Most ignorance is vincible ignorance. We don’t know because we don’t want to know.

Next to excellence is the appreciation of it.

Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfils the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.

I believe that it is better to tell the truth than a lie. I believe it is better to be free than to be a slave. And I believe it is better to know than to be ignorant.

Reading is a basic tool in the living of a good life.

For me, I don’t want to cheat the game by saying, or kind of doing lip service by saying, I want to be the greatest ever. I want to be able to show it.

Working with a guy like Ice Cube on ‚Ride Along,‘ you learn so much. He’s a guy who produces, writes, and directs, so you watch and learn and ask questions. As you go, you learn and figure out what you should and shouldn’t do. I do nothing but soak up information.

I know my flaws before other people point them out to me.

I learned to fly a few years ago in England. It’s the only place I’m completely alone – up in the air, detached from everything.

The business schools reward difficult complex behavior more than simple behavior, but simple behavior is more effective.

The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.

I will not be concerned at other men’s not knowing me; I will be concerned at my own want of ability.

It is only when we forget all our learning that we begin to know.

To attain any assured knowledge about the soul is one of the most difficult things in the world.

Knowledge is love and light and vision.

To make headway, improve your head.

Human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge.

If a man empties his purse into his head, no one can take it from him.

It is beyond a doubt that all our knowledge begins with experience.

Those move easiest who have learn’d to dance.

Whatever is making you so angry, it’s time for you to give it to God and get over it.

Only on paper has humanity yet achieved glory, beauty, truth, knowledge, virtue, and abiding love.

But although all our knowledge begins with experience, it does not follow that it arises from experience.

Thinking is a wonderful tool if it’s applied. Thinking, however, can not become the master. Thinking is a very bad master. If you’re dominated by thinking then your life becomes very restricted.

If you desire to be good, begin by believing that you are wicked.

It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.

The truth is something that burns. It burns off dead wood. And people don’t like having the dead wood burnt off, often because they’re 95 percent dead wood.

Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain – and most fools do.

Imagination is a poor matter when it has to part company with understanding.

I love getting out of my comfort zone.

Let our advance worrying become advance thinking and planning.

I feel matured in a way that I’m happy about. I’m at this other stage in my life – and it’s not a bad thing at all.

A wise man is cured of ambition by ambition itself; his aim is so exalted that riches, office, fortune and favour cannot satisfy him.

I try to not focus on what people expect from me.

The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles, but to irrigate deserts.

And, honestly, if somebody wants to criticize me for not being a trainwreck, that’s fine with me!

It’s one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself, to forgive. Forgive everybody.

Education forms the common mind. Just as the twig is bent, the tree’s inclined.

To be great is to be misunderstood.

If I feel good about my parenting, I have no interest in judging other people’s choices. If I feel good about my body, I don’t go around making fun of other people’s weight or appearance. We’re hard on each other because we’re using each other as a launching pad out of our own perceived deficiency.

I have wondered about time all my life.

See, people are watching you. Especially your children. They’re taking in every single thing you do. They are like video cameras with legs. And they are always in the record mode. They learn more from what you do than from what you say.

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.

Most people wouldn’t know music if it came up and bit them on the ass.

The major value in life is not what you get. The major value in life is what you become.

Life is one big road with lots of signs. So when you riding through the ruts, don’t complicate your mind. Flee from hate, mischief and jealousy. Don’t bury your thoughts, put your vision to reality. Wake Up and Live!

I made my fair share of mistakes.

Experience without theory is blind, but theory without experience is mere intellectual play.

I think that I am better than the people who are trying to reform me.

I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies; for the hardest victory is over self.

Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose.

The simple act of paying attention can take you a long way.

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.

I make preparations both to live and to die every day, but with the emphasis on not dying, and on acting as if I was going to carry on living.

You have to do your own growing no matter how tall your grandfather was.

Believing in progress does not mean believing that any progress has yet been made.

We are taught you must blame your father, your sisters, your brothers, the school, the teachers – but never blame yourself. It’s never your fault. But it’s always your fault, because if you wanted to change you’re the one who has got to change.

Beware of no man more than of yourself; we carry our worst enemies within us.

I would fain grow old learning many things.

Intellectual passion drives out sensuality.

Make the most of your regrets; never smother your sorrow, but tend and cherish it till it comes to have a separate and integral interest. To regret deeply is to live afresh.