If we accept being talked to any kind of a way, then we are telling ourselves we are not quite worth the best. And if we have the effrontery to talk to anybody with less than courtesy, we tell ourselves and the world we are not very intelligent.

Military intelligence is a contradiction in terms.

Any man or institution that tries to rob me of my dignity will lose.

Never explain – your friends do not need it and your enemies will not believe you anyway.

Better understated than overstated. Let people be surprised that it was more than you promised and easier than you said.

Knowledge and human power are synonymous.

Who you are speaks so loudly I can’t hear what you’re saying.

How do leaders serve their people? They may pay good wages and treat employees with respect.

A friend of mine tells that I talk in shorthand and then smudge it.

When we launched a new company, I reviewed the ads and marketing materials and asked those presenting the campaign to read everything aloud to test the phrasing and concept. If I could grasp it quickly, then it passed with muster. We would get our message across only if it was understandable at first glance.

God didn’t make a mistake when He made you. You need to see yourself as God sees you.

Sometimes cameras and television are good to people and sometimes they aren’t. I don’t know if its the way you say it, or how you look.

Pride is pleasure arising from a man’s thinking too highly of himself.

With all due respect, I am against dumb.

It doesn’t matter who likes you or doesn’t like you, all that matters is that God likes you. He accepts you, he approves of you.

I think everyone should approach relationships from the perspective of playing it straight and giving someone the benefit of the doubt. Until he establishes that this is a game. And if it’s a game, you need to win. The best thing to do is just walk away from the table.

Please don’t ask me to do that which I’ve just said I’m not going to do, because you’re burning up time. The meter is running through the sand on you, and I am now filibustering.

I think people take me as seriously as I want them to. They take me as seriously as I take myself – let’s put it that way.

People who treat other people as less than human must not be surprised when the bread they have cast on the waters comes floating back to them, poisoned.

For the execution of the voyage to the Indies, I did not make use of intelligence, mathematics or maps.

It’s human nature to not say everything that’s on your mind at the time you think it. Because we fear saying something that people will laugh at, people will think is dumb. We’re afraid of being embarrassed.

Almost everybody will listen to you when you tell your own story.

I don’t compare myself to anyone else; I don’t make comments about anyone else because they do what feels right for them, and that’s okay by me.

My mother used to tell me man gives the award, God gives the reward. I don’t need another plaque.

As a songwriter, you respect and appreciate the writings of other people, and I often get asked, are there songs out there I wish I’d written? Yes. There’s many of them!

Verbosity leads to unclear, inarticulate things.

Only two things are necessary to keep one’s wife happy. One is to let her think she is having her own way, and the other is to let her have it.

I believe that God breathed life into every person and that every person is made in the image of God and you have accept them as they are, on their journey. I’m not here to preach hate or push people down.

My mother said I must always be intolerant of ignorance but understanding of illiteracy. That some people, unable to go to school, were more educated and more intelligent than college professors.

Skype actually does get a fair bit of revenue.

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.

Laws made by common consent must not be trampled on by individuals.

When I talk to kids, I’m really listening. When I do that, we have a little bit of a bigger connection than me being Kendrick Lamar and you being a student. It’s almost like we’re friends. Because a friend listens.

When you make as many speeches and you talk as much as I do and you get away from the text, it’s always a possibility to get a few words tangled here and there.

Our heritage and ideals, our code and standards – the things we live by and teach our children – are preserved or diminished by how freely we exchange ideas and feelings.

The perfect love affair is one which is conducted entirely by post.

Proselytism is solemn nonsense; it makes no sense. We need to get to know each other, listen to each other and improve our knowledge of the world around us.

People often think I’m a faker, but I’m usually honest, in a certain way – in such a way that often nobody believes me!

In a certain way, it’s the sound of the words, the inflection and the way the song is sung and the way it fits the melody and the way the syllables are on the tongue that has as much of the meaning as the actual, literal words.

Often people display a curious respect for a man drunk, rather like the respect of simple races for the insane… There is something awe-inspiring in one who has lost all inhibitions.

He who knows how to flatter also knows how to slander.

I once did a three-hour interview with Radio Oxford only to be told the microphone hadn’t picked me up.

You don’t have to be somebody different to be important. You’re important in your own right.

A saint is tolerant and is attentive to the pleadings of other human beings, not only to spoken messages but to unspoken messages as well.

What makes us human, I think, is an ability to ask questions, a consequence of our sophisticated spoken language.

Good breeding differs, if at all, from high breeding only as it gracefully remembers the rights of others, rather than gracefully insists on its own rights.

Just because you like my stuff doesn’t mean I owe you anything.

The royal road to a man’s heart is to talk to him about the things he treasures most.

It’s never happened in history that every region in the world could affect every other region simultaneously. The Roman empire and the Chinese empire didn’t know much about each other and had no means of interacting. Now we have every continent able to reach every other.

I think what it really is, is that I date creative people. And I think that what intimidates them is not my purse; it’s my mind.

You can be a little ungrammatical if you come from the right part of the country.

The free world must not prove itself worthy of its own past.

I can unload my opinion on anybody at anytime.

You can’t talk your way out of problems you behave yourself into.

The thing about hip-hop today is it’s smart, it’s insightful. The way they can communicate a complex message in a very short space is remarkable.

When I look at public opinion, I’m not far out of the mainstream. I’m in it, in many respects. In some respects, public opinion goes beyond anything I’ve ever said.

You’re morally tainted if you don’t treat both the accuser and the accused with fairness and with respect, and with due process.

We need to reject any politics that targets people because of race or religion. This isn’t a matter of political correctness. It’s a matter of understanding what makes us strong. The world respects us not just for our arsenal; it respects us for our diversity and our openness and the way we respect every faith.

To be clear: we have fights and problems like any other couple.

I always keep my guard up with guys and I guess that can get in the way sometimes. I can make them go through hell.

When I am getting ready to reason with a man, I spend one-third of my time thinking about myself and what I am going to say and two-thirds about him and what he is going to say.