I no have education. I have inspiration. If I was educated, I would be a damn fool.

Mine is better than ours.

Your success and happiness lies in you. Resolve to keep happy, and your joy and you shall form an invincible host against difficulties.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology accepts blacks in the top ten percent of students, but at MIT this puts them in the bottom ten percent of the class.

If you deserve it, go get it.

Modern education has devoted itself to the teaching of impudence, and then we complain that we can no longer control our mobs.

I became interested in folk music because I had to make it somehow.

The bird is powered by its own life and by its motivation.

It was very lucky for me as a writer that I studied the physical sciences rather than English. I wrote for my own amusement. There was no kindly English professor to tell me for my own good how awful my writing really was. And there was no professor with the power to order me what to read, either.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made straight and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.

How very little can be done under the spirit of fear.

I was brought up to try to see what was wrong and right it. Since I am a writer, writing is how I right it.

True art is characterized by an irresistible urge in the creative artist.

The ability to deal with people is as purchasable a commodity as sugar or coffee and I will pay more for that ability than for any other under the sun.

If some years were added to my life, I would give fifty to the study of the Yi, and then I might come to be without great faults.

Bad times have a scientific value. These are occasions a good learner would not miss.

The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education.

A well adjusted person is one who makes the same mistake twice without getting nervous.

Mastery, I learned, was not something genetic, or for a lucky few. It is something we can all attain if get rid of some misconceptions and gain clarity as to the required path.

When people do not respect us we are sharply offended; yet in his private heart no man much respects himself.

Ethics is in origin the art of recommending to others the sacrifices required for cooperation with oneself.

If we help an educated man’s daughter to go to Cambridge are we not forcing her to think not about education but about war? – not how she can learn, but how she can fight in order that she might win the same advantages as her brothers?

Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.

Each life is made up of mistakes and learning, waiting and growing, practicing patience and being persistent.

Most ignorance is vincible ignorance. We don’t know because we don’t want to know.

Man is only great when he acts from passion.

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

As we advance in life we learn the limits of our abilities.

Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens.

No great genius has ever existed without some touch of madness.

Life is a lively process of becoming.

A rooster crows only when it sees the light. Put him in the dark and he’ll never crow. I have seen the light and I’m crowing.

Everyone who wills can hear the inner voice. It is within everyone.

Teamwork is so important that it is virtually impossible for you to reach the heights of your capabilities or make the money that you want without becoming very good at it.

I grew up cursing a lot.

Nothing builds self-esteem and self-confidence like accomplishment.

The need to be right is the sign of a vulgar mind.

To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child.

We need to internalize this idea of excellence. Not many folks spend a lot of time trying to be excellent.

Weak character will neutralize all of the other possible good qualities a person might possess.

I’m not the same man I used to be, I’m not out hell-raising, stuff like that. I am a changed man.

I am sure as everyone knows that I am not the happiest if I don’t do a good job in qualifying or the race.

Any book that helps a child to form a habit of reading, to make reading one of his deep and continuing needs, is good for him.

I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies; for the hardest victory is over self.

It is one of the beautiful compensations in this life that no one can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.

All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost; the old that is strong does not wither, deep roots are not reached by the frost.

What? You seek something? You wish to multiply yourself tenfold, a hundredfold? You seek followers? Seek zeros!

My kind of composing is more like the work of a gardener. The gardener takes his seeds and scatters them, knowing what he is planting but not quite what will grow where and when – and he won’t necessarily be able to reproduce it again afterwards either.

It is a most mortifying reflection for a man to consider what he has done, compared to what he might have done.

I think it’s very important to have a feedback loop, where you’re constantly thinking about what you’ve done and how you could be doing it better. I think that’s the single best piece of advice: constantly think about how you could be doing things better and questioning yourself.

Changing your mind is probably one of the most beautiful things people can do. And I’ve changed my mind about a lot of things over the years.

If your inner life is not producing what you would like on the outside, don’t be discouraged… just be willing to change.

And the idea of just wandering off to a cafe with a notebook and writing and seeing where that takes me for awhile is just bliss.

Reflect upon your present blessings of which every man has many – not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.

If I’m inspired to make a certain kind of song, I’m going to make that kind of song, no matter if it’s what they know me as or think I am.

I just think it’s so important not to take yourself too seriously.

Purity of personal life is the one indispensable condition for building up a sound education.

We were poor. But my mom never accepted that. She worked hard to become a residential contractor – got her master’s with honors at the University of New Orleans. I used to go to every class with her. Her father was my paternal figure.

Thinking is a wonderful tool if it’s applied. Thinking, however, can not become the master. Thinking is a very bad master. If you’re dominated by thinking then your life becomes very restricted.

I’m honored that everybody’s inspired off my inspiration.

He who gives away shall have real gain. He who subdues himself shall be free; he shall cease to be a slave of passions. The righteous man casts off evil, and by rooting out lust, bitterness, and illusion do we reach Nirvana.