People with great gifts are easy to find, but symmetrical and balanced ones never.

Peace is more important than all justice; and peace was not made for the sake of justice, but justice for the sake of peace.

My parents taught me never to judge others based on whom they love, what color their skin is, or their religion.

Those who create are rare; those who cannot are numerous. Therefore, the latter are stronger.

I speak to the black experience, but I am always talking about the human condition.

Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess.

I think unconscious bias is one of the hardest things to get at.

I am the astronaut of boxing. Joe Louis and Dempsey were just jet pilots. I’m in a world of my own.

Fame is like caviar, you know – it’s good to have caviar but not when you have it at every meal.

The country has come a long way in race relations, but the pendulum swings so far back. Everyone wants to be so sensitive.

Mother Earth is very talented. She has produced Buddhas, bodhisattvas, great beings.

A person who is gifted sees the essential point and leaves the rest as surplus.

I love diversity.

For everything you have missed, you have gained something else, and for everything you gain, you lose something else.

To keep oneself safe does not mean to bury oneself.

We all live with the objective of being happy; our lives are all different and yet the same.

I consider myself to have one of the greatest voices in the industry.

He that will enjoy the brightness of sunshine, must quit the coolness of the shade.

Some artists just ruin their voices because they don’t know any better.

I am very happy playing and showing off my talent on the cricket field and have no plans to enter Bollywood.

We are a nation of communities… a brilliant diversity spread like stars, like a thousand points of light in a broad and peaceful sky.

Hating people because of their color is wrong. And it doesn’t matter which color does the hating. It’s just plain wrong.

I believe that a simple and unassuming manner of life is best for everyone, best both for the body and the mind.

In all chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order.

It’s always interesting about God because it’s like all of the religions in the world say that they pray to the same God, and yet they ask that same one God to divide itself up and agree with this one and fight against that one.

The thing to do, it seems to me, is to prepare yourself so you can be a rainbow in somebody else’s cloud. Somebody who may not look like you. May not call God the same name you call God – if they call God at all. I may not dance your dances or speak your language. But be a blessing to somebody. That’s what I think.

It’s very unnatural to be someone for so many people. But of course it’s very nice.

For a while… to be an evangelical meant you were a white Republican, and you were against this and against that. I don’t want to be put into that mold, because then people judge you before they even listen… I don’t want to divide the very people I am trying to reach.

The superfluous, a very necessary thing.

I just think overall there’s not as many female ministers than there are male ministers.

We can learn to see each other and see ourselves in each other and recognize that human beings are more alike than we are unalike.

We boil at different degrees.

We are all special cases.

A true artist is expected to be all that is noble-minded, and this is not altogether a mistake; on the other hand, however, in what a mean way are critics allowed to pounce upon us.

There are people in the world who have skills and strength and talent that I will never have. Never. These notions that you can ‚be whatever you want to be as long as you want it bad enough‘ are not true. They are fairy tales.

The trouble with always trying to preserve the health of the body is that it is so difficult to do without destroying the health of the mind.

Celebrity is the chastisement of merit and the punishment of talent.

What I tell my kids is, ‚I’m preparing you for college and for life. So, having independence, knowing how to set your own boundaries, figuring out how to make that balance. We still have screen-time rules.‘

I think I do myself a disservice by comparing myself to Steve Jobs and Walt Disney and human beings that we’ve seen before. It should be more like Willy Wonka… and welcome to my chocolate factory.

How lucky Adam was. He knew when he said a good thing, nobody had said it before.

I love to play. And fortunately, I don’t know a lot of musicians that suck. I know a bunch of really good ones, and they’re always up for playing.

When I arrived, at first a lot of people were like, ‚This kid is different.‘

Just as your car runs more smoothly and requires less energy to go faster and farther when the wheels are in perfect alignment, you perform better when your thoughts, feelings, emotions, goals, and values are in balance.

Many interviewers when they come to talk to me, think they’re being progressive by not mentioning in their stories any longer that I’m black. I tell them, ‚Don’t stop now. If I shot somebody you’d mention it.‘

I never set out to be weird. It was always other people who called me weird.

Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer’s no. That’s not America. Is there something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim American kid believing that he or she could be president?

When you have shot one bird flying you have shot all birds flying. They are all different and they fly in different ways but the sensation is the same and the last one is as good as the first.

All religions must be tolerated… for every man must get to heaven in his own way.

When you play, play hard; when you work, don’t play at all.

I think the bottom of the totem pole is African-American women, or women of colour. I think they get the least opportunities in Hollywood.

I do have a lot of gays in my family now, but some will never come out.

The philosophical idea that there are no more distances, that we are all just one world, that we are all brothers, is such a drag! I like differences.

Pakistan is not a unified country.

We need somebody who’s got the heart, the empathy, to recognize what it’s like to be a young teenage mom, the empathy to understand what it’s like to be poor or African-American or gay or disabled or old – and that’s the criterion by which I’ll be selecting my judges.

Natural abilities can almost compensate for the want of every kind of cultivation, but no cultivation of the mind can make up for the want of natural abilities.

America is a poem in our eyes; its ample geography dazzles the imagination, and it will not wait long for metres.

I always had a knack for improvisation. I can write down the notes I play, but never really had a proper academic musical background. I suppose I’m blessed and cursed by the fact I have that freedom.

I’m very proud to be black, but black is not all I am. That’s my cultural historical background, my genetic makeup, but it’s not all of who I am nor is it the basis from which I answer every question.

There’s been people who’ve rapped and produced – like Kanye – but I don’t feel like on the rapping side there’s ever been a producer who can rap as good as I think I can rap.

I think the running game is very important to every offense. Being balanced is extremely important. There’s times where you have to throw the ball. You could be down late in the game, you need to come back; you have to be able to pass it when they know you’re passing it.

For Christians, who believe they are created in the image of God, it is the Godhead, diversity in unity and the three-in-oneness of God, which we and all creation reflect.