Quotes that have always inspired me
"God bless the child that's got his own" - Billie Holiday
"That which does not kill me can only make me stronger" - Friedrich Nietzsche
"Have the courage to live. Anyone can die" - Robert Cody
"Vision without action is merely a dream. Action without vision just passes the time. Vision with action can change the world" - Joel Barker
"Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength, mastering yourself is true power" - Lao-Tzu
"While I'm watching everyone watching me closely, my shit is butter for the bread they wanna toast me. I keep my head -- both of them -- where they're supposed to be. Hoez'll get you sidetracked and clapped from close feet. I don't sleep...I'm tired. I feel wired like codiene. These days a brotha gotta admire me like full fiends" - Shawn Carter, "Can I Live"
"Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail" - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things" - Niccolo Machiavelli
"Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish" - Euripides
"Sadly, it has become a pastime for many individuals in society to feverishly kick a man when he is down. Rather than ask him why he is on the ground and offer a kind hand to pick him up, it has become a much easier undertaking to mock and hit the the poor man with cheapshots unbeknownst to him and his humble, benevolent nature. Most people, upon getting up, would probably try and find ways to kick back somehow, in someway, at the unjust instigators. There are, however, a select few men who actually rise up and wholeheartedly forgive these trespassers for their unconscious ignorance. These men...are truly the noblest of men" - A.S.C.
"Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity" - Martin Luther King, Jr., "Strength to Love" (1963)
"If everyone around you praises you for your humility, then only the ones who do not truly know you and are envious of your success will label you conceited and cocky. Pay them no mind...brush them off with a flick of the wrist. These type of people just want you to feel the way that they are feeling -- insecure" - A.S.C.
"They say success breeds envy. I guess it's just a penalty of leadership. I guess I'm what people wanna be and shit. Or people just bored, wanna be in shit. Before they get to yappin start believin it, think they Ali and shit. I roll with the punches, so I survive. I bob and weave, move my feet from side to side. I'm back, stronger than ever..surprise surprise. They tried to take me out the game, but I'm alive...So listen, au contraire, hater. I am here cuz I earned this shit...while riding out, when losers had learners' permits" - Shawn Carter (the 400 million dollar man), "Some People Hate"
"I want to get out the game... I'm trying get out the game, but they wanna dirty up my memory. They wanna dirty up everything I worked for! Attitudes have changed; it's not as sync as it used to be. I can't even front, it slowed me down…I never believed that I could ever be touched. But, I feel as though what's done in the dark will come to light… Cause it's a game--it's this game of life. Do I win or do I lose? I know one day they're going to shut the game down, but I have to have as much fun and get around the board as many times as I can before it's my turn to leave" - Tupac Shakur, Interview (1996)
"Love is a fire. But whether it is going to warm your hearth or burn down your house, you can never tell" - Joan Crawford
"It's perfectly fine to search for happiness. But, from experience, I have learned never to search for true love in order to be happy. If the love is indeed true, let it find you" - A.S.C.
"Good night, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow, That I shall say good night till it be morrow" - William Shakespeare, "Romeo and Juliet"
"See, at night I watch the sky. I take another breath.. I smoke my Newport to the butt like it's the last mother----er left. Just me and you evading enemies. Let you get my last shot of Hennessy.. ain't never had a friend like me." - Tupac Shakur,"Never Had A Friend Like Me," Gridlock'd Soundtrack (1996)
"If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch, If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, If all men count with you, but none too much" - Rudyard Kipling
"The past rises and falls like the light we so often crave. It burns us with feelings of contempt, sorrow and doubt. It tempts us and taunts us but is always out of our grasp. This beast we call the past is the vampire of life never letting us move on" - A.S.C.
"To laugh often and much; To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; To know that even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded" - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"I have miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep" - Robert Frost, excerpt from poem "Stopping by Woods on A Snowy Evening"
and, finally...
"With all this extra stressing, the question I wonder is after death, after my last breath, when will I finally get to rest? Through this oppression, they punish the people that ask the questions, and those that possess steal from the ones without possesions. The message I stress: to make it stop, study your lessons. Dont settle for less--even the genius asks his questions. Be grateful for blessings.. Dont ever change, keep your essence. The power is in the people and politics we address. Always do your best, don't let the pressure make you panic, and when you get stranded and things don't go the way you planned it. Dreaming of riches, in a position of making a difference. Politicians 'n hypocrites: they dont wanna listen. If I'm insane, it's the fame that made a brotha change. It wasn't nothin' like the game...It's just me against the world" - Tupac Shakur, "M.A.T.W." (1995)