The value of beauty and inspiration is very much underrated, no question. But I want to be clear: I’m not trying to be anyone’s savior. I’m just trying to think about the future and not be sad.

The nice thing is that when people come up to me, it’s the football they remember, not all the other rubbish.

I think I could go away tomorrow. I’ve already accomplished something. It’s such a selfish business that sometimes I get sick of myself.

There is no harm in repeating a good thing.

Nature that framed us of four elements, warring within our breasts for regiment, doth teach us all to have aspiring minds.

That is America. That is America. Those bonds of affection; that common creed. We don’t fear the future; we shape it. We embrace it, as one people, stronger together than we are on our own.

What a wee little part of a person’s life are his acts and his words! His real life is led in his head, and is known to none but himself.

If passion drives you, let reason hold the reins.

Ambition has one heel nailed in well, though she stretch her fingers to touch the heavens.

I hope not to define myself by suffering.

Yeah we all shine on, like the moon, and the stars, and the sun.

All human evil comes from a single cause, man’s inability to sit still in a room.

In the egoic state, your sense of self, your identity, is derived from your thinking mind – in other words, what your mind tells you about yourself: the storyline of you, the memories, the expectations, all the thoughts that go through your head continuously and the emotions that reflect those thoughts. All those things make up your sense of self.

There is no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather.

I’ve never been able to witness the birth of an idea. It seems as if one second, there’s nothing particularly going on, and the next second, something is there. It’s coming up out of my unconscious, up from places that I don’t even know where they are.

Snoop ain’t never cosigned me, but I know everybody is like, ‚That’s the next Snoop.‘ Nah, I’m Nipsey, and I got to work to define myself.

All of my writing is God-given.

As we grow old, the beauty steals inward.

In one way, I suppose, I have been ‚in denial‘ for some time, knowingly burning the candle at both ends and finding that it often gives a lovely light.

If you want to succeed you should strike out on new paths, rather than travel the worn paths of accepted success.

Compliment three people every day.

There are dark shadows on the earth, but its lights are stronger in the contrast.

I have the ’77 Million Paintings‘ running in my studio a lot of the time. Occasionally I’ll look up from what I’m doing and I think, ‚God, I’ve never seen anything like that before!‘ And that’s a real thrill.

Beauty and folly are old companions.

I suppose for me as an artist it wasn’t always just about expressing my work; I really wanted, more than anything else, to contribute in some way to the culture that I was living in. It just seemed like a challenge to move it a little bit towards the way I thought it might be interesting to go.

You do things when the opportunities come along. I’ve had periods in my life when I’ve had a bundle of ideas come along, and I’ve had long dry spells. If I get an idea next week, I’ll do something. If not, I won’t do a damn thing.

We identify in our experience a differentiation between what we do and what happens to us.

What we need to do is always lean into the future; when the world changes around you and when it changes against you – what used to be a tail wind is now a head wind – you have to lean into that and figure out what to do because complaining isn’t a strategy.

Technology is nothing. What’s important is that you have a faith in people, that they’re basically good and smart, and if you give them tools, they’ll do wonderful things with them.

To know oneself is to study oneself in action with another person.

Look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see, and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious.

Faith activates God – Fear activates the Enemy.

I think the tiniest little thing can change the course of your day, which can change the course of your year, which can change who you are.

Life begins on the other side of despair.

Life is one grand, sweet song, so start the music.

Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try!

I think it speaks of all women having those few special things that make them feel feminine. And so when I was a little girl, I would associate Guerlain with that.

Satan wants us to constantly focus on everything that is wrong with us and look at how far we still have to go. But God desires for us to rejoice in how far we have already come.

For beautiful eyes, look for the good in others; for beautiful lips, speak only words of kindness; and for poise, walk with the knowledge that you are never alone.

Water is the driving force of all nature.

Be pleasant until ten o’clock in the morning and the rest of the day will take care of itself.

The secret to happiness is to face the fact that the world is horrible.

Why don’t you start believing that no matter what you have or haven’t done, that your best days are still out in front of you.

You’re going to die. You’re going to be dead. It could be 20 years, it could be tomorrow, anytime. So am I. I mean, we’re just going to be gone. The world’s going to go on without us. All right now. You do your job in the face of that, and how seriously you take yourself you decide for yourself.

There are certain shades of limelight that can wreck a girl’s complexion.

One of the many lessons that one learns in prison is, that things are what they are and will be what they will be.

Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see a shadow.

A great social success is a pretty girl who plays her cards as carefully as if she were plain.

Perhaps one of the most difficult things for us to do is to choose a notable and joyous dress for men. There would be more joy in life if we were to accustom ourselves to use all the beautiful colours we can in fashioning our own clothes.

We must build dikes of courage to hold back the flood of fear.

For me, I used to be shy towards journalism because it wasn’t poetry. And then I realized that the events that I covered in essays that became journalism were actually great because they inspired me, and they became my muse.

When I heard Little Richard, I mean, it just set my world on fire.

You must capture and keep the heart of the original and supremely able man before his brain can do its best.

All our words are but crumbs that fall down from the feast of the mind.

To hold a pen is to be at war.

Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve.

I don’t feel too much pressure. I only see an opportunity.

How many things there are concerning which we might well deliberate whether we had better know them.

No man is hurt but by himself.

It may be possible to gild pure gold, but who can make his mother more beautiful?

Flowers… are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty outvalues all the utilities of the world.