Only when the tide goes out do you discover who’s been swimming naked.

Truth is mysterious, elusive, always to be conquered. Liberty is dangerous, as hard to live with as it is elating. We must march toward these two goals, painfully but resolutely, certain in advance of our failings on so long a road.

I never fall in love.

Opportunity often comes disguised in the form of misfortune, or temporary defeat.

We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future.

The foolish man conceives the idea of ‚self.‘ The wise man sees there is no ground on which to build the idea of ‚self;‘ thus, he has a right conception of the world and well concludes that all compounds amassed by sorrow will be dissolved again, but the truth will remain.

My mother said I must always be intolerant of ignorance but understanding of illiteracy. That some people, unable to go to school, were more educated and more intelligent than college professors.

Whoever doesn’t know it must learn and find by experience that ‚a quiet conscience makes one strong!‘

I would have written of me on my stone: I had a lover’s quarrel with the world.

The fact that the adult American Negro female emerges a formidable character is often met with amazement, distaste and even belligerance. It is seldom accepted as an inevitable outcome of the struggle won by survivors, and deserves respect if not enthusiastic acceptance.

When you know a thing, to hold that you know it, and when you do not know a thing, to allow that you do not know it – this is knowledge.

No untroubled day has ever dawned for me.

Let my skin and sinews and bones dry up, together with all the flesh and blood of my body! I welcome it! But I will not move from this spot until I have attained the supreme and final wisdom.

The devil ain’t got no power over me. The devil come, and me shake hands with the devil. Devil have his part to play. Devil’s a good friend, too… because when you don’t know him, that’s the time he can mosh you down.

I kinda live where I find myself.

Without education, your children can never really meet the challenges they will face. So it’s very important to give children education and explain that they should play a role for their country.

You have to be able to accept failure to get better.

I worked my face off.

The worst thing that happens to you may be the best thing for you if you don’t let it get the best of you.

In order to heal others, we first need to heal ourselves. And to heal ourselves, we need to know how to deal with ourselves.

The Bible says to ‚fear not,‘ but this doesn’t mean you should never feel scared. It means when you do feel fear, keep going forward and do what you are supposed to do. Or as I like to say, do it afraid.

A man can take a little bourbon without getting drunk, but if you hold his mouth open and pour in a quart, he’s going to get sick on it.

Silence is the mother of truth.

Mental toughness is a lifestyle. It’s something that you live every single day of your life. When I was growing up, I was a lazy kid. I was a lazy kid, and everybody goes, ‚How did you get to where you’re at today? How did you get to where you’re running 200 miles at one time in 39 hours? Being so disciplined?‘

Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without.

I have to write 100 songs before you write the first good one.

I don’t know what ‚normal‘ means, anyway.

I created myself. I have taught myself so much.

Who is the wisest man? He who neither knows or wishes for anything else than what happens.

And what, Socrates, is the food of the soul? Surely, I said, knowledge is the food of the soul.

Don’t be afraid to give your best to what seemingly are small jobs. Every time you conquer one it makes you that much stronger. If you do the little jobs well, the big ones will tend to take care of themselves.

Losing is tough.

I nearly failed when Virgin was in its infancy; I nearly failed in the early 1980s, and, of course, I have nearly died more than once trying to achieve a world record for boating or ballooning. But through a combination of luck and planning, both Virgin and I are still here.

I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever.

Yesterday we obeyed kings and bent our necks before emperors. But today we kneel only to truth, follow only beauty, and obey only love.

The difference is too nice – Where ends the virtue or begins the vice.

The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew.

For time is the longest distance between two places.

To go to the field and train and understand when days are less, that’s where experience helps.

If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.

My show ‚The Big House‘ was picked up; they flew me to New York. I’m about to step on stage to announce Kevin Hart’s ‚The Big House.‘ And a hand grabs my shoulder, ‚Kevin no, they just decided to cancel it.‘ It’s a serious smack-in-the-face business, and either you can take it, or you can’t.

Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.

Wonder is the basis of worship.

I was born with a happy heart, and I try to keep a good attitude. It’s not true that I’m happy all the time because nobody is, and we all go through our things.

From my close observation of writers… they fall into two groups: 1) those who bleed copiously and visibly at any bad review, and 2) those who bleed copiously and secretly at any bad review.

Courage is being scared to death… and saddling up anyway.

He who loves 50 people has 50 woes; he who loves no one has no woes.

Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers.

Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.

Our necessities never equal our wants.

We’re not a fragile people. We’re not a frightful people. Our power doesn’t come from some self-declared savior promising that he alone can restore order as long as we do things his way. We don’t look to be ruled.

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.

A Scout is never taken by surprise; he knows exactly what to do when anything unexpected happens.

It is important for you to know who you are and who you may become. It is more important than what you do, even as vital as your work is and will be.

I approach love differently now that I know it’s hard for it to work out.

Courage is fear holding on a minute longer.

He who knows, does not speak. He who speaks, does not know.

I’m on record that it didn’t really traumatize me to do away with some people.

If we long to believe that the stars rise and set for us, that we are the reason there is a Universe, does science do us a disservice in deflating our conceits?

I have said this many times, that there seems to be enough room in the world for mediocre men, but not for mediocre women, and we really have to work very, very hard.

To keep the business going, you gotta keep it boomin‘.