My upbringing was solid because of the people I had around me.

Any man who doesn’t love his mama can’t be no friend of mine.

How hard, how bitter it is to become a man!

Do whatever you will, but first be such as are able to will.

You can start right where you stand and apply the habit of going the extra mile by rendering more service and better service than you are now being paid for.

Let parents bequeath to their children not riches, but the spirit of reverence.

I go to sleep thinking about my kids being spoiled and I wake up thinking about it.

The aim of a college education is to teach you to know a good man when you see one.

We care for each other and care about our family, and we are both working towards the same goal.

Talent is something that comes from within; it has nothing to do with age.

But now, being a parent, I go home and see my son and I forget about any mistake I ever made or the reason I’m upset. I get home and my son is smiling or he comes running to me. It has just made me grow as an individual and grow as a man.

How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child!

The key is taking responsibility and initiative, deciding what your life is about and prioritizing your life around the most important things.

I like to be in control of how I look and how I feel and how I act.

My grandpa was a preacher.

I grew up in an environment where being polite was taken as a weakness. So I just fought everybody.

If you wish to achieve worthwhile things in your personal and career life, you must become a worthwhile person in your own self-development.

Reactive people… are often affected by their physical environment. They find external sources to blame for their behavior.

That’s the most terrible thing about being an author – standing there at your mother’s funeral, but you don’t switch the author off. So your own innermost thoughts are grist for the mill. Who was it said – one of the famous lady novelists – ‚unhappy is the family that contains an author‘?

My father considered a walk among the mountains as the equivalent of churchgoing.

Most powerful is he who has himself in his own power.

The family is the test of freedom; because the family is the only thing that the free man makes for himself and by himself.

People who are unable to motivate themselves must be content with mediocrity, no matter how impressive their other talents.

Give a little love to a child, and you get a great deal back.

I know I’m talented, but I wasn’t put here to sing. I was put here to be a wife and a mom and look after my family. I love what I do, but it’s not where it begins and ends.

I always teach myself calm and visualization stuff.

If you’re the parent, be a parent. You know what I mean? I’m a parent. I have daughters.

I give opinions, not advice.

We will always be a family. Always.

Be nice to your children. After all, they are going to choose your nursing home.

My father wasn’t perfect. He had a temper. I took some of that. He would snap, but the older he got, he started calming down. He learned about life, but the thing that he taught my whole family was that family was the most important thing and, no matter what, if a family member needs you, you go and help them out; you get there.

My mom cleaned toilets for a long time, and she’d seen a lot of terrible things, but she was still the strength of our family. And there are women like that all across the country – all around the world – who show that type of fortitude.

In search of my mother’s garden, I found my own.

To not to have entirely wasted one’s life seems to be a worthy accomplishment, if only for myself.

What gift has providence bestowed on man that is so dear to him as his children?

Part of the issue of achievement is to be able to set realistic goals, but that’s one of the hardest things to do because you don’t always know exactly where you’re going, and you shouldn’t.

I would say the most satisfying thing actually is watching my three children each pick up on their own interests and work many more hours per week than most people that have jobs at trying to intelligently give away that money in fields that they particularly care about.

We choose what attitudes we have right now. And it’s a continuing choice.

People are generally better persuaded by the reasons which they have themselves discovered than by those which have come in to the mind of others.

Highly functioning self-actualized people simply never imagine what it is that they don’t wish to have as their reality.

One has children in the expectation of dying before them. In fact, you want to make damn sure you die before them, just as you plant a tree or build a house knowing, hoping that it will outlive you. That’s how the human species has done as well as it has.

Mastering others is strength. Mastering yourself is true power.

My mami and papi love my music. They’re always listening to the radio waiting for one of my songs to come on. And when it does, they turn up the volume – and turn it back down when it’s over.

Every man is said to have his peculiar ambition. Whether it be true or not, I can say, for one, that I have no other so great as that of being truly esteemed of my fellow-men, by rendering myself worthy of their esteem. How far I shall succeed in gratifying this ambition is yet to be developed.

You make yourself broad. You make yourself appealing. ‚Hey, y’all, I’m cool with everybody.‘ That’s my message.

They say somebody’s ‚street smart.‘ I feel like, if I got intelligence, it’s just a country smart.

As a single withered tree, if set aflame, causes a whole forest to burn, so does a rascal son destroy a whole family.

Man is not the sum of what he has already, but rather the sum of what he does not yet have, of what he could have.

The reason that I’m here at all is because of my relationship with my family and their encouragement of me to be a musician and to work hard. As long as I stay there in that space, I can do anything. That’s my truth.

Formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune.

Country radio is much more like a family than any other group of people that I’ve met.

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.

Everyone must be proactive and do all they can to help themselves to stay employed.

I’ve never responded well to entrenched negative thinking.

A mother defends herself with a heart filled with love before doing so with words. I wonder whether there is any love for the church in the hearts of those who pay so much attention to the scandals.

Give a man health and a course to steer, and he’ll never stop to trouble about whether he’s happy or not.

I was raised by strong women, and that DNA is in my daughter and wife.

The first quality that is needed is audacity.

I mean, when you grow up in the inner city and you grow up in a single-parent household, that’s – those are humbling times, you know?

When a person cannot deceive himself the chances are against his being able to deceive other people.

Your energy, your spirit are important considerations. Feeling petty and frustrated can have reverberating consequences for your ability to think strategically and reach your goals.