It’s easier to aim to please and say what others want to hear than to form an opinion and fight for it, even if it means taking a risk or losing your job.

I write for no other purpose than to add to the beauty that now belongs to me. I write a book for no other reason than to add three or four hundred acres to my magnificent estate.

Old is authentic. Old is genuine. Old is valuable.

If I have the chance to say something, I will say it – but that doesn’t obligate me to always say something, or to shed light on every problem, as if I were a lawmaker.

When I’m in the studio, I’m looking for creativity I haven’t matched yet, a feeling I haven’t felt. It’s a high.

If you set out to be liked, you would be prepared to compromise on anything at any time, and you would achieve nothing.

I never worry about action, but only inaction.

The wise man does at once what the fool does finally.

Fear has its use but cowardice has none.

On some positions, Cowardice asks the question, ‚Is it safe?‘ Expediency asks the question, ‚Is it politic?‘ And Vanity comes along and asks the question, ‚Is it popular?‘ But Conscience asks the question, ‚Is it right?‘

I am an artist, and I have the ability and the free will to choose the way the world will envision me.

It’s hard to practice compassion when we’re struggling with our authenticity or when our own worthiness is off-balance.

I’ve never thought about songwriting as a weapon. I’ve only thought about it as a way to help me get through love and loss and sadness and loneliness and growing up.

We choose our joys and sorrows long before we experience them.

Lets have faith that right makes might; and in that faith let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.

It’s very important for Christians to be honest with God, which often, you know, God is much more interested in who you are than who you want to be.

One aspect of appellate judging is we have to give reasons for all of our decisions. And when you sit down and try to write it out, sometimes you find that your first judgment wasn’t the right one.

The advantage of the emotions is that they lead us astray.

I never think of myself as an icon. What is in other people’s minds is not in my mind. I just do my thing.

The passive aggressive arguer comes armed with tricky tactics. They cannot take the risk that they might be wrong: their self-esteem is too intertwined with their opinions. It is more important to affirm their rightness, and sense of superiority, than to arrive at the truth.

In the long run, we shape our lives, and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility.

I tend not to like an awful lot of what is going out under my name now because it is just all product. Who needs it?

I’m not a star. I don’t feel I’m so great. So how can I make you feel great just because you’ve got my signature on a piece of paper?

Anything important is never left to the vote of the people. We only get to vote on some man; we never get to vote on what he is to do.

No one tells me what to do with my music. Real. My mom doesn’t tell what to say, how is someone else going to?

The effect of liberty to individuals is that they may do what they please: we ought to see what it will please them to do, before we risk congratulations.

If you have a family mission statement that clarifies what your purpose is, then you use that as the criterion by which you make the decisions.

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

I had therefore to remove knowledge, in order to make room for belief.

When a man wants to murder a tiger he calls it sport; when a tiger wants to murder him he calls it ferocity.

Stand-up comedy is mine: it’s my entity; it’s my brand; I own it. I do it when I want to do it.

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

To me, business isn’t about wearing suits or pleasing stockholders. It’s about being true to yourself, your ideas and focusing on the essentials.

Writing is challenging work because it’s so easy to get consumed with how it’s going, what’s going to happen to it, who’s going to like or not like it. You want to get all of that stuff out of your head and just let the work flow.

I think carrying moral baggage is very dangerous for an artist. If you have a duty, it’s to be true and not cover up the cracks.

I don’t think consensus-building politics is what I’m meant to be doing.

I’m not afraid to write my feelings in songs.

To me, consensus seems to be the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies. So it is something in which no one believes and to which no one objects.

I’m the type person, my safe place to be emotional is the booth.

I am always wary of decisions made hastily. I am always wary of the first decision, that is, the first thing that comes to my mind if I have to make a decision. This is usually the wrong thing. I have to wait and assess, looking deep into myself, taking the necessary time.

I’d always tried to resist playing the supervirility thing. I liked showing the vulnerability of age.

I’ve been lucky – all the ads I’ve got, I’ve got to be myself. I haven’t had to act too much or tried too hard to be someone I’m not. I think that’s why people sort of like them. Even the Fastrack ads I did with Genelia.

For how many things, which for our own sake we should never do, do we perform for the sake of our friends.

Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is the truth.

A lot of people have said I’d have probably done better in my career if I hadn’t looked so cheap and gaudy. But I dress to be comfortable for me, and you shouldn’t be blamed because you want to look pretty.

I couldn’t talk to people face to face, so I got on stage and started screaming and squealing and twitching.

For a creative writer possession of the ‚truth‘ is less important than emotional sincerity.

When I write a book, I write a book for myself; the reaction is up to the reader. It’s not my business whether people like or dislike it.

To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.

I hate the giving of the hand unless the whole man accompanies it.

You must not fear death, my lads; defy him, and you drive him into the enemy’s ranks.

There were the questions of what kind of First Lady I would be, what issues would I focus on. Those were the questions that were being pounded on me through the campaign. A lot of times, I wondered what in the world Barack was even getting us into.

Cowards die many times before their actual deaths.

They’re right to think that about me, because I’m the person most likely to sleep with my female fans, I genuinely love other women. And I think they know that.

I just know what is right and I want to do what is right.

There is a group of people that I think in good faith honestly believe that further curtailing our Second Amendment rights will enhance public safety. But there’s another group that just hates the Second Amendment.

The course of this conflict is not known, yet its outcome is certain. Freedom and fear, justice and cruelty, have always been at war, and we know that God is not neutral between them.

Daring to set boundaries is about having the courage to love ourselves, even when we risk disappointing others.

When we look back on all the perils through which we have passed and at the mighty foes that we have laid low and all the dark and deadly designs that we have frustrated, why should we fear for our future? We have come safely through the worst.

The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be.

Gains achieved at great cost against our enemy in Afghanistan are reversible.