We cannot change anything until we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses.

No man is hurt but by himself.

Do you wish people to think well of you? Don’t speak well of yourself.

Success has always been a great liar.

I haven’t been faithful to my own advice in the past. I will in the future.

Don’t only practice your art, but force your way into its secrets; art deserves that, for it and knowledge can raise man to the Divine.

If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.

I think I’ve got wiser.

Learning to live for others isn’t something that just comes naturally to anybody. You have to train yourself to do it.

Freedom from effort in the present merely means that there has been effort stored up in the past.

In my next incarnation, I want to be a writer.

I’m always trying. Between every book, I think, ‚Well now, it’s time to get down to the serious stuff.‘

One change always leaves the way open for the establishment of others.

Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.

It’s really hard to guarantee things in life. I guarantee if you get up in the morning and you work out, and you work hard, you will have a better day – 100% guaranteed.

While you’re saving your face, you’re losing your ass.

Until you have learned to be tolerant with those who do not always agree with you, you will be neither successful nor happy.

Things won’t get better dwelling on the past. Accept what has happened. Then move forward.

Nothing stands out so conspicuously, or remains so firmly fixed in the memory, as something which you have blundered.

I am an over-achiever, and I want to be known for the good things in my life.

Indeed, it is as important to learn how to receive a blessing as it is to be willing to give one.

‚Worry‘ is a word that I don’t allow myself to use.

It’s not the daily increase but daily decrease. Hack away at the unessential.

I focus on my own job.

I have a personal ambition to live my life honestly and honor the true love that I’ve had and also the people I’ve had around me.

I know that when I pray, something wonderful happens. Not just to the person or persons for whom I’m praying, but also something wonderful happens to me. I’m grateful that I’m heard.

Your daily life is your temple and your religion. When you enter into it take with you your all.

Things that I felt absolutely sure of but a few years ago, I do not believe now. This thought makes me see more clearly how foolish it would be to expect all men to agree with me.

The best is the enemy of the good.

The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure, the process is its own reward.

It is easier to be critical than correct.

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.

I always like to create things that get attention. It used to be a problem when I wasn’t famous. Now, I can do whatever I want and people have to accept it.

If you change and adapt your persona, you are seen as inauthentic; if you stay the angry young man, you fade from attention or seem tiresome.

Get busy living, or get busy dying.

Humble people ask for help.

One of the huge imbalances in life is the disparity between your daily existence, with its routines and habits, and the dream you have within yourself of some extraordinarily satisfying way of living.

Don’t be humble… you’re not that great.

Black people comprehend the South. We understand its weight. It has rested on our backs… I knew that my heart would break if ever I put my foot down on that soil, moist, still, with old hurts. I had to face the fear/loathing at its source or it would consume me whole.

It says nothing against the ripeness of a spirit that it has a few worms.

The way I approach this thing, when I started to get my head screwed on straight and really trying to make something of myself as an artist, when I was 19 or 20, it became more about function for me. Like, what is this song doing to you? What is the function of this type of artform? What is it doing?

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.

Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.

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

If you’re not ready for everything, you’re not ready for anything.

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.

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.

All religions must be tolerated… for every man must get to heaven in his own way.

All of us should be on guard against beliefs that flatter ourselves. At the very least, we should check such beliefs against facts.

Understand this law and you will then know, beyond room for the slightest doubt, that you are constantly punishing yourself for every wrong you commit and rewarding yourself for every act of constructive conduct in which you indulge.

All you need to do to be my friend is like me.

I am a walking piece of art every day, with my dreams and my ambitions forward at all times in an effort to inspire my fans to lead their life in that way.

There are old heads in the world who cannot help me by their example or advice to live worthily and satisfactorily to myself; but I believe that it is in my power to elevate myself this very hour above the common level of my life.

I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor.

For the introduction of a new kind of music must be shunned as imperiling the whole state; since styles of music are never disturbed without affecting the most important political institutions.

Undeserved praise causes more pangs of conscience later than undeserved blame, but probably only for this reason, that our power of judgment are more completely exposed by being over praised than by being unjustly underestimated.

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

Personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures.

I have seen many storms in my life. Most storms have caught me by surprise, so I had to learn very quickly to look further and understand that I am not capable of controlling the weather, to exercise the art of patience and to respect the fury of nature.

Before everything else, getting ready is the secret of success.

Whatever you do may seem insignificant to you, but it is most important that you do it.