When I was nine years old, living on the south side of Chicago, my father was a minister and my mother used to scrub floors. I had seven brothers and four sisters. I told my mama, ‚One of these days I’m going to be big and strong and buy you a beautiful house.‘ That’s all I’ve ever wanted to do with my life, is to take care of my mother.

Teach not thy lip such scorn, for it was made For kissing, lady, not for such contempt.

I feel like I’m the kind of guy that would have kids before getting married. The first thing would be kids.

The truth is, I had always wanted to be a comedian, but I really didn’t have that kind of personality, and it’s a terrifying thing to say.

The colonel replied that he didn’t care how my men had got the job done. He was happy that it had been accomplished. He said that, obviously, no matter how much or how little I knew technically, I was able to get the best out of people I worked with.

It is a rough road that leads to the heights of greatness.

I booked my first studio at like 12 or 13. Somewhere in that season of my life, singing along with the radio became me wanting to be on radio, you know. And writing Langston Hughes replica poems became me wanting to write like Stevie Wonder.

I don’t know what drives me to succeed.

Why go through life if you’re not going to challenge yourself?

The course of true love never did run smooth.

It’s been my experience in politics that you can try and plan it out: ‚I’m going to hit the three ball which will hit the eight ball.‘ You’ve just got to go run and try to do everything right. And then have a little luck.

I praticed making faces in the mirror and it would drive my mother crazy. She used to scare me by saying that I was going to see the devil if I kept looking in the mirror. That fascinated me even more, of course.

I didn’t have any children of my own.

We want justice, but at the same time, we gotta love and come together and bring unity, and I feel it’s gonna happen.

Desperation is sometimes as powerful an inspirer as genius.

Find your voice and inspire others to find theirs.

If there is anything that a man can do well, I say let him do it. Give him a chance.

What we think determines what happens to us, so if we want to change our lives, we need to stretch our minds.

Often people become our friend or follower with an undercurrent of resentment in our having more success than they have. They secretly desire the opportunity to take us down a notch; they have a nose for any misstep on our part they can exploit.

For me, the opposite of scarcity is not abundance. It’s enough. I’m enough. My kids are enough.

God grant that not only the love of liberty but a thorough knowledge of the rights of man may pervade all the nations of the earth, so that a philosopher may set his foot anywhere on its surface and say: ‚This is my country.‘

He who waits to do a great deal of good at once will never do anything.

Thinking is easy, acting is difficult, and to put one’s thoughts into action is the most difficult thing in the world.

The competitor to be feared is one who never bothers about you at all, but goes on making his own business better all the time.

O love, if I regret the age when one savors you, it is not for the hour of pleasure, but for the one that follows it.

My mother is a singer, my sisters all sing, my uncles are incredible singers and guitar players, so it’s just kind of been like my habitat.

People hate as they love, unreasonably.

Temptation is just the feeling that you’re the most independent person on planet Earth. That you know everything. That’s something that we all go through as a kid. Now, this lifestyle that I’m in, the same thing exists! But it’s 10 times worse, because everything is at my disposal. When you’re in the limelight, you can get anything you want.

No matter what has happened to you in the past or what is going on in your life right now, it has no power to keep you from having an amazingly good future if you will walk by faith in God. God loves you! He wants you to live with victory over sin so you can possess His promises for your life today!

The death of my father is probably the biggest thing that I ever faced. Daddy and I were best friends.

I’m not claiming divinity. I’ve never claimed purity of soul. I’ve never claimed to have the answers to life. I only put out songs and answer questions as honestly as I can… But I still believe in peace, love and understanding.

I was raised by strong women, and that DNA is in my daughter and wife.

While we may lose heart, we never have to lose hope.

Power is my mistress. I have worked too hard at her conquest to allow anyone to take her away from me.

Young men and women, your education is ever important – to us, to you, and to God.

If you are a small company taking on a big company, you need to have a sense of humor.

I have to write because if I don’t get something down then after a while I feel it’s going to bang the side of my head off.

Everyone, no doubt, remains first and foremost a man of his own country and continues to draw from it his motive force.

The superior man understands what is right; the inferior man understands what will sell.

New ideas pass through three periods: 1) It can’t be done. 2) It probably can be done, but it’s not worth doing. 3) I knew it was a good idea all along!

Even the best teams can fail. Celebrities can fade. There is only One in whom your faith is always safe, and that is in the Lord Jesus Christ. And you need to let your faith show!

Back in the day, what motivated me was overcoming myself. Now I believe in being a leader. I’ve done it all – I’m good. Now, it’s about setting an example for others to follow. I can’t just talk it – I have to live it.

The highest reward for a person’s toil is not what they get for it, but what they become by it.

Marriage is this grand madness, and I think if people knew that, they would perhaps take it more seriously.

When we talk about mortality, we are talking about our children.

To lead people walk behind them.

Success is the child of audacity.

I was baptized by my father when I was 4 years old.

It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all, in which case you have failed by default.

The man who loves other countries as much as his own stands on a level with the man who loves other women as much as he loves his own wife.

My dad seemed comfortable with his decision to be a ‚have-not,‘ but I knew that I wasn’t.

Being a housewife and a mother is the biggest job in the world, but if it doesn’t interest you, don’t do it – I would have made a terrible mother.

You sort of start thinking anything’s possible if you’ve got enough nerve.

When a man has once loved a woman he will do anything for her except continue to love her.

Success is getting what you want. Happiness is liking what you get.

Sometimes it’s a form of love just to talk to somebody that you have nothing in common with and still be fascinated by their presence.

One thing that I find very unmotivating is the kind of Plan B argument: when Earth gets destroyed, you want to be somewhere else. That doesn’t work for me. We have sent robotic probes now to every place in the solar system, and this is the best one.

I will be unhappy if I know I have not accomplished something I should have done that was possible.

People like to blame others. I think a person should just look at their own situation, look around them, find out what they wish to do, and seek and go and do that. And that’s it.

I can’t do nothing just a little.

Love is a really scary thing, and you never know what’s going to happen. It’s one of the most beautiful things in life, but it’s one of the most terrifying. It’s worth the fear because you have more knowledge, experience, you learn from people, and you have memories.