wars‘ is a classic one. Every few hundred years, the story is retold because we have a tendency to do the same things over and over again. Power corrupts, and when you’re in charge, you start doing things that you think are right, but they’re actually not.

Don’t gain the world and lose your soul; wisdom is better than silver or gold.

I decided that it was not wisdom that enabled poets to write their poetry, but a kind of instinct or inspiration, such as you find in seers and prophets who deliver all their sublime messages without knowing in the least what they mean.

I don’t tell people, ‚You’re okay the way that you are.‘ That’s not the right story. The right story is, ‚You’re way less than you could be.‘

There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.

When you’re one of the leaders of the team, there are no days off.

In acting, you have to pull from real-life situations, from people, to help develop a character.

Snoop ain’t never cosigned me, but I know everybody is like, ‚That’s the next Snoop.‘ Nah, I’m Nipsey, and I got to work to define myself.

It is our duty as men and women to proceed as though the limits of our abilities do not exist.

I think a lot of people love to convolute what everyone else does in order to disempower women.

There is something about building up a comradeship – that I still believe is the greatest of all feats – and sharing in the dangers with your company of peers. It’s the intense effort, the giving of everything you’ve got. It’s really a very pleasant sensation.