Without culture, and the relative freedom it implies, society, even when perfect, is but a jungle. This is why any authentic creation is a gift to the future.

No people come into possession of a culture without having paid a heavy price for it.

In December, I agreed to extend the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans because it was the only way I could prevent a tax hike on middle-class Americans. But we cannot afford $1 trillion worth of tax cuts for every millionaire and billionaire in our society. We can’t afford it. And I refuse to renew them again.

I’m not trying to be fashionable. Never was!

Who you are speaks so loudly I can’t hear what you’re saying.

Why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me.

If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.

I tend not to like an awful lot of what is going out under my name now because it is just all product. Who needs it?

Creation is a sustained period of bliss, even though the subject can still be very sad. Because there’s the triumph of coming through and understanding that you have, and that you did it the way only you could do it. You didn’t do it the way somebody told you to do it.

There’s just some magic in truth and honesty and openness.

No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.

There’s only one thing that can kill the movies, and that’s education.

Science may have found a cure for most evils; but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all – the apathy of human beings.

The making of an American begins at the point where he himself rejects all other ties, any other history, and himself adopts the vesture of his adopted land.

Being too good is apt to be uninteresting.

To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.

The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects it loves.

Fashion is not something that exists in dresses only. Fashion is in the sky, in the street, fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, what is happening.

The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time.

History shows us that in times of people feeling like they are in need of some sort of rebellion or protests, the artists rise because the poetry we create about pain and its relationship to culture in the world begins to soothe and heal people who are feeling confused or afraid.

If I’m inspired to make a certain kind of song, I’m going to make that kind of song, no matter if it’s what they know me as or think I am.

Art is making something out of nothing and selling it.

A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.

The most perfect political community is one in which the middle class is in control, and outnumbers both of the other classes.

I have observed that society in general always seems to honor its living conformists and its dead troublemakers.

I think of a hero as someone who understands the degree of responsibility that comes with his freedom.

The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.

Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.

I’m giving all that I have in this life. I’m opening up my notebook, and I’m saying everything in there out loud.

Healthy citizens are the greatest asset any country can have.

I’m totally myself.

Facts, like people, want to be free – and when they’re free, liberty is usually around the corner.

Hip-hop is ever changing but you’ll always have the pack. And you’ll always have those people who are separated from the pack.

Freedom makes a huge requirement of every human being. With freedom comes responsibility. For the person who is unwilling to grow up, the person who does not want to carry his own weight, this is a frightening prospect.

Everything is changing. People are taking their comedians seriously and the politicians as a joke.

Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as a heritage of all men, in all lands, everywhere. Destroy this spirit and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors.

Be content to seem what you really are.

Even if the politics needed doesn’t exist today, we still need to use our voices to make sure that the people in power are focused on the right things. Because this is a democracy, and in a democracy, people are the ones who run the country.

The most virtuous are those who content themselves with being virtuous without seeking to appear so.

Truth has rough flavours if we bite it through.

It is violence when we use a sharp word, when we make a gesture to brush away a person. So violence isn’t merely organized butchery in the name of God, in the name of society or country. Violence is much more subtle, much deeper.

Now I do whatever I want.

Football fans share a universal language that cuts across many cultures and many personality types. A serious football fan is never alone. We are legion, and football is often the only thing we have in common.

The most dangerous creation of any society is the man who has nothing to lose.

Hatred is something peculiar. You will always find it strongest and most violent where there is the lowest degree of culture.

I really love the culture of hip-hop.

I’m always attracted to people who interest me. They’ve got to be people who are really true to themselves somehow, and who are always trying to do something that makes their life more interesting, or better, or something for somebody else. They’re interested in people.

Our society is illuminated by the spiritual insights of the Hebrew prophets. America and Israel have a common love of human freedom, and they have a common faith in a democratic way of life.

It is hard to be an individual in Japan.

As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy.

One of my big goals as a human being is to continue to write what’s really happening to me, even if it’s a tough pill to swallow for people around me… I do fear that if I ever were to have someone in my life who mattered, I would second-guess every one of my lyrics.

I can relax with bums because I am a bum. I don’t like laws, morals, religions, rules. I don’t like to be shaped by society.

War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.

We have the resources to build room for a trillion humans in this solar system, and when we have a trillion humans, we’ll have a thousand Einsteins and a thousand Mozarts. It will be a way more interesting place to live.

Freedom lies in being bold.

The French are so into themselves that they don’t even notice you.

The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn.

Only the ideas that we really live have any value.

If a country is to be corruption free and become a nation of beautiful minds, I strongly feel there are three key societal members who can make a difference. They are the father, the mother and the teacher.

Always be yourself, express yourself, have faith in yourself, do not go out and look for a successful personality and duplicate it.

If you think dealing with issues like worthiness and authenticity and vulnerability are not worthwhile because there are more pressing issues, like the bottom line or attendance or standardized test scores, you are sadly, sadly mistaken. It underpins everything.