In the depth of winter I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.

My pride fell with my fortunes.

If you try to fight the course, it will beat you.

Respond intelligently even to unintelligent treatment.

I have the ’77 Million Paintings‘ running in my studio a lot of the time. Occasionally I’ll look up from what I’m doing and I think, ‚God, I’ve never seen anything like that before!‘ And that’s a real thrill.

You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.

Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result.

Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail.

What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?

The greatest heroes are those who do their duty in the daily grind of domestic affairs whilst the world whirls as a maddening dreidel.

One cannot violate the promptings of one’s nature without having that nature recoil upon itself.

The limits of the possible can only be defined by going beyond them into the impossible.

To our brothers in Latin America and the world, we must convey that the Cuban people will overcome.

To me, the most important artists in my career are Arcangel and Balvin. Arcangel gave me the push, the respect in the streets.

The single most powerful thing I can be is to be myself.

When you are organizing a group of people, the first thing that we do is we talk about the history of what other people have been able to accomplish – people that look like them, workers like them, ordinary people, working people – and we give them the list: these are people like yourself; this is what they were able to do in their community.

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

The world of reality has its limits; the world of imagination is boundless.

I want to represent… to the kids to draw strength from me. So they can see that everybody goes through something, but you can rise up and do your best. Just try.

If you have to stand and fight, you train yourself so that you’re able to do it.

The genesis of a poem for me is usually a cluster of words. The only good metaphor I can think of is a scientific one: dipping a thread into a supersaturated solution to induce crystal formation. I don’t think I solve problems in my poetry; I think I uncover the problems.

We construct a narrative for ourselves, and that’s the thread that we follow from one day to the next. People who disintegrate as personalities are the ones who lose that thread.

People respond when you tell them there is a great future in front of you, you can leave your past behind.

You gotta keep trying to find your niche and trying to fit into whatever slot that’s left for you or to make one of your own.

Somebody once asked me what my theory of life was, and I said, ‚Don’t try.‘ That fits the writing, too. I don’t try; I just type.

It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.

About the time we can make the ends meet, somebody moves the ends.

Many times, we miss out on God’s best because we give up too soon. We don’t realize how close we are to victory.

That is what we are supposed to do when we are at our best – make it all up – but make it up so truly that later it will happen that way.

All intelligent thoughts have already been thought; what is necessary is only to try to think them again.

If you don’t stand your ground, then all that happens is people push you backwards.

Sometimes God will deliver you from the fire, and other times God will make you fireproof.

My kind of composing is more like the work of a gardener. The gardener takes his seeds and scatters them, knowing what he is planting but not quite what will grow where and when – and he won’t necessarily be able to reproduce it again afterwards either.

I try to use my experience and the fact that I grew up in the ghetto – I tell people you don’t have to rob or steal to get out of the ghetto.

One of the things you do when you make a piece of art is you try to make the world you’d rather be in.

Really I feel less keen about the Army every day. I think the Church would suit me better.

Howard Zinn was magical as a teacher. Witty, irreverent, and wise, he loved what he was teaching and clearly wanted his students to love it, also.

I love the scents of winter! For me, it’s all about the feeling you get when you smell pumpkin spice, cinnamon, nutmeg, gingerbread and spruce.

Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing.

Storms make trees take deeper roots.

It’s not fun to get out of bed early in the morning. When the alarm goes off, it doesn’t sing you a song: it hits you in the head with a baseball bat. So how do you respond to that? Do you crawl underneath your covers and hide? Or do you get up, get aggressive, and attack the day?

I never wanted to be the next Bruce Lee. I just wanted to be the first Jackie Chan.

There is no rule on how to write. Sometimes it comes easily and perfectly; sometimes it’s like drilling rock and then blasting it out with charges.

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

You don’t need anybody to tell you who you are or what you are. You are what you are!

There are alway going to be bad things. But you can write it down and make a song out of it.

Millions of people were inspired by the Apollo Program. I was five years old when I watched Apollo 11 unfold on television, and without any doubt it was a big contributor to my passions for science, engineering, and exploration.

When people are around us, they should leave better off than they were previously. Rather than feeling discouraged or defeated, people should feel challenged and inspired after spending any time with you and me.

I’m so happy I discovered early how wonderful music makes me feel.

That summer after the draft was probably the most fun I’ve ever had, because all I had to do every day was wake up and go work out for four or five hours. I got to play some golf, which I love to do, too, and then got to hang out with my family.

Always have something beautiful in sight, even if it’s just a daisy in a jelly glass.

Imagine your family finally making it from nothing to something, and finally getting things going, and finally buying a beautiful house and taking care of your children – and the next day, it’s completely all gone. Zero. Boom. Flat broke. So that’s when I had to man up.

We fear to know the fearsome and unsavory aspects of ourselves, but we fear even more to know the godlike in ourselves.

Energy, like the biblical grain of the mustard-seed, will remove mountains.

Execute every act of thy life as though it were thy last.

I want people to follow their dreams, yes… but I’m not interested in telling young black kids how to be rappers… I want to show them that there’s so many other paths you can take, besides a rapper or basketball player.

Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.

The strongest influences in my life and my work are always whomever I love. Whomever I love and am with most of the time, or whomever I remember most vividly. I think that’s true of everyone, don’t you?

Never regret what you don’t write.

Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions.

Snoop ain’t never cosigned me, but I know everybody is like, ‚That’s the next Snoop.‘ Nah, I’m Nipsey, and I got to work to define myself.