Great thoughts speak only to the thoughtful mind, but great actions speak to all mankind.

When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.

The idea that to make a man work you’ve got to hold gold in front of his eyes is a growth, not an axiom. We’ve done that for so long that we’ve forgotten there’s any other way.

Before I do anything, I think, well what hasn’t been seen. Sometimes, that turns out to be something ghastly and not fit for society. And sometimes that inspiration becomes something that’s really worthwhile.

I don’t think I’m an unlucky person.

It was patriotism, not communism, that inspired me.

When I was 8 years old I became a mute and was a mute until I was 13, and I thought of my whole body as an ear, so I can go into a crowd and sit still and absorb all sound. That talent or ability has lasted and served me until today.

Husbands never become good; they merely become proficient.

Unless you are breaking stuff, you are not moving fast enough.

I want to be a man who is truthful and who won’t let pride get in the way of my ripping myself open to my partner and saying, ‚Here I am. This is me.‘ I feel there’s something powerful when a man reaches a point in his life when he can be completely vulnerable.

A warrior is not a person that carries a gun. The biggest war you ever go through is right between your own ears. It’s in your mind. We’re all going through a war in our mind, and we have to callus our mind to fight that war and to win that war.

Knowledge is power.

The more nobly a man wills and acts, the more avid he becomes for great and sublime aims to pursue. He will no longer be content with family, country, and the remunerative aspect of his work. He will want wider organisations to create, new paths to blaze, causes to uphold, truths to discover, an ideal to cherish and defend.

I always tell young girls, surround yourself with goodness. I learned early on how to get the haters out of my life.

Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try!

Failed plans should not be interpreted as a failed vision. Visions don’t change, they are only refined. Plans rarely stay the same, and are scrapped or adjusted as needed. Be stubborn about the vision, but flexible with your plan.

It’s amazing: I am a New Yorker. It’s strange; I never thought I would be.

There are a lot of people who don’t know me and what I am all about.

I’m not trying to follow a set of rules and stuff. I’m just living my life.

Wise men make more opportunities than they find.

I am not the first Buddha who came upon Earth, nor shall I be the last. In due time, another Buddha will arise in the world – a Holy One, a supremely enlightened One, endowed with wisdom in conduct, auspicious, knowing the universe, an incomparable leader of men, a master of angels and mortals.

I came up from a difficult background.

If time be of all things the most precious, wasting time must be the greatest prodigality.

Just do what must be done. This may not be happiness, but it is greatness.

To know yet to think that one does not know is best; Not to know yet to think that one knows will lead to difficulty.

Boredom is just the reverse side of fascination: both depend on being outside rather than inside a situation, and one leads to the other.

To be great is to be misunderstood.

So confident am I in the intentions, as well as wisdom, of the government, that I shall always be satisfied that what is not done, either cannot, or ought not to be done.

It’s my old girl that advises. She has the head. But I never own to it before her. Discipline must be maintained.

Sometimes I write about my own life. And sometimes I write about situations I see my friends going through. Sometimes I write about a scene I saw in a movie. I take inspiration from all different places.

At 155, I will be the same animal, an even better animal.

If you are going to achieve excellence in big things, you develop the habit in little matters. Excellence is not an exception, it is a prevailing attitude.

I think when people make a record with a goal in mind – like taking it to the next level or making them seem more mature – that gets in the way of writing great songs.

There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered.

I don’t mind people hating me, because it pushes me.

Any hand that I’ve shaken, any person that I met when I was Joe Blow, now that I’m this guy Kevin Hart, has come back. That’s why I treat everybody with respect. I’m always a nice pleasant guy to meet because when they come back to you, they remember.

As long as a man stands in his own way, everything seems to be in his way.

The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.

I booked my first studio at like 12 or 13. Somewhere in that season of my life, singing along with the radio became me wanting to be on radio, you know. And writing Langston Hughes replica poems became me wanting to write like Stevie Wonder.

I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life.

Few women, I fear, have had such reason as I have to think the long sad years of youth were worth living for the sake of middle age.

For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged, by better information or fuller consideration, to change opinions, even on important subjects, which I once thought right but found to be otherwise.

You might win some, you might lose some. But you go in, you challenge yourself, you become a better man, a better individual, a better fighter.

But man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated.

I went through a period when I felt my film characters were having more fun than I was. It might partly explain why I ended up tattooed or doing certain extreme things in my life.

The experience of life consists of the experience which the spirit has of itself in matter and as matter, in mind and as mind, in emotion, as emotion, etc.

I once wanted to prove myself by being a great actress. Now I want to prove that I’m a person. Then maybe I’ll be a great actress.

If you wish to succeed in life, make perseverance your bosom friend, experience your wise counselor, caution your elder brother, and hope your guardian genius.

When we do the best that we can, we never know what miracle is wrought in our life, or in the life of another.

What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal.

Each generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it.

When a man becomes a writer, I think he takes on a sacred obligation to produce beauty and enlightenment and comfort at top speed.

When I am writing, I do not distinguish between the natural and supernatural. Everything seems real. That is my world, you could say.

You get one life. I’m going to embrace mine.

Inside of every problem lies an opportunity.

I don’t focus on the critics. Everyone who is making any difference in any field has critics. As long as I feel like I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing, then I don’t worry about it.

It’s so easy to settle for less than God’s best for us because we don’t always feel like taking responsibility for our behavior or putting forth some effort to do what we need to do so we can accomplish great things for God and help people. But the cost of settling for less is actually harder than being completely obedient to God’s will.

I’ve been called a moron since I was about four. My father called me a moron. My grandfather said I was a moron. And a lot of times when I’m driving, I hear I’m a moron. I like being a moron.

I like criticism. It makes you strong.

Music is the wine which inspires one to new generative processes, and I am Bacchus who presses out this glorious wine for mankind and makes them spiritually drunken.

I had a good time boxing. I enjoyed it – and I may come back.