The cleverest of all, in my opinion, is the man who calls himself a fool at least once a month.

The superior man does not, even for the space of a single meal, act contrary to virtue. In moments of haste, he cleaves to it. In seasons of danger, he cleaves to it.

Make bold choices and make mistakes. It’s all those things that add up to the person you become.

Never say anything about yourself you do not want to come true.

A gem cannot be polished without friction, nor a man perfected without trials.

No matter how dull, or how mean, or how wise a man is, he feels that happiness is his indisputable right.

I feel matured in a way that I’m happy about. I’m at this other stage in my life – and it’s not a bad thing at all.

Talking much about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself.

The Canteen Boy, the reason you feel bad for him and you can laugh is because he, and I guess a lot of my characters, they don’t notice they’re getting made fun of. So they’ll say something back that’s not that great a quip, but in their mind they won the argument.

I don’t believe in ‚thinking‘ old. Although I’ve transitioned through many bodies – a baby, toddler, child, teen, young adult, mid-life and older adult – my spirit is unchanged. I support my body with exercise, my mind with reading and writing, and my spirit with the knowing that I am part of the Divine source of all life.

There is no sin except stupidity.

Pick the day. Enjoy it – to the hilt. The day as it comes. People as they come… The past, I think, has helped me appreciate the present – and I don’t want to spoil any of it by fretting about the future.

I think, when you are growing up, you have to pull apart from what your mother wants or needs. You’ve got to go your own way, and that’s what I did.

You carry Mother Earth within you. She is not outside of you. Mother Earth is not just your environment.

People grow through experience if they meet life honestly and courageously. This is how character is built.

I can only note that the past is beautiful because one never realises an emotion at the time. It expands later, and thus we don’t have complete emotions about the present, only about the past.

Is pride, the never-failing vice of fools.

I exaggerate when I’m angry, but I’ve never gone around telling people things that aren’t true about me.

Comfort and prosperity have never enriched the world as much as adversity has.

It’s hard to articulate how I think about myself as a public figure.

I was brought up to believe that the worst thing you could do was ‚call attention to yourself,‘ or ‚think you were smart.‘ My mother was an exception to this rule and was punished by the early onset of Parkinson’s disease.

I don’t have all the answers.

The Nation of Islam’s main focus was teaching black pride and self-awareness. Why should we keep trying to force ourselves into white restaurants and schools when white people didn’t want us? Why not clean up our own neighborhoods and schools instead of trying to move out of them and into white people’s neighborhoods?

Knowing others is wisdom, knowing yourself is Enlightenment.

In every phenomenon the beginning remains always the most notable moment.

His priority did not seem to be to teach them what he knew, but rather to impress upon them that nothing, not even… knowledge, was foolproof.

To insult someone we call him ‚bestial. For deliberate cruelty and nature, ‚human‘ might be the greater insult.

Forty is when you actually begin even deserving to be on stage telling people what you think.

To know yourself as the Being underneath the thinker, the stillness underneath the mental noise, the love and joy underneath the pain, is freedom, salvation, enlightenment.

Remember that children, marriages, and flower gardens reflect the kind of care they get.

Old friends pass away, new friends appear. It is just like the days. An old day passes, a new day arrives. The important thing is to make it meaningful: a meaningful friend – or a meaningful day.

Be not the first by whom the new are tried, Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.

Returning to your family and where you came from, and your history… this is what makes you strong. It’s not looking out that’s going to do that – it’s looking in.

Do not bite at the bait of pleasure, till you know there is no hook beneath it.

Education is the period during which you are being instructed by somebody you do not know, about something you do not want to know.

If you’re serious, you really understand that it’s important that you laugh as much as possible and admit that you’re the funniest person you ever met. You have to laugh. Admit that you’re funny. Otherwise, you die in solemnity.

Remember that your imagination is yours and yours alone. You have the inborn capacity to use it in any way that you choose. No one else is responsible for your imagination. Anything placed in your imagination and held there ultimately becomes your reality.

Sometimes the first duty of intelligent men is the restatement of the obvious.

When I came into this industry, I was never afraid to be myself.

You learn from a conglomeration of the incredible past – whatever experience gotten in any way whatsoever.

You live and learn. At any rate, you live.

Meditation is a state of mind which looks at everything with complete attention, totally, not just parts of it. And no one can teach you how to be attentive. If any system teaches you how to be attentive, then you are attentive to the system, and that is not attention.

Even as you make progress, you need the discipline to keep from backtracking and sabotaging the success as it’s happening.

Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers.

It’s still scary every time I go back to the past. Each morning, my heart catches. When I get there, I remember how the light was, where the draft was coming from, what odors were in the air. When I write, I get all the weeping out.

We all have two lives: an inner life and an outer life. Your inner life is your soul life, which includes your mind, will and emotions. Your outer life is your physical life. And while God cares about every detail of your life, He is more concerned with your inner life than your outer life.

Nobody can bring you peace but yourself.

Boys do cry, but I don’t think I shed a tear for a good chunk of my teenage years.

You’re dead if you aim only for kids. Adults are only kids grown up, anyway.

I love my friends and my past, and it’s made me who I am.

Whatever the universal nature assigns to any man at any time is for the good of that man at that time.

It is really very important while you are young to live in an environment in which there is no fear. Most of us, as we grow older, become frightened; we are afraid of living, afraid of losing a job, afraid of tradition, afraid of what the neighbours, or what the wife or husband would say, afraid of death.

My reputation grows with every failure.

People like to build their own story about my life. I don’t know if it makes them feel better, or if it makes it okay for them to not like me, but the last thing I grew up as was rich.

Whatever is making you so angry, it’s time for you to give it to God and get over it.

My weaknesses have always been food and men – in that order.

I always knew from that moment, from the time I found myself at home in that little segregated library in the South, all the way up until I walked up the steps of the New York City library, I always felt, in any town, if I can get to a library, I’ll be OK. It really helped me as a child, and that never left me.

Boredom, anger, sadness, or fear are not ‚yours,‘ not personal. They are conditions of the human mind. They come and go. Nothing that comes and goes is you.

To be happy we must not be too concerned with others.

It is hard sometimes to always be at the centre of attention, but when you talk about me you also have to talk about the climate.

At twenty years of age the will reigns; at thirty, the wit; and at forty, the judgment.