There’s always a bittersweet kind of thing, but I feel like everything had to work out the way it is. Everything that had to happen, happened.

Everything in the world may be endured except continual prosperity.

I have learned to know God. I have recast my social belief… All my admirers are married; most of my friends are dead; and I stand with all the world before me, where to choose a path to make in it.

We must find our duties in what comes to us, not in what might have been.

In order to govern, the question is not to follow out a more or less valid theory but to build with whatever materials are at hand. The inevitable must be accepted and turned to advantage.

I’m actually starting to like more and more people who have convictions that are unpopular.

Remorse sleeps during prosperity but awakes bitter consciousness during adversity.

We can’t form our children on our own concepts; we must take them and love them as God gives them to us.

I do not believe in a fate that falls on men however they act; but I do believe in a fate that falls on them unless they act.

There are alway going to be bad things. But you can write it down and make a song out of it.

Thirty-three-years-old, still creating art. It’s rage, it’s creativity, it’s pain, it’s hurt, but it’s the opportunity to still have my voice get out there through music.

If you can’t make it better, you can laugh at it.

Difficulties are things that show a person what they are.

It is easy enough to be friendly to one’s friends. But to befriend the one who regards himself as your enemy is the quintessence of true religion. The other is mere business.

Here in America, we don’t give in to our fears. We don’t build up walls to keep people out.

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

I’m very picky; I’m never happy with anything. It’s so hard to give the record away and accept that you’re done.

Bad times have a scientific value. These are occasions a good learner would not miss.

When one door is closed, don’t you know, another is open.

To me, it’s OK to have differences. But we don’t have to be mad about it. You know? And I think that’s where sometimes we get so passionate that we – you know, it turns into anger.

I sang a song at my sister’s wedding. My mother forced me into that, too. But that one felt all right.

My mother, I suppose, is still a main figure in my life because her life was so sad and unfair, and she so brave, but also because she was determined to make me into the Sunday-school-recitation little girl I was, from the age of seven or so, fighting not to be.

The successful man will profit from his mistakes and try again in a different way.

We are ready for any unforeseen event that may or may not occur.

People always fear change. People feared electricity when it was invented, didn’t they? People feared coal, they feared gas-powered engines… There will always be ignorance, and ignorance leads to fear. But with time, people will come to accept their silicon masters.

That’s when you know you’re the greatest: when you’re the greatest, and people still put odds against you.

Anxiety does not empty tomorrow of its sorrows, but only empties today of its strength.

To complain is always nonacceptance of what is. It invariably carries an unconscious negative charge. When you complain, you make yourself into a victim. When you speak out, you are in your power. So change the situation by taking action or by speaking out if necessary or possible; leave the situation or accept it. All else is madness.

I don’t try to control my days.

If I were dropped out of a plane into the ocean and told the nearest land was a thousand miles away, I’d still swim. And I’d despise the one who gave up.

I believe that one key to success is to accept truth, no matter how it’s spoken.

I can control my destiny, but not my fate. Destiny means there are opportunities to turn right or left, but fate is a one-way street. I believe we all have the choice as to whether we fulfil our destiny, but our fate is sealed.

Dear friends, we may well sing to our Beloved when it is near the time of our departure. It draws near, and as it approaches, we must not dread it, but rather thank God for it.

Great grief does not of itself put an end to itself.

Hate has no place in the house of God.

It is true that we are weak and sick and ugly and quarrelsome but if that is all we ever were, we would millenniums ago have disappeared from the face of the earth.

The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew.

Every man in his lifetime needs to thank his faults.

Me and my dad are friends. We’re cool. I’ll never be disappointed again, because I don’t expect anything anymore from him. I just let him exist, and that’s how we get along.

I probably wouldn’t have made it this far if I were a refugee.

If you look at my life, generally, I’ve been put in situations which were difficult and which I conquered.

There is no such thing as accident; it is fate misnamed.

Every single one of us has a few months here or there that feel like dark months.

Only if you have been in the deepest valley, can you ever know how magnificent it is to be on the highest mountain.

My fate cannot be mastered; it can only be collaborated with and thereby, to some extent, directed. Nor am I the captain of my soul; I am only its noisiest passenger.

When I was young, I observed that nine out of ten things I did were failures. So I did ten times more work.

Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.

People in tough times – it doesn’t mean they don’t have a great attitude.

In difficult times, we’re not supposed to quit believing; we’re not supposed to quit growing.

When I get down, I don’t waller around for long.

What old people say you cannot do, you try and find that you can. Old deeds for old people, and new deeds for new.

You cannot control what happens to you, but you can control your attitude toward what happens to you, and in that, you will be mastering change rather than allowing it to master you.

The man who has no problems is out of the game.

You can’t do something forever.

Man never legislates, but destinies and accidents, happening in all sorts of ways, legislate in all sorts of ways.

It’s not fun to get out of bed early in the morning. When the alarm goes off, it doesn’t sing you a song: it hits you in the head with a baseball bat. So how do you respond to that? Do you crawl underneath your covers and hide? Or do you get up, get aggressive, and attack the day?

America is known as a country that welcomes people to its shores. All kinds of people. The image of the Statue of Liberty with Emma Lazarus‘ famous poem. She lifts her lamp and welcomes people to the golden shore, where they will not experience prejudice because of the color of their skin, the religious faith that they follow.

I will be conquered; I will not capitulate.

Why is it so hard for people to believe that white people are poor?! I wouldn’t say I lived in a ghetto; I’d say I lived in the ‚hood. The same friends I had back then are the same people on tour with me now.

Through every victory and every setback, I’ve insisted that change is never easy and never quick; that we wouldn’t meet all of our challenges in one term, or one presidency, or even in one lifetime.

I don’t suffer of anything that I’ve lost.