I’m trying to keep a level head. You have to be careful out in the world. It’s so easy to get turned.

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

A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.

Around every corner, always protect the engine that powers you.

It’s much worse to read criticism about your son than yourself.

I’m nobody, who are you?

I think life is a matter of choices and that wherever we are, good or bad, is because of choices we make.

Growth is the great separator between those who succeed and those who do not. When I see a person beginning to separate themselves from the pack, it’s almost always due to personal growth.

Live out of your imagination, not your history.

To add value to others, one must first value others.

We human beings are strange creatures and still reserve the right to think for ourselves.

The willingness and ability to live fully in the now eludes many people. While eating your appetizer, don’t be concerned with dessert.

Simply put, you believe that things or people make you unhappy, but this is not accurate. You make yourself unhappy.

When the mind is empty, silent, when it is in a state of complete negation – which is not blankness, nor the opposite of being positive, but a totally different state in which all thought has ceased – only then is it possible for that which is unnameable to come into being.

I have no delusions about my likability in every scenario. I know that in order to get things done the way you want them, oftentimes your position will be unpopular.

Trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth.

I want people to draw strength from me.

Exposure from a young age to the realities of the world is a super-big thing.

Vanity is great motivation, to be fair.

Vanity is the healthiest thing in life.

When men speak ill of thee, live so as nobody may believe them.

The drama and the trauma of the relationship you have when you’re 16 can mirror the one you have when you’re 26. Life repeats itself.

Knowing that you are going to die is, I suspect, the beginning of wisdom.

Whatever you are, be a good one.

I think a big test we all face in life on a regular basis is that discouragement test. Life’s not always fair, but I believe if you keep doing the right thing, God will get you to where you are.

They would not find me changed from him they knew – only more sure of all I thought was true.

I’ve been reckless, but I’m not a rebel without a cause.

You can’t go backward in life.

Instead of blaming everyone and everything else for your problems, pray for God to help you take an inventory of what’s been on your mind so you can think about what you’ve been thinking about.

I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.

You say that you are my judge; I do not know if you are; but take good heed not to judge me ill, because you would put yourself in great peril.

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.

He knows my limitations and where I’m a good wife and a good mom.

I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn’t arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and I’m going to be happy in it.

The hell to be endured hereafter, of which theology tells, is no worse than the hell we make for ourselves in this world by habitually fashioned our characters in the wrong way.

For me, there is no such thing as a negative experience.

Compassionate listening is to help the other side suffer less. If we realize that other people are the same people as we are, we are no longer angry at them.

The proper study of Man is anything but Man; and the most improper job of any man, even saints (who at any rate were at least unwilling to take it on), is bossing other men. Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity.

Once you say you’re going to settle for second, that’s what happens to you in life.

The only cure for contempt is counter-contempt.

There’s a long way to fall when you pretend that you’re so far away from the earth, far away from reality, floating in a bubble that’s protected by fame or success. It’s scary, and it’s the thing I fear the most: to be swallowed up by that bubble. It can be poison to you, fame.

If somebody thinks they’re a hedgehog, presumably you just give ‚em a mirror and a few pictures of hedgehogs and tell them to sort it out for themselves.

The first step in a person’s salvation is knowledge of their sin.

Take care of all your memories. For you cannot relive them.

He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed.

New knowledge is the most valuable commodity on earth. The more truth we have to work with, the richer we become.

Not everyone can see the truth, but he can be it.

A wise man will make haste to forgive, because he knows the true value of time, and will not suffer it to pass away in unnecessary pain.

It is impossible to underrate human intelligence – beginning with one’s own.

You cannot see the changes that you’re dreaming about, because they’re internal.

I’m on record that it didn’t really traumatize me to do away with some people.

Never take anything for granted.

Life is not a series of gig lamps symmetrically arranged; life is a luminous halo, a semi-transparent envelope surrounding us from the beginning of consciousness to the end.

My message isn’t perfectly defined. I have, as a human being, fallen to peer pressure.

Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.

If what you did yesterday seems big, you haven’t done anything today.

It is our choices… that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.

I’m very proud to be black, but black is not all I am. That’s my cultural historical background, my genetic makeup, but it’s not all of who I am nor is it the basis from which I answer every question.

You aren’t your work, your accomplishments, your possessions, your home, your family… your anything. You’re a creation of your Source, dressed in a physical human body intended to experience and enjoy life on Earth.

I’m one of the world’s most self-conscious people. I really have to struggle.

I’ve learned that usually, the less I know about other people, the better off I am.