It’s none of their business that you have to learn how to write. Let them think you were born that way.

As long as a man stands in his own way, everything seems to be in his way.

My whole thing is to inspire, to better people, to better myself forever in this thing that we call rap, this thing that we call hip hop.

I would love to continue in music, with writing… but I am not the kind of person who will hang around if I start to become irrelevant. If that happens, I will bow down gracefully, raise my kids, and have a garden. And I am going to let my hair go gray when I am older. I don’t need to be blonde when I’m 60!

Some days I totally appreciate everything that’s happening to me, and some days I feel everyone’s waiting for me to mess up.

My weaknesses have always been food and men – in that order.

My father was a mean, controlling and manipulative person for most of his life. He was unpredictable and unstable.

We go to school to learn to work hard for money. I write books and create products that teach people how to have money work hard for them.

I know my serve stinks, but I was a pretty good tennis player.

I can imagine it’s hard to make a relationship last. I wouldn’t know.

People who truly understand what is meant by self-reliance know they must live their lives by ethics rather than rules.

We must, all of us, learn actually not to have enemies, but only confused adversaries who are ourselves in disguise.

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.

Every human being is under construction from conception to death.

Marriage destroyed my relationship with two wonderful men.

Talent develops in quiet places, character in the full current of human life.

A broad margin of leisure is as beautiful in a man’s life as in a book. Haste makes waste, no less in life than in housekeeping. Keep the time, observe the hours of the universe, not of the cars.

You may make some mistakes – but that doesn’t make you a sinner. You’ve got the very nature of God on the inside of you.

If selfishness is the key to being miserable, then selflessness must be the key to being happy!

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

Freedom is nothing but a chance to be better.

It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance.

The world around me has changed, and I have learned to adapt but not change. But I’m changing into the woman I am meant to be.

I undertake the same project as Montaigne, but with an aim contrary to his own: for he wrote his Essays only for others, and I write my reveries only for myself.

To be great is to be misunderstood.

Where would I be without baseball? Who am I without baseball?

Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit.

It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves.

Not what I have, but what I do is my kingdom.

I’ve had no contact with my daughter for years. That’s her choice. Anyway, you move on. If people don’t want to bother with me, fine. You know, God bless them, and move on.

Many people identify their sense of self with the problems they have, or think they have.

The difficulties you meet will resolve themselves as you advance. Proceed, and light will dawn, and shine with increasing clearness on your path.

I have made good judgments in the past. I have made good judgments in the future.

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

It does not take much strength to do things, but it requires great strength to decide on what to do.

I was born not knowing and have had only a little time to change that here and there.

Those people who develop the ability to continuously acquire new and better forms of knowledge that they can apply to their work and to their lives will be the movers and shakers in our society for the indefinite future.

If you know me, and you call me Stefani, you don’t really know me at all.

Start a part-time business and make as many mistakes as you possibly can while you still have your daytime job.

I think, for years, people have been pushed down by religion, and I don’t say that disrespectfully, but they’ve been shown a God that you can’t measure up to.

I cannot always control what goes on outside. But I can always control what goes on inside.

Adversity leads us to think properly of our state, and so is most beneficial to us.

No matter how full a reservoir of maxims one may possess, and no matter how good one’s sentiments may be, if one has not taken advantage of every concrete opportunity to act, one’s character may remain entirely unaffected for the better.

We’re all insecure, aren’t we? I’m not walking around like I’m macho man or anything.

There are three kinds of men. The one that learns by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves.

No one lives long enough to learn everything they need to learn starting from scratch. To be successful, we absolutely, positively have to find people who have already paid the price to learn the things that we need to learn to achieve our goals.

I have spent so much time and so much energy making other people’s children stars.

The idea of recognising your strengths and using them in as versatile a way as you can is cool to me.

For me, it’s about the way I carry myself and the way I treat other people. My relationship and how I feel about God and what He does for me, is something deeply personal. It’s where I came from, my family, I was brought up in a religious household and that’s very important to me.

Thirty-three-years-old, still creating art. It’s rage, it’s creativity, it’s pain, it’s hurt, but it’s the opportunity to still have my voice get out there through music.

I think it’s a very good thing to leave your country and look at it from afar.

Living is like tearing through a museum. Not until later do you really start absorbing what you saw, thinking about it, looking it up in a book, and remembering – because you can’t take it in all at once.

If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.

My philosophy is it’s none of my business what people say of me and think of me. I am what I am, and I do what I do. I expect nothing and accept everything. And it makes life so much easier.

Virtue is a state of war, and to live in it we have always to combat with ourselves.

There is no real limit to how much better a person who really commits to getting better can get. Every manager has the potential to become an excellent manager for the rest of his or her career.

I’ve made my share of mistakes along the way, but if I have changed even one life for the better, I haven’t lived in vain.

All of us are mentors. You’re mentors right here and now. And one of the things I’ve always done throughout my life, I have always found that person, that group of people that I was going to reach my hand out and help bring them along with me.

Your most important work is always ahead of you, never behind you.

There are no second acts in American lives.

What we think, we become.