No evil dooms us hopelessly except the evil we love, and desire to continue in, and make no effort to escape from.

The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish.

So much of what we do every single day is the result of habits that we have formed over time.

The older I get the more wisdom I find in the ancient rule of taking first things first. A process which often reduces the most complex human problem to a manageable proportion.

Work harder on yourself than you do on your job.

We do not judge the people we love.

Yeah, I like to keep myself interested – I’ll kind of throw myself into some area that I don’t completely know or understand, that I’m not adept at, so I’m forced to swim in order to stay afloat. There’s a good feeling that comes from that.

I have fallen in love with the imagination. And if you fall in love with the imagination, you understand that it is a free spirit. It will go anywhere, and it can do anything.

The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing.

The loss of young first love is so painful that it borders on the ludicrous.

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.

Be a force of love as often as you can and turn away negative thoughts whenever you feel them surface.

Nobody likes to fail. I want to succeed in everything I do, which isn’t much. But the things that I’m really passionate about, if I fail at those, if I’m not successful, what do I have?

To know oneself, one should assert oneself.

Do not think of your faults, still less of other’s faults; look for what is good and strong, and try to imitate it. Your faults will drop off, like dead leaves, when their time comes.

I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor.

My father probably thought the capital of the world was wherever he was at the time. It couldn’t possibly be anyplace else. Where he and his wife were in their own home, that, for them, was the capital of the world.

I thank God I’m myself and for the life I’m given to live and for friends and lovers and beloveds, and I thank God for knowing that all those people have already paid for me.

The greatest mistake we make is living in constant fear that we will make one.

Satisfaction lies in the effort, not in the attainment, full effort is full victory.

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

If I’d had good discipline, I might have gone into music.

We must use time as a tool, not as a couch.

Character is the result of two things: mental attitude and the way we spend our time.

To love rightly is to love what is orderly and beautiful in an educated and disciplined way.

The men I idolized built their bodies and became somebody – like Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger – and I thought, ‚That can be me.‘ So I started working out. The funny thing is I didn’t realize back then that I was having a defining moment.

There are a lot of ‚chicken Christians.‘ Chickens are generally afraid of life, and they seldom fly or reach their potential in life. And when a storm comes, all they seem to do is flap around the chicken yard, stirring up dirt and running to the chicken house.

Wouldn’t it be great if we could look forward to a whole world in which no child will be left behind?

Let our advance worrying become advance thinking and planning.

I should like to lie at your feet and die in your arms.

‚Victory Lap,‘ even the title. It’s the accumulation of trial and error; that’s what I represent; trial and error.

Timidity makes a person modest. It makes him or her say, ‚I’m not worthy of being written up in the record of deeds in heaven or on earth.‘ Timidity keeps people from their good. They are afraid to say, ‚Yes, I deserve it.‘

It is well for the world that in most of us, by the age of thirty, the character has set like plaster, and will never soften again.

I had wanted a tape recorder since I was tiny. I thought it was a magic thing. I never got one until just before I went to art school.

On a given day, a given circumstance, you think you have a limit.

Pay attention, don’t let life go by you. Fall in love with the back of your cereal box.

If I get stuck, I look at a book that tells me how someone else did it. I turn the pages, and then I say, ‚Oh, I forgot that bit,‘ then close the book and carry on. Finally, after you’ve figured out how to do it, you read how they did it and find out how dumb your solution is and how much more clever and efficient theirs is!

There is no man living that can not do more than he thinks he can.

Ambition is the immoderate desire for power.

If we’re going to bring out the best in people, we, too, need to sow seeds of encouragement.

Is it not strange that desire should so many years outlive performance?

I focus on my own job.

Don’t ever play yourself.

Let us more and more insist on raising funds of love, of kindness, of understanding, of peace. Money will come if we seek first the Kingdom of God – the rest will be given.

Getting organized in the normal routines of life and finishing little projects you’ve started is an important first step toward realizing larger goals. If you can’t get a handle on the small things, how will you ever get it together to focus on the big things?

Sometimes I think my husband is so amazing that I don’t know why he’s with me. I don’t know whether I’m good enough. But if I make him happy, then I’m everything I want to be.

Nobody can give you wiser advice than yourself.

We forge the chains we wear in life.

But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.

The reason men oppose progress is not that they hate progress, but that they love inertia.

It’s not possible to stop love.

It’s a piece of cake until you get to the top. You find you can’t stop playing the game the way you’ve always played it.

People pay for what they do, and still more for what they have allowed themselves to become. And they pay for it very simply; by the lives they lead.

The fact is I am not having sex. But I feel absolutely ripe for the, what would you say? plucking?

O love, if I regret the age when one savors you, it is not for the hour of pleasure, but for the one that follows it.

The greatest good you can do for another is not just to share your riches but to reveal to him his own.

Libraries raised me.

I’ve never had a dislike for men. I’ve been badly treated by some. But I’ve been loved greatly by some. I married a lot of them.

To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing.

You can become an even more excellent person by constantly setting higher and higher standards for yourself and then by doing everything possible to live up to those standards.

With realization of one’s own potential and self-confidence in one’s ability, one can build a better world.