Take me seriously. Take me and my role seriously. Take my talent seriously.

I am not a second option person. It is that or nothing. If it is not the way I see it I prefer not to see it.

Let’s be very clear: Strong men – men who are truly role models – don’t need to put down women to make themselves feel powerful. People who are truly strong lift others up. People who are truly powerful bring others together.

Often people display a curious respect for a man drunk, rather like the respect of simple races for the insane… There is something awe-inspiring in one who has lost all inhibitions.

I always thought it was wrong for me to take credit for the work that I did. I don’t think that anymore.

I’ve sat in sushi bars, really fine ones, and I know how hard this guy worked, how proud he is. I know you don’t need sauce. I know he doesn’t even want you to pour sauce. And I’ve seen customers come in and do that, and I’ve seen him, as stoic as he tries to remain, I’ve seen him die a little inside.

I was doing sold-out shows before I got radio play.

As a songwriter, you respect and appreciate the writings of other people, and I often get asked, are there songs out there I wish I’d written? Yes. There’s many of them!

I will listen to anyone’s convictions, but pray keep your doubts to yourself.

Talk well of the absent whenever you have the opportunity.

People who treat other people as less than human must not be surprised when the bread they have cast on the waters comes floating back to them, poisoned.

Always make those above you feel comfortably superior. In your desire to please or impress them, do not go too far in displaying your talents or you might accomplish the opposite – inspire fear and insecurity.

The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was when one asked me what I thought, and attended to my answer.

For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.

Men have a respect for scholarship and learning greatly out of proportion to the use they commonly serve.

Let every man be respected as an individual and no man idolized.

Moral authority comes from following universal and timeless principles like honesty, integrity, treating people with respect.

When I’m getting to know someone, I look for someone who has passions that I respect, like his career. Someone who loves what he does is really attractive.

I respect myself and insist upon it from everybody. And because I do it, I then respect everybody, too.

I’ve been talked about by a lot better people than the general public.

I have noticed… that men usually leave married women alone and are inclined to treat all wives with respect. This is no great credit to married women.

When I was a teenager, my biggest lessons came from Kenny Chesney, Tim McGraw, George Strait, Rascal Flatts and Brad Paisley. I learned so much from opening up for those artists, and it also taught me how to treat your opening acts and make them feel like they’re part of a family, not just a tour.

The wicked leader is he who the people despise. The good leader is he who the people revere. The great leader is he who the people say, ‚We did it ourselves.‘

My mother would kill me if I posed nude! My mother raised me with certain standards.

I hold the door for the ladies – I’m a gent.

It doesn’t matter who likes you or doesn’t like you, all that matters is that God likes you. He accepts you, he approves of you.

Nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced.

It sometimes makes people feel better about themselves, you know, to put other people down, or make fun of them, or maybe make mockery of their work and that doesn’t make me feel good at all.

I grew up with my career being thrust upon me. It took me a long time to believe that I could do more than that one aspect of our business.

When someone bestows something on you, no matter how true it is, when someone says, ‚Sexiest Man Alive,‘ I’m honestly going, ‚Thank you. Right on.‘ For me, it’s never canceled out anything, it’s never made me go, ‚Does this make me less talented of an actor?‘

When you get to a place where you understand that love and belonging, your worthiness, is a birthright and not something you have to earn, anything is possible.

Literature is strewn with the wreckage of men who have minded beyond reason the opinions of others.

I want kids to know: Don’t wait for somebody to come along and tell you you’re special. Because that may never happen.

Being brilliant is no great feat if you respect nothing.

My father used to have an expression. He’d say, ‚Joey, a job is about a lot more than a paycheck. It’s about your dignity. It’s about respect. It’s about your place in your community.‘

When I first saw a picture of the crucifixion, I lost respect for my parents. I suddenly realised that this is what the adult world is like – full of cruelty and hypocrisy.

This world of ours… must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be, instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect.

A flippant, frivolous man may ridicule others, may controvert them, scorn them; but he who has any respect for himself seems to have renounced the right of thinking meanly of others.

As your career grows, the list of things that makes you happy should not become smaller, it should become bigger.

Treating your adversary with respect is striking soft in battle.

You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe deserve your love and affection.

When people do not respect us we are sharply offended; yet in his private heart no man much respects himself.

We need to reject any politics that targets people because of race or religion. This isn’t a matter of political correctness. It’s a matter of understanding what makes us strong. The world respects us not just for our arsenal; it respects us for our diversity and our openness and the way we respect every faith.

It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right.

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.‘

Feeling like you’re respected among the people who do the same thing you do is incredible and necessary.

Thieves respect property. They merely wish the property to become their property that they may more perfectly respect it.

I’m so glad I never feel important, it does complicate life!

If you think nobody cares about you, try missing a couple of payments.

Women don’t try to use me.

Women must tell men always that they are the strong ones. They are the big, the strong, the wonderful. In truth, women are the strong ones. It is just my opinion, I am not a professor.

Respect is one of life’s greatest treasures. I mean, what does it all add up to if you don’t have that?

Never injure a friend, even in jest.

We do not covet anything from any nation except their respect.

There’s one advantage in having been around as long as I have. Everybody in the Senate knows me, and – I’m going to say something presumptuous, to repeat myself – I think most respect me.

I don’t know if I’ve ever cared much what others think.

It is right to give every man his due.

Today, we’re still loaded down – and, to some extent, embarrassed – by ancient myths, but we respect them as part of the same impulse that has led to the modern, scientific kind of myth. But we now have the opportunity to discover, for the first time, the way the universe is in fact constructed as opposed to how we would wish it to be constructed.

Not everyone loves me, but I have to be okay no matter what they think about me.

No decent career was ever founded on a public.

We are not angry with people we fear or respect, as long as we fear or respect them; you cannot be afraid of a person and also at the same time angry with him.