Religion is essentially the art and the theory of the remaking of man. Man is not a finished creation.

Alas! You complain that your soul is out of tune. Then ask the Master to tune the heart-strings.

Theology is the effort to explain the unknowable in terms of the not worth knowing.

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

To learn something but not to do is really not to learn. To know something but not to do is really not to know.

All wrong-doing arises because of mind. If mind is transformed can wrong-doing remain?

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.

Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune.

Our greatest evils flow from ourselves.

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.

Chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken.

I do think that a minister who can preach a sermon without addressing sinners does not know how to preach.

Imagine for yourself a character, a model personality, whose example you determine to follow, in private as well as in public.

It is possible to live happily in the here and the now. So many conditions of happiness are available – more than enough for you to be happy right now. You don’t have to run into the future in order to get more.

The first and greatest victory is to conquer yourself; to be conquered by yourself is of all things most shameful and vile.

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.

And so you touch this limit, something happens and you suddenly can go a little bit further. With your mind power, your determination, your instinct, and the experience as well, you can fly very high.

I have a dogmatic certainty: God is in every person’s life. God is in everyone’s life. Even if the life of a person has been a disaster, even if it is destroyed by vices, drugs or anything else – God is in this person’s life. You can – you must – try to seek God in every human life.

There are two kinds of people one can call reasonable: those who serve God with all their heart because they know him, and those who seek him with all their heart because they do not know him.

I consider myself a poet first and a musician second. I live like a poet and I’ll die like a poet.

How much better it would be if all could be more aware of God’s providence and love and express that gratitude to Him.

I used to carry my father’s Bible and put it on the pulpit so he could preach.

I had never been in charge of anything. I’d always worked for someone. I worked for a furniture warehouse. I did masonry. I always had a boss yelling at me. So I’d never been in charge of an organization.

I have to keep improving myself and challenging myself.

Courage is the most important of all the virtues, because without courage you can’t practice any other virtue consistently. You can practice any virtue erratically, but nothing consistently without courage.

Be smarter than other people, just don’t tell them so.

It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.

Health is the greatest possession. Contentment is the greatest treasure. Confidence is the greatest friend. Non-being is the greatest joy.

Our country does not believe in the concept of your God and my God. We believe that all gods are one. We have different ways of accepting Him. All ways lead to Him.

What could I say to you that would be of value, except that perhaps you seek too much, that as a result of your seeking you cannot find.

I create stars.

If your inner life is not producing what you would like on the outside, don’t be discouraged… just be willing to change.

Gold was a gift to Jesus. If it’s good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for me!

I’m completely in favor of the separation of Church and State. My idea is that these two institutions screw us up enough on their own, so both of them together is certain death.

I am radically, insanely, nutty in love with Jesus!

Doubt, of whatever kind, can be ended by action alone.

There are many things I do where the centre of it is… It’s almost more my humanitarian work than art.

Each of us has a vision of good and of evil. We have to encourage people to move towards what they think is good… Everyone has his own idea of good and evil and must choose to follow the good and fight evil as he conceives them. That would be enough to make the world a better place.

Small amounts of philosophy lead to atheism, but larger amounts bring us back to God.

Pray, and let God worry.

Slave to no sect, who takes no private road, But looks through Nature up to Nature’s God.

I’m only as good as my last word, my last hook, my last bridge.

The presence of passion within you is the greatest gift you can receive. Treat it as a miracle.

Bring your desires down to your present means. Increase them only when your increased means permit.

A guilty conscience needs to confess. A work of art is a confession.

If I see something sagging, bagging or dragging I’ll get it nipped, tucked or sucked.

I’m very careful about saying who would and wouldn’t go to heaven. I don’t know.

While we are postponing, life speeds by.

A person once asked me, in a provocative manner, if I approved of homosexuality. I replied with another question: ‚Tell me: when God looks at a gay person, does he endorse the existence of this person with love, or reject and condemn this person?‘ We must always consider the person.

God does not play dice.

We learn martial arts as helping weakness. You never fight for people to get hurt. You’re always helping people.

I feel like this: Whatever is in your path and in your heart, you need to do.

I really started writing music to challenge myself, to see what I could write.

Read no history: nothing but biography, for that is life without theory.

The best measure of a man’s honesty isn’t his income tax return. It’s the zero adjust on his bathroom scale.

Power over others is weakness disguised as strength.

I want people to draw strength from me.

I knew ‚Crenshaw‘ had elevated me and distinguished me.

We need to internalize this idea of excellence. Not many folks spend a lot of time trying to be excellent.

A lot of people cry and complain and put their hand out and beg. It never goes well.

He who conquers others is strong; He who conquers himself is mighty.