If you’re trying too hard to be the girl next door, you’re not going to be.

In order to heal others, we first need to heal ourselves. And to heal ourselves, we need to know how to deal with ourselves.

I don’t feel much pressure to fit in. I never have. I’ve always just wanted to do my thing. I have really good friends and good family, and if I don’t fit in somewhere else, I fit in at home.

I have all the emotions that everyone has; it just appears that I don’t.

One must marry one’s feelings to one’s beliefs and ideas. That is probably the only way to achieve a measure of harmony in one’s life.

I allow myself to fail. I allow myself to break. I’m not afraid of my flaws.

Enemies are so stimulating.

Stay active. Read the Word. Worship with other believers. Continue to give. Keep learning and growing. Your faith will be unleashed!

I am sure there’s going to be times when I do things wrong that no one’s going to like and everyone’s going to think I’m terrible and rubbish but I know I’m going to go through those times, and it’s just about understanding that that’s going to happen.

You call yourself what you want to call yourself.

Marriage destroyed my relationship with two wonderful men.

Your Highest Self is not just an idea that sounds lofty and spiritual. It is a way of being. It is the very first principle that you must come to understand and embrace as you move toward attracting to you that which you want and need for this parenthesis in eternity that you know as your life.

This has always been my life and no one else’s, and that’s how it’s always been since the day I came in it.

I don’t have the best track record with quotes.

The closest I ever came to getting married was just before I started singing. In fact, my first record saved my neck.

I’ve never lived my life in the opinion of others. I believe I’m a good person. I believe I’m a good mom. But that’s for my kids to decide, not for the world.

I’m of the school of thought where if you can’t sort something out for yourself then no one can help you.

We know what we are, but know not what we may be.

I’ve always wanted to live above my means because it inspired me to work harder.

I feel that sin and evil are the negative part of you, and I think it’s like a battery: you’ve got to have the negative and the positive in order to be a complete person.

Having been poor is no shame, but being ashamed of it, is.

You have people come into your life shockingly and surprisingly. You have losses that you never thought you’d experience. You have rejection and you have learn how to deal with that and how to get up the next day and go on with it.

When you have nothing important or interesting to say, don’t let anyone persuade you to say it.

By indignities men come to dignities.

Life is not accumulation, it is about contribution.

When you are offended at any man’s fault, turn to yourself and study your own failings. Then you will forget your anger.

Oh, God, I struggle with low self-esteem all the time! I think everyone does. I have so much wrong with me, it’s unbelievable!

Experience does not err. Only your judgments err by expecting from her what is not in her power.

When I did have some success, it further emboldens you to be like, ‚No, I’m just going to write what I feel I should write.‘

Real riches are the riches possessed inside.

Everyone should be respected as an individual, but no one idolized.

I have learned not to worry about love; but to honor its coming with all my heart.

I am, as a character, at times, a little overbearing. I recognize that.

I am never satisfied with myself and that is what keeps me going – I have no post-satisfaction.

Self-pity in its early stage is as snug as a feather mattress. Only when it hardens does it become uncomfortable.

When I was younger, I felt pressure to become someone else once I became successful.

I like to take every day just searching my own heart, making sure that I’m on course, and I’m doing what God wants me to do. I’m real good with not looking to the critics and looking straight ahead.

You can hold yourself back from the sufferings of the world, that is something you are free to do and it accords with your nature, but perhaps this very holding back is the one suffering you could avoid.

Not being afraid to be wrong – I had to learn how to do that.

Although the circumstances of our lives may seem very disengaged, with me standing here as the First Lady of the United States of America and you just getting through school, I want you to know we have very much in common. For nothing in my life ever would have predicted that I would be standing here as the first African-American First Lady.

For me, money is not my definition of success. Inspiring people is a definition of success.

Fashion is here to help make people look very important. If they have good taste and choose what suits them, I give them options on how they can do that. It’s always sexy, and it’s always with the same result: making women look fantastic.

What we seek we shall find; what we flee from flees from us.

I have met 18 million youth, and each wants to be unique.

I’m sure like everyone else I’m not always the happiest if I don’t do a good job in quali or the race or whatever, so I think beating myself up sometimes makes me work harder.

We all have experiences in our lives that change us, and we all learn from people, like my dad, but at the end of the day, it’s only us. And we’re only responsible to make ourselves happy.

When you are angry or frustrated, what comes out? Whatever it is, it’s a good indication of what you’re made of.

It is impossible to begin to learn that which one thinks one already knows.

It makes no sense to worry about things you have no control over because there’s nothing you can do about them, and why worry about things you do control? The activity of worrying keeps you immobilized.

At first, I was scared to show fear because you can never be sure how people will perceive you. But I dared myself to do that, to stand out. Now I’ll talk about being beaten up or robbed or making a stupid decision because of a girl or whatever.

I don’t want to be alone, I want to be left alone.

We all know we have a finite period of time. I just feel if I’m going to be alive, I want to be challenged – to be as immortal as possible. The path to that isn’t an easy way, but it’s a rewarding way.

This thing that I do with caring about the message in my music, it’s not separate from my work as a commercial artist; they’re totally one and the same. I’m always going to be thinking about what my voice means.

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.

At 30 a man should know himself like the palm of his hand, know the exact number of his defects and qualities, know how far he can go, foretell his failures – be what he is. And, above all, accept these things.

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

I’m comfortable in my own skin, no matter how far it’s stretched. Ha ha.

When we tackle obstacles, we find hidden reserves of courage and resilience we did not know we had. And it is only when we are faced with failure do we realise that these resources were always there within us. We only need to find them and move on with our lives.

Anybody can be good in the country. There are no temptations there.

In terms of doing work and in terms of learning and evolving as a person, you just grow more when you get more people’s perspectives… I really try and live the mission of the company and… keep everything else in my life extremely simple.

I’m a big believer in doing things that make you uncomfortable. So, we live in a world where we want to be as comfortable as we can. And we wonder why we have no growth. We wonder why – when the smallest thing in our life gets difficult – we wonder why we cower and we run away.