I want it said of me by those who knew me best, that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow.

If I feel good about my parenting, I have no interest in judging other people’s choices. If I feel good about my body, I don’t go around making fun of other people’s weight or appearance. We’re hard on each other because we’re using each other as a launching pad out of our own perceived deficiency.

If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same.

Let us always meet each other with smile, for the smile is the beginning of love.

My life is my argument.

Before I can live with other folks I’ve got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.

There’s not a note of mine that’s worth the noting.

We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.

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.

In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.

For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?

I wish they would only take me as I am.

I’m not a natural born performer.

I always try to be myself. Ever since I was an introverted kid, I’d get on stage and be able to break out of my shell.

Don’t just read the easy stuff. You may be entertained by it, but you will never grow from it.

When we’re looking for compassion, we need someone who is deeply rooted, is able to bend and, most of all, embraces us for our strengths and struggles.

Prejudice is a chain, it can hold you. If you prejudice, you can’t move, you keep prejudice for years. Never get nowhere with that.

We are all of us stars, and we deserve to twinkle.

There is a great deal of unmapped country within us which would have to be taken into account in an explanation of our gusts and storms.

Before finding music, I didn’t have too many aspirations. I wanted to hang out, make a little money from whatever I had to do.

No one is useless in this world who lightens the burden of it to anyone else.

I’m going to use all my tools, my God-given ability, and make the best life I can with it.

Sometimes I feel like being an intellectual. Sometimes I like to just be aggressive and all the way in my feelings. Sometimes I might be emotional, or sometimes I might drag on the track and be lazy. I just like to share the different states of existence of Kevin Gates with the rest of the world.

If a man does his best, what else is there?

We may define therapy as a search for value.

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.

Everyone is different. Everyone has different teams they’ve played on, coaches they’ve played for.

Work harder on yourself than you do on your job.

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it.

To hell with circumstances; I create opportunities.

All my life I’ve been taught how to die, but no one ever taught me how to grow old.

No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path.

My lectures, based on Islamic teachings, were on various subjects. Some of the titles were, ‚The Intoxication of Life,‘ ‚The Purpose of Life,‘ ‚The Real Cause of Man’s Distress,‘ ‚The Journey to the Goal in Life,‘ and, one of my favorites, ‚The Heart of Man.‘ They contained important insights that spoke to something deep inside me.

If you always put limit on everything you do, physical or anything else. It will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them.

Something I’ve realized lately, to my shock, is that I am an optimist, in that I think humans are almost infinitely capable of self-change and self-modification, and that we really can build the future that we want if we’re smart about it.

In a real dark night of the soul, it is always three o’clock in the morning, day after day.

To me, a leader is someone who holds her- or himself accountable for finding potential in people and processes. And so what I think is really important is sustainability.

I just have always felt that people don’t change, circumstances change.

People suffer because they are caught in their views. As soon as we release those views, we are free and we don’t suffer anymore.

I believe that God’s dream is that we be successful in our careers, and that we be able to send our kids to college. I don’t mean that everyone is going to be rich, and I preach a lot on blooming where you’re planted. But I don’t have the mindset that money is a bad thing.

As far as men go, it is not what they are that interests me, but what they can become.

A lot of times, people feel that if they forgive the person who hurt them, then they will continue to take advantage of them or not take responsibility for what they did wrong.

Remorse sleeps during prosperity but awakes bitter consciousness during adversity.

There’s room for role models who make mistakes.

The fact is that since you’re a divine creation who originated in the world of Spirit, you have exactly the right amount of smarts to accomplish all that you need and want to do while you’re here on earth. It’s all perfect… and so are you!

If all you’re doing is grinding for the man, it’s going to burden you. Once you say, ‚Hey, I’m grinding for the man, but I’m putting money away, and this is part of my exit strategy,‘ you’re working for you.

Trials teach us what we are; they dig up the soil, and let us see what we are made of.

And above all things, never think that you’re not good enough yourself. A man should never think that. My belief is that in life people will take you at your own reckoning.

When you are content to be simply yourself and don’t compare or compete, everybody will respect you.

I’m only as good as my last word, my last hook, my last bridge.

I’ve had a few semi-toxic relationships, but it’s not what I look for when I’m seeing someone.

Learn to say ‚no‘ to the good so you can say ‚yes‘ to the best.

All wrong-doing arises because of mind. If mind is transformed can wrong-doing remain?

The only thing that relaxes me is archery. That’s why I have to have apartments with gardens.

My mother told me, ‚Son, nobody else but God knows.‘ And that’s what I’m about – reaching out to the people, crying with them, giving them hope. Visiting the hospital, visiting the kids with cancer, visiting the adults, and stuff like that. That’s what I do.

Don’t worry when you are not recognized, but strive to be worthy of recognition.

Adventuring can be for the ordinary person with ordinary qualities, such as I regard myself.

Hell is yourself and the only redemption is when a person puts himself aside to feel deeply for another person.

We do not need to proselytise either by our speech or by our writing. We can only do so really with our lives. Let our lives be open books for all to study.

I tended to place my wife under a pedestal.

I’m no genius.