I’ve always done whatever I want and always been exactly who I am.

Today you are you! That is truer than true! There is no one alive who is you-er than you!

I will praise any man that will praise me.

I made a decision when my father passed away that I was going to be who God made me to be and not try to preach like my father.

Do you want to know who you are? Don’t ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.

If we help an educated man’s daughter to go to Cambridge are we not forcing her to think not about education but about war? – not how she can learn, but how she can fight in order that she might win the same advantages as her brothers?

The people of Northern Ireland have sorted out my whole life.

Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.

Oh, I’ve always been very… Emotional. ‚Hypersensitive‘ is what they call it, I think.

My protest about the post exchange seating bore some results. More seats were allocated for blacks, but there were still separate sections for blacks and for whites. At least I had made my men realize that something could be accomplished by speaking out, and I hoped they would be less resigned to unjust conditions.

Whether you believe you can do a thing or not, you are right.

You can hold yourself back from the sufferings of the world, that is something you are free to do and it accords with your nature, but perhaps this very holding back is the one suffering you could avoid.

Don’t ever criticize yourself. Don’t go around all day long thinking, ‚I’m unattractive, I’m slow, I’m not as smart as my brother.‘ God wasn’t having a bad day when he made you… If you don’t love yourself in the right way, you can’t love your neighbour. You can’t be as good as you are supposed to be.

I can handle pain.

I know a lot of athletes and models are written off as just bodies. I never felt used for my body.

I don’t have all the answers.

Motivation is the art of getting people to do what you want them to do because they want to do it.

For me, genres are a way for people to easily categorize music. But it doesn’t have to define you. It doesn’t have to limit you.

The person you consider ignorant and insignificant is the one who came from God, that he might learn bliss from grief and knowledge from gloom.

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.

I’m not intimidated by how people perceive me.

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.

But for me to have the opportunity to stand in front of a bunch of executives and present myself, I had to hustle in my own way. I can’t tell you how frustrating it was that they didn’t get that. No joke – I’d leave meetings crying all the time.

God has equipped you to handle difficult things. In fact, He has already planted the seeds of discipline and self-control inside you. You just have to water those seeds with His Word to make them grow!

In the beginning, I was very insecure. I hated how I looked in pictures.

It’s better to hang out with people better than you. Pick out associates whose behavior is better than yours and you’ll drift in that direction.

I find only freedom in the realms of eccentricity.

The formation of one’s character ought to be everyone’s chief aim.

We do not need to proselytise either by our speech or by our writing. We can only do so really with our lives. Let our lives be open books for all to study.

If you’re embarrassed because you have some notion about how men are supposed to behave, and it doesn’t include weeping, then you have some personal work to do.

The cleverest of all, in my opinion, is the man who calls himself a fool at least once a month.

I don’t know what drives me to succeed.

I don’t see myself as ever being like anybody else.

I never went to school more than six months in my life, but I can say this: that among my earliest recollections, I remember how, when a mere child, I used to get irritated when anybody talked to me in a way I could not understand.

In a real dark night of the soul, it is always three o’clock in the morning, day after day.

I’m not interested in people positioning me next to other artists.

Creation is a sustained period of bliss, even though the subject can still be very sad. Because there’s the triumph of coming through and understanding that you have, and that you did it the way only you could do it. You didn’t do it the way somebody told you to do it.

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

If you live only in one culture for the first 20 years of your life, you become conditioned without knowing it.

When I was old enough to change my name, I changed it to Mr. T so that the first word out of someone’s mouth was ‚Mister,‘ a sign of respect.

I do not paint a portrait to look like the subject, rather does the person grow to look like his portrait.

Through my films I’m eventually trying to one day tell the truth. I don’t know if I’m ever going to get there, but I’m slowly letting pieces of myself out there and then maybe by the time I’m 85, I’ll look back and say, ‚All right, that about sums it up.‘

One’s philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes… and the choices we make are ultimately our responsibility.

Let’s be very clear: Strong men – men who are truly role models – don’t need to put down women to make themselves feel powerful. People who are truly strong lift others up. People who are truly powerful bring others together.

We all know we have a finite period of time. I just feel if I’m going to be alive, I want to be challenged – to be as immortal as possible. The path to that isn’t an easy way, but it’s a rewarding way.

I was asked to act when I couldn’t act. I was asked to sing ‚Funny Face‘ when I couldn’t sing, and dance with Fred Astaire when I couldn’t dance – and do all kinds of things I wasn’t prepared for. Then I tried like mad to cope with it.

But even the President of the United States sometimes must have to stand naked.

None of us will ever accomplish anything excellent or commanding except when he listens to this whisper which is heard by him alone.

Remember that life’s big changes rarely give advance warning.

You know, most people really don’t know me.

Self-knowledge comes from knowing other men.

I’m never going to be fast, and nobody will ever mistake me for being fast.

I know what I believe, I know what I want to do, and I’m just comfortable saying it, and laying it out there.

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.

As a kid from Compton, you can get all the success in the world and still question your worth.

Personality is everything in art and poetry.

If your inner life is not producing what you would like on the outside, don’t be discouraged… just be willing to change.

Overall there’s going to be things I’m not great at.

There’s not some idea I’m going to create a work that’s going to change everybody’s consciousness.

The people who truly know me know what I’m like. There have been people who try to say things that aren’t fair, and I check them. And then they don’t like me because I checked them.

I always was that person who was hard on myself and challenged myself no matter what I was doing, whether it was passing third grade or playing basketball.