I’m not this horrible, evil person.

The Mind that lies fallow but a single Day, sprouts up in Follies that are only to be killed by a constant and assiduous Culture.

It is only a man’s own fundamental thoughts that have truth and life in them. For it is these that he really and completely understands. To read the thoughts of others is like taking the remains of someone else’s meal, like putting on the discarded clothes of a stranger.

The man with insight enough to admit his limitations comes nearest to perfection.

I feel like people can relate to me because we all go through wins and roadblocks and passion and pain, and it’s a vibe.

Vanity is but the surface.

I was born with a great gift, and sometimes with that comes a destructive streak.

Courage is like love; it must have hope for nourishment.

In past generations, people would try to play younger than they really are. My trick is, I don’t try to play younger than I really am.

People tend to dwell more on negative things than on good things. So the mind then becomes obsessed with negative things, with judgments, guilt and anxiety produced by thoughts about the future and so on.

Playing Etta James in the movie ‚Cadillac Records‘ really changed me. It was a darker character, and I realized that if anything is too comfortable, I want to run from it. It’s no fun being safe.

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’m not arrogant enough to look back on my career and criticize my choices. It’s really not my place.

I continuously go further and further learning about my own limitations, my body limitation, psychological limitations. It’s a way of life for me.

Here comes 40. I’m feeling my age and I’ve ordered the Ferrari. I’m going to get the whole mid-life crisis package.

I never let schooling interfere with my education.

Why should we think upon things that are lovely? Because thinking determines life. It is a common habit to blame life upon the environment. Environment modifies life but does not govern life. The soul is stronger than its surroundings.

Open your eyes, look within. Are you satisfied with the life you’re living?

For me, one of the toughest things about Valentine’s Day is that it gets geared up as the day to profess your love. See, T-E-S-T – that’s a bad word that doesn’t go with L-O-V-E.

Jiu Jitsu is probably the No. 1 activity that I could recommend to someone to improve their lives overall.

Some men can live up to their loftiest ideals without ever going higher than a basement.

Your daily life is your temple and your religion. When you enter into it take with you your all.

Why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me.

I am still far from being what I want to be, but with God’s help I shall succeed.

Just try new things. Don’t be afraid. Step out of your comfort zones and soar, all right?

When you put down the good things you ought to have done, and leave out the bad ones you did do well, that’s Memoirs.

The person who goes farthest is generally the one who is willing to do and dare. The sure-thing boat never gets far from shore.

I know, to banish anger altogether from one’s breast is a difficult task. It cannot be achieved through pure personal effort. It can be done only by God’s grace.

When you are young you tend to do so many things that are not needed. When you get experience, you know what exactly what works for you and you tend to do things that you want.

We are sinful not only because we have eaten of the Tree of Knowledge, but also because we have not yet eaten of the Tree of Life. The state in which we are is sinful, irrespective of guilt.

It is hard sometimes to always be at the centre of attention, but when you talk about me you also have to talk about the climate.

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

Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow ripening fruit.

That’s all I could ever hope for, to have a positive effect on women. ‚Cos women are powerful, powerful beings. But they’re also the most doubtful beings. They’ll never know – we’ll never know – how powerful we are.

I hate what I look like on TV, and I want to look better, and nothing makes the mothers more jealous.

Deliver me from writers who say the way they live doesn’t matter. I’m not sure a bad person can write a good book, If art doesn’t make us better, then what on earth is it for.

It is what you read when you don’t have to that determines what you will be when you can’t help it.

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

There are some Christian people who taste and see and enjoy religion in their own souls, and who get at a deeper knowledge of it than books can ever give them, though they should search all their days.

I never fall in love.

To realize that you do not understand is a virtue; Not to realize that you do not understand is a defect.

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.

We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think. When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves.

The way is long if one follows precepts, but short… if one follows patterns.

Nature gives you the face you have at twenty; it is up to you to merit the face you have at fifty.

If you only believe that you’re an artist when you have a big advance in your pocket and a single coming out, I would say that’s quite soulless. You have to have a sense of your own greatness and your own ability from a very deep place inside you. I am the one with the litmus test in my hands of what people need to hear next.

If you’re afraid to fail, then you’re probably going to fail.

I felt I had to solve everyone’s problems.

Complaining is dangerous business. It can damage or even destroy your relationship with God, your relationships with other people, and even with your relationship with yourself.

There is no way to happiness – happiness is the way.

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

We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future.

Maybe other people will try to limit me but I don’t limit myself.

I can express myself.

What lies behind you and what lies in front of you, pales in comparison to what lies inside of you.

I think I have a dualistic nature.

Life is a lively process of becoming.

Nobody can ever say that being negative ever helped them at all – not in any way.

We are all sentenced to solitary confinement inside our own skins, for life.

In my work and in myself I reflect black people, women and men, as I reflect others. One day even the most self-protective ones will look into the mirror I provide and not be afraid.

There is a tendency for things to right themselves.