I’m very picky; I’m never happy with anything. It’s so hard to give the record away and accept that you’re done.

The outer passes away; the innermost is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

I was called a terrorist yesterday, but when I came out of jail, many people embraced me, including my enemies, and that is what I normally tell other people who say those who are struggling for liberation in their country are terrorists.

The big message of gospel is that you don’t have to keep fighting the universe; you can stop, and the universe is quite good to you. There is a loss of ego.

If you realize that all things change, there is nothing you will try to hold on to. If you are not afraid of dying, there is nothing you cannot achieve.

I briefly did therapy, but after a while, I realised it is just like a farmer complaining about the weather. You can’t fix the weather – you just have to get on with it.

It is only imperfection that complains of what is imperfect. The more perfect we are the more gentle and quiet we become towards the defects of others.

We had to go on and do the work of the court and we did.

We cannot fashion our children after our desires, we must have them and love them as God has given them to us.

We must find our duties in what comes to us, not in what might have been.

We can’t form our children on our own concepts; we must take them and love them as God gives them to us.

One cannot and must not try to erase the past merely because it does not fit the present.

No one ever died from sleeping in an unmade bed. I have known mothers who remake the bed after their children do it because there is wrinkle in the spread or the blanket is on crooked. This is sick.

If you love somebody, let them go, for if they return, they were always yours. And if they don’t, they never were.

I do not want to foresee the future. I am concerned with taking care of the present. God has given me no control over the moment following.

Dear friends, we may well sing to our Beloved when it is near the time of our departure. It draws near, and as it approaches, we must not dread it, but rather thank God for it.

There are many things that happen every day that we could murmur about if we let ourselves go there. But they really aren’t worth the effort it takes to get upset and gripe about it.

I’m not a complete psychopath. Am I partially? Sure. I’ll accept that. But I’m not a complete psychopath.

Many people think of perfectionism as striving to be your best, but it is not about self-improvement; it’s about earning approval and acceptance.

Every once in a while, you let a word or phrase out and you want to catch it and bring it back. You can’t do that. It’s gone, gone forever.

Everything that happens happens as it should, and if you observe carefully, you will find this to be so.

We cannot change anything until we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses.

He who is overly attached to his family members experiences fear and sorrow, for the root of all grief is attachment. Thus one should discard attachment to be happy.

Wherever you are, be there totally. If you find your here and now intolerable and it makes you unhappy, you have three options: remove yourself from the situation, change it, or accept it totally. If you want to take responsibility for your life, you must choose one of those three options, and you must choose now. Then accept the consequences.

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.

Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.

We’re all just a bunch of sinners, but we do the best we can.

It doesn’t matter how long my hair is or what colour my skin is or whether I’m a woman or a man.

Don’t let the incidents which take place in life bring you low. And certainly don’t whine. You can be brought low, that’s OK, but don’t be reduced by them. Just say, ‚That’s life.‘

I love imperfections.

The fact that the adult American Negro female emerges a formidable character is often met with amazement, distaste and even belligerance. It is seldom accepted as an inevitable outcome of the struggle won by survivors, and deserves respect if not enthusiastic acceptance.

Always say ‚yes‘ to the present moment… Surrender to what is. Say ‚yes‘ to life – and see how life starts suddenly to start working for you rather than against you.

I’ve been called a moron since I was about four. My father called me a moron. My grandfather said I was a moron. And a lot of times when I’m driving, I hear I’m a moron. I like being a moron.

Commodities such as gold and silver have a world market that transcends national borders, politics, religions, and race. A person may not like someone else’s religion, but he’ll accept his gold.

Glam really did plant seeds for a new identity. I think a lot of kids needed that – that sense of reinvention. Kids learned that however crazy you may think it is, there is a place for what you want to do and who you want to be.

If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn’t part of ourselves doesn’t disturb us.

All religions must be tolerated… for every man must get to heaven in his own way.

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new.

I think that there is never an indispensable leader, you know? I think that there is a time with dignity that one needs to leave.

All you need to do to be my friend is like me.

I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

We all gonna die eventually from something or other, but don’t be a wimp. Put up a good fight.

The poetry you read has been written for you, each of you – black, white, Hispanic, man, woman, gay, straight.

I’m not somebody that thinks about destiny and fate, but I don’t walk away from it when something unfolds.

I can’t stand to see myself on television.

If proud Americans can be who they are and boldly stand at the altar with who they love then surely, surely we can give everyone in this country a fair chance at that great American Dream.

Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.

Until you have learned to be tolerant with those who do not always agree with you, you will be neither successful nor happy.

I’m a big perfectionist! I’m trying to channel super-confident women like Alicia Keys, Mariah Carey and Beyonce, because I realized that if you want something, you really have to go for it, just like they do.

Anyone who proposes to do good must not expect people to roll stones out of his way, but must accept his lot calmly, even if they roll a few stones upon it.

I set up situations that involve abandoning control and finding out what happens.

Sometimes, people can be extraordinarily judgmental and closed-minded to anyone different or special, which is why it’s so hard for young people in this day and age to be comfortable enough in their own skin to not listen to the people picking on them.

A true man hates no one.

You pray for rain, you gotta deal with the mud too. That’s a part of it.

I have long understood that losing always comes with the territory when you wander into the gambling business, just as getting crippled for life is an acceptable risk in the linebacker business. They both are extremely violent sports, and pain is part of the bargain. Buy the ticket, take the ride.

Eternal nothingness is fine if you happen to be dressed for it.

I’m actually starting to like more and more people who have convictions that are unpopular.

A lot of people from my generation of music are so focused on playing things correctly or to perfection that they’re stuck in that safe place.

Because forgiveness is like this: a room can be dank because you have closed the windows, you’ve closed the curtains. But the sun is shining outside, and the air is fresh outside. In order to get that fresh air, you have to get up and open the window and draw the curtains apart.

Everything passes. Nobody gets anything for keeps. And that’s how we’ve got to live.

Usually, people have a tendency to be caught in the worries concerning the future or in the regret concerning the past. There is some kind of energy that is pushing them to run, and they are not able to establish themselves in the present moment.