Your life will be a blessed and balanced experience if you first honor your identity and priority.

I enjoy competition. I enjoy challenges. If a challenge is in front of me and it appeals to me, I will go ahead and conquer it.

A man who views the world the same at fifty as he did at twenty has wasted thirty years of his life.

What is a fear of living? It’s being preeminently afraid of dying. It is not doing what you came here to do, out of timidity and spinelessness. The antidote is to take full responsibility for yourself – for the time you take up and the space you occupy. If you don’t know what you’re here to do, then just do some good.

Some people can just let things go, but I can’t, especially if there’s something that worries me or makes me sad.

It doesn’t matter where you are coming from. All that matters is where you are going.

The thing I always say to people is this: ‚If you avoid failure, you also avoid success.‘

I don’t live in the past at all; I’m always wanting to do something new. I make a point of constantly trying to forget and get things out of my mind.

Language is an intrinsic part of who we are and what has, for good or evil, happened to us.

I would never say I was an icon, but so many people have said I am, so I suppose I am. I mean, I can’t not be what everyone says I am. But I don’t feel like an icon.

Our Creator expects His children everywhere to educate themselves.

Every day we have plenty of opportunities to get angry, stressed or offended. But what you’re doing when you indulge these negative emotions is giving something outside yourself power over your happiness. You can choose to not let little things upset you.

It is only to the individual that a soul is given.

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.

What lies behind you and what lies in front of you, pales in comparison to what lies inside of you.

I have spent many years of my life in opposition, and I rather like the role.

To reform a world, to reform a nation, no wise man will undertake; and all but foolish men know, that the only solid, though a far slower reformation, is what each begins and perfects on himself.

One must verify or expel his doubts, and convert them into the certainty of Yes or NO.

You can’t do something forever.

I exhort you also to take part in the great combat, which is the combat of life, and greater than every other earthly conflict.

I don’t want to be too critical of what other people do, but when people go back to do the same thing that they did, I’m completely confused. I’m like, ‚Didn’t you make that movie already?‘ I’ve been very fortunate, and I’m well taken care of, so the least I can do is try to go forward.

I think I’m pretty smart. I think I’m pretty clever. But there’s a lot that you hone in on when you finish your education.

Through our own recovered innocence we discern the innocence of our neighbors.

I was raised to be independent.

I put a lot of pressure on myself. I think something’s not good enough, and I won’t stop until I feel like I’ve made it. I’m never satisfied.

It’s better to be unhappy alone than unhappy with someone – so far.

The only cure for contempt is counter-contempt.

I no longer feel attracted to the well-made novel. I want to write the story that will zero in and give you intense, but not connected, moments of experience. I guess that’s the way I see life. People remake themselves bit by bit and do things they don’t understand.

I couldn’t ever go back home without being something. I probably would never have gone back home. That was definitely a big motivation. To get back home, and not empty-handed.

To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else – means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.

People – especially white people – they want me to be a role model just because of the life I lead. The things I say in my songs, they expect it of me.

Concentration is one of the happiest things in my life.

As you get older it is harder to have heroes, but it is sort of necessary.

The best thing I did was to choose the right heroes.

The mind is everything. What you think you become.

Man is a universe within himself.

The answer is, who you are cannot be defined through thinking or mental labels or definitions, because it’s beyond that. It is the very sense of being, or presence, that is there when you become conscious of the present moment. In essence, you and what we call the present moment are, at the deepest level, one.

Without being the most confident person in the world, I think I am the right person for Liverpool.

It’s very important for Christians to be honest with God, which often, you know, God is much more interested in who you are than who you want to be.

The things that transfixed you as a child, that you found most exciting was not a passing fancy, but a message about what you’re supposed to do.

I’m trying to keep a level head. You have to be careful out in the world. It’s so easy to get turned.

You simply have to accept that your demons are a part of you.

Autobiographies are only useful as the lives you read about and analyze may suggest to you something that you may find useful in your own journey through life.

I was inspired to spend an entire year – my 65th year – reading, researching, and meditating on Lao-tzu’s messages, practicing them and ultimately writing down these insights as I felt Lao-tzu wanted us to know them.

It would be an egregious mistake to ever refer to me in the same breath as most of the people I write about.

I’m a child of God first. Before I became a celebrity, I was baptized a Christian.

I can tell you from experience that God’s help and presence in our lives is vital. He is the Author of all true success and everything that is good-without Him, we can do nothing of true value.

Don’t talk about what you have done or what you are going to do.

You have to take risks. We will only understand the miracle of life fully when we allow the unexpected to happen.

I’ll never, ever be full. I’ll always be hungry. Obviously, I’m not talking about food. Growing up, I had nothing for such a long time. Someone told me a long time ago, and I’ve never forgotten it, ‚Once you’ve ever been hungry, really, really hungry, then you’ll never, ever be full.‘

I’m one of the world’s most self-conscious people. I really have to struggle.

Whenever I’m around some who is modest, I think, ‚Run like hell and all of fire.‘ You don’t want modesty, you want humility.

I’m very proud to be black, but black is not all I am. That’s my cultural historical background, my genetic makeup, but it’s not all of who I am nor is it the basis from which I answer every question.

Character is determined more by the lack of certain experiences than by those one has had.

I’m no genius.

I never hold a grudge.

I have a great respect for incremental improvement, and I’ve done that sort of thing in my life, but I’ve always been attracted to the more revolutionary changes. I don’t know why. Because they’re harder. They’re much more stressful emotionally. And you usually go through a period where everybody tells you that you’ve completely failed.

The greatest mistake you can make in life is continually fearing that you’ll make one.

I’ve had no contact with my daughter for years. That’s her choice. Anyway, you move on. If people don’t want to bother with me, fine. You know, God bless them, and move on.

Another belief of mine; that everyone else my age is an adult, whereas I am merely in disguise.

Control and surrender have to be kept in balance. That’s what surfers do – take control of the situation, then be carried, then take control. In the last few thousand years, we’ve become incredibly adept technically. We’ve treasured the controlling part of ourselves and neglected the surrendering part.