You must capture and keep the heart of the original and supremely able man before his brain can do its best.

Groups that rose from poverty to prosperity seldom did so by having their own racial or ethnic leaders to follow.

Kind words do not cost much. Yet they accomplish much.

To a profound pessimist about life, being in danger is not depressing.

That’s been one of my mantras – focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.

I wish I could play bass like Larry Graham or Bootsy Collins. My God, I’d give up just about everything else for that.

I am a lucky man. I have had a dream and it has come true, and that is not a thing that happens often to men.

I try to use my experience and the fact that I grew up in the ghetto – I tell people you don’t have to rob or steal to get out of the ghetto.

The thermometer of success is merely the jealousy of the malcontents.

As I followed my dream – stayed in-Spirit, that is, inspired – I made more money in the first year after I gave up my employment than I had made in the previous 35 years of my life.

Nothing is stopping me from doing what I love to do.

Everybody wants to be me. What can I say?

He ate and drank the precious Words, his Spirit grew robust; He knew no more that he was poor, nor that his frame was Dust.

You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.

Sunday clears away the rust of the whole week.

No one was ever great without some portion of divine inspiration.

Surround yourself with the best people you can find, delegate authority, and don’t interfere as long as the policy you’ve decided upon is being carried out.

There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision.

We should measure welfare’s success by how many people leave welfare, not by how many are added.

I thought I couldn’t make a difference because I was too small.

God has equipped you to handle difficult things. In fact, He has already planted the seeds of discipline and self-control inside you. You just have to water those seeds with His Word to make them grow!

I’m not very ambitious at all.

The human race is governed by its imagination.

Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young.

Ability is what you’re capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it.

If you don’t live your life, then who will?

If we’re really honest with ourselves, most of us will admit that we want to impress people, and this is what’s causing us to do what we do.

My music definitely comes from a place of experience. Everything connects to a truth.

Maybe some people can wake up and play PlayStation all day, but that’s never been me.

You can close more business in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get people interested in you.

Even a mistake may turn out to be the one thing necessary to a worthwhile achievement.

Even as you make progress, you need the discipline to keep from backtracking and sabotaging the success as it’s happening.

Being a hero is about the shortest-lived profession on earth.

The very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream.

The thing we fear we bring to pass.

Dream no small dreams for they have no power to move the hearts of men.

One often makes music to supplement one’s world.

The love of life is necessary to the vigorous prosecution of any undertaking.

Fresh activity is the only means of overcoming adversity.

I don’t know who I touch and who I don’t. I work hard trying to make people laugh. I try to do the kind of stuff that made me laugh growing up. I don’t have any secrets. I don’t know the reasons I’ve been so well received.

Our brand of democracy is hard. But I can promise that a year from now, when I no longer hold this office, I’ll be right there with you as a citizen – inspired by those voices of fairness and vision, of grit and good humor and kindness that have helped America travel so far.

When I was running training, we would fire a couple of leaders from every SEAL team because they couldn’t lead. And 99.9% of the time, it wasn’t a question of their ability – it was a question of their ability to listen.

A lot of football success is in the mind. You must believe you are the best and then make sure that you are.

Politics is not bean bags. It’s serious, tough stuff.

Well, I wouldn’t say that I was in the great class, but I had a great time while I was trying to be great.

Don’t just read the easy stuff. You may be entertained by it, but you will never grow from it.

International affairs is very much run like the mafia. The godfather does not accept disobedience, even from a small storekeeper who doesn’t pay his protection money. You have to have obedience; otherwise, the idea can spread that you don’t have to listen to the orders, and it can spread to important places.

When it comes to the health of our families, Barack refused to listen to all those folks who told him to leave health reform for another day, another president. He didn’t care whether it was the easy thing to do politically – that’s not how he was raised – he cared that it was the right thing to do.

You know, there is always times where you feel discouraged and things coming against you, but I don’t know if I ever wanted to throw in the towel.

I knew I was a winner back in the late sixties. I knew I was destined for great things. People will say that kind of thinking is totally immodest. I agree. Modesty is not a word that applies to me in any way – I hope it never will.

You practice mindfulness, on the one hand, to be calm and peaceful. On the other hand, as you practice mindfulness and live a life of peace, you inspire hope for a future of peace.

Stuff your eyes with wonder, live as if you’d drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It’s more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories.

Never, and I mean never, allow anyone else’s ideas of who you can or can’t become sully your dream or pollute your imagination. This is your territory, and a ‚Keep Out‘ sign is a great thing to erect at all entrances to your imagination.

When I’m 40 and nobody wants to see me in a sparkly dress anymore, I’ll be like: ‚Cool, I’ll just go in the studio and write songs for kids.‘

When I do something, I do it full steam ahead.

The truth is, anyone can start projects. The world is full of just-started projects that looked great at the time but were never completed.

Barack Obama would not be President if he were dark skin. You know what I mean? That’s just the truth. I might not be as successful as I am now if I was dark skin.

If a small-town boy like me who bagged groceries was able to make his dreams come true, you can too.

When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.

I’ve always wanted to live above my means because it inspired me to work harder.

Young people can create beautiful things.