When you are organizing a group of people, the first thing that we do is we talk about the history of what other people have been able to accomplish – people that look like them, workers like them, ordinary people, working people – and we give them the list: these are people like yourself; this is what they were able to do in their community.

Idleness is the beginning of all vice, the crown of all virtues.

Contention existed before the earth was formed.

Money won’t create success, the freedom to make it will.

I defy gravity.

I’ve felt like an outsider all my life. It comes from my mother, who always felt like an outsider in my father’s family. She was a powerful woman, and she motivated my father.

I don’t know what can be so dangerous about giving people hope. Causing people to have better relationships. I’m not leading them to some false God or something like that.

There is nothing new in the world except the history you do not know.

You fail only if you stop writing.

Those who create are rare; those who cannot are numerous. Therefore, the latter are stronger.

Ever since the morning of May 29, 1953, when Tenzing Norgay and I became the first climbers to step onto the summit of Mount Everest, I’ve been called a great adventurer.

That is my wish, hope, instruction for all of you: Take your education seriously, okay? Always do that. Because I wouldn’t be here today if it weren’t for my education.

If I can be a leader, I will.

I had had a continuing smoldering fury about the treatment of Jews in Germany.

The eagle has no fear of adversity. We need to be like the eagle and have a fearless spirit of a conqueror!

I didn’t want to become a professor or get tenure or teach or anything. All I wanted to do was get a degree because Louis Leakey said I needed one, which was right, and once I succeeded I could get back to the field.

Never bend your head. Always hold it high. Look the world straight in the eye.

I think a role model is a mentor – someone you see on a daily basis, and you learn from them.

If I’m gonna write songs about my exes, they can write songs about me. That’s how it works.

Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it.

If I’ve got something do. I’m going to attack it. I’m going to attack that stress.

If one dream dies, dream another dream. If you get knocked down, get back up and go again.

A #2 pencil and a dream can take you anywhere.

A lot of my heartbreak songs are inspired by things my sisters are going through, or friends.

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

Just do what must be done. This may not be happiness, but it is greatness.

We will all fail in life, but nobody has to be a failure. Failing at a thing doesn’t make you a failure. You are only a failure when you quit trying.

The important thing is that your teammates have to know you’re pulling for them and you really want them to be successful.

A goal is not always meant to be reached, it often serves simply as something to aim at.

Jump, and you will find out how to unfold your wings as you fall.

A girl should be two things: classy and fabulous.

There is no blue without yellow and without orange.

Woman was God’s second mistake.

Great geniuses have the shortest biographies.

I think it is perfectly natural for any artist to admire intensely and love a young man. It is an incident in the life of almost every artist.

Don’t think in the morning. That’s a big mistake that people make. They wake up in the morning and they start thinking. Don’t think. Just execute the plan. The plan is the alarm clock goes off, you get up, you go work out. Get some.

As a general rule, the most successful man in life is the man who has the best information.

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.

Winning, to me, is easy. Winning more is the challenge.

Look at the sky. We are not alone. The whole universe is friendly to us and conspires only to give the best to those who dream and work.

If I inspire you, pay for it, period.

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.

The world is full of hopeful analogies and handsome, dubious eggs, called possibilities.

Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest.

What inspires me about rap is that it’s written in an almost poetic way. I just think it’s so cool.

Adversity is sometimes hard upon a man; but for one man who can stand prosperity, there are a hundred that will stand adversity.

Anything you put your mind to and add your imagination into can make your life a lot better and a lot more fun.

Wherever you go, go with all your heart.

As a songwriter, you respect and appreciate the writings of other people, and I often get asked, are there songs out there I wish I’d written? Yes. There’s many of them!

Our whole life is set up in the path of least resistance. We don’t want to suffer. We don’t want to feel discomfort. So the whole time, we’re living our lives in a very comfortable area. There’s no growth in that.

Speakers who talk about what life has taught them never fail to keep the attention of their listeners.

The ladder of success is never crowded at the top.

When a man becomes a writer, I think he takes on a sacred obligation to produce beauty and enlightenment and comfort at top speed.

Auschwitz stands as a tragic reminder of the terrible potential man has for violence and inhumanity.

I just have an enthusiasm for life.

Failure at some point in your life is inevitable, but giving up is unforgivable.

I decided that it was not wisdom that enabled poets to write their poetry, but a kind of instinct or inspiration, such as you find in seers and prophets who deliver all their sublime messages without knowing in the least what they mean.

A good model of how to ‚work with the enemy‘ internally is presented by the Dalai Lama, in his endless caretaking of his soul as he confronts the Chinese government that invaded Tibet.

It usually helps me write by reading – somehow the reading gear in your head turns the writing gear.

Sometimes if you want to get rid of the gun, you have to pick the gun up.

For me, writing a novel is like having a dream. Writing a novel lets me intentionally dream while I’m still awake. I can continue yesterday’s dream today, something you can’t normally do in everyday life.