Follow that will and that way which experience confirms to be your own.

I discovered me in the library. I went to find me in the library.

I have always been regretting that I was not as wise as the day I was born.

It was my delusion and naivety that brought me here.

You can never really live anyone else’s life, not even your child’s. The influence you exert is through your own life, and what you’ve become yourself.

What a terrible thing to have lost one’s mind. Or not to have a mind at all. How true that is.

The line between failure and success is so fine that we scarcely know when we pass it: so fine that we are often on the line and do not know it.

I go to all these photo shoots, and each time I figure out something new about myself and what I want to wear.

The difference between average people and achieving people is their perception of and response to failure.

No person is important enough to make me angry.

You lose your individuality a huge amount when you have no money, and I certainly had that experience.

You cannot see the changes that you’re dreaming about, because they’re internal.

Let us not forget who we are. Drug abuse is a repudiation of everything America is.

Before you try to keep up with the Joneses, be sure they’re not trying to keep up with you.

Those who know me know I’m passionate about lists, and top of my list of priorities is my family. My wife Joan and I do not consider our legacy to our children to be wealth or fame but the opportunity to pursue happiness by following their own path.

It is the peculiar quality of a fool to perceive the faults of others and to forget his own.

These are the soul’s changes. I don’t believe in ageing. I believe in forever altering one’s aspect to the sun. Hence my optimism.

I made a commitment to completely cut out drinking and anything that might hamper me from getting my mind and body together. And the floodgates of goodness have opened upon me – spiritually and financially.

There are no constraints on the human mind, no walls around the human spirit, no barriers to our progress except those we ourselves erect.

The essential lesson I’ve learned in life is to just be yourself. Treasure the magnificent being that you are and recognize first and foremost you’re not here as a human being only. You’re a spiritual being having a human experience.

And finally I twist my heart round again, so that the bad is on the outside and the good is on the inside, and keep on trying to find a way of becoming what I would so like to be, and could be, if there weren’t any other people living in the world.

The questions which one asks oneself begin, at least, to illuminate the world, and become one’s key to the experience of others.

Could the young but realize how soon they will become mere walking bundles of habits, they would give more heed to their conduct while in the plastic state.

Through my films I’m eventually trying to one day tell the truth. I don’t know if I’m ever going to get there, but I’m slowly letting pieces of myself out there and then maybe by the time I’m 85, I’ll look back and say, ‚All right, that about sums it up.‘

You have to just make the choices you make in life. I made the choices I made because I believed they were right for me.

It is a great piece of folly to attempt to make anything out of my early life.

Every man has his own courage, and is betrayed because he seeks in himself the courage of other persons.

To deal with individual human needs at the everyday level can be noble sometimes.

No face which we can give to a matter will stead us so well at last as the truth. This alone wears well.

It is not love that should be depicted as blind, but self-love.

Some like to think that a keen appreciation of art can actually make us better people – more just, more moral, more sensitive, more understanding. Perhaps that is true – in certain rare, isolated cases.

There are two things a person should never be angry at, what they can help, and what they cannot.

I’m very proud to be black, but black is not all I am. That’s my cultural historical background, my genetic makeup, but it’s not all of who I am nor is it the basis from which I answer every question.

It’s stasis that kills you off in the end, not ambition.

I am not the humblest person in the world. I admit that.

What I want for my fans and for the world, for anyone who feels pain, is to lean into that pain and embrace it as much as they can and begin the healing process.

Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing. And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb. And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.

When you’re young, you keep reading new writers and you keep changing your mind about how you ought to sound.

Even as you make progress, you need the discipline to keep from backtracking and sabotaging the success as it’s happening.

No man is hurt but by himself.

Once you say you’re going to settle for second, that’s what happens to you in life.

If it’s going to come out eventually, better have it come out immediately.

None but ourselves can free our minds.

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

Loving someone liberates the lover as well as the beloved. And that kind of love comes with age.

By seeing London, I have seen as much of life as the world can show.

Success is not to be pursued; it is to be attracted by the person you become.

I am who I am. That’s why my friends and peers respect and appreciate me. I don’t change or cater my actions to fit my surroundings. I’m myself 24/7. People appreciate that.

Absolutely not. I have no problem with commitment. In fact, I love having someone in my life.

A lot of people tell me a lot of things about my conduct, my game, my future… but I try to stay away from their words of wisdom. I don’t let it distract me. On the field, you will be facing the ball alone. If you fail, you will the only one to blame. So, you should be the one deciding for yourself.

I know that I always wanted things. I was always proud of my people, proud of my home, but I always wanted more. I think most people do.

Who had deceived thee so often as thyself?

It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.

Me, as a person, I grow. I’m like a chameleon. You know? That is a gift and a curse for me. But more so a gift, because it never puts me in a box.

Nature that framed us of four elements, warring within our breasts for regiment, doth teach us all to have aspiring minds.

Fear is not a lasting teacher of duty.

I feel like people can relate to me because we all go through wins and roadblocks and passion and pain, and it’s a vibe.

You can’t have it all, all at once. Who – man or woman – has it all, all at once? Over my lifespan, I think I have had it all. But in different periods of time, things were rough. And if you have a caring life partner, you help the other person when that person needs it.

Don’t be afraid to see what you see.

Either you think, or else others have to think for you and take power from you, pervert and discipline your natural tastes, civilize and sterilize you.

I’m super self-critical, which I think is good, because then I get exactly what I want. I’m critical of other people, too – I try not to be, though.