“Work is the grand cure of all the maladies and miseries that ever beset mankind.”

In every phenomenon the beginning remains always the most notable moment.

To say that we have a clear conscience is to utter a solecism; had we never sinned we should have had no conscience. Were defeat unknown, neither would victory be celebrated by songs of triumph.

The eternal stars shine out again, so soon as it is dark enough.

No person is important enough to make me angry.

Every day that is born into the world comes like a burst of music and rings the whole day through, and you make of it a dance, a dirge, or a life march, as you will.

They only are wise who know that they know nothing.

Tell a person they are brave and you help them become so.

Silence is as deep as eternity, speech a shallow as time.

One life; a little gleam of Time between two Eternities; no second chance to us for evermore!

A man without a goal is like a ship without a rudder.

Show me the man you honor, and I will know what kind of man you are.

Speech is silver, silence is golden.

Not what you possess but what you do with what you have, determines your true worth.

Do the duty which lies nearest to you, the second duty will then become clearer.

Conviction is worthless unless it is converted into conduct.

A person with a clear purpose will make progress, even on the roughest road. A person with no purpose will make no progress, even on the smoothest road.

Love is a kind of warfare.

I’m not at the point where I’d feel safe in a house alone. I would be really scared. I’m the kind of person that when I get up to go use the bathroom I have this big long hallway, and I just know someone’s going to jump out and get me.

A lot of my songs are fantasy. I can dream up all kinds of things. That’s the kind of world I live in. It’s very sort of flamboyant, and that’s the kind of way I write. I love it.

I ain’t want my kids to grow up and call me Thug. I don’t want anybody to kind of look at me like that.

Men are cruel, but Man is kind.

I’m going to let love lead the way, always. And I was born with this blind-blind ambition, and it’s kind of gotten me here to this point. And I think that I’ll stick to it.

I’m kind of a good girl – and I’m not. I’m a good girl because I really believe in love, integrity, and respect. I’m a bad girl because I like to tease. I know that I have sex appeal in my deck of cards. But I like to get people thinking. That’s what the stories in my music do.

Sugar makes me feel crazy – like, makes my body hurt kind of a thing. I don’t really eat fruit because it has a lot of sugar. I try not to eat a lot of red meat, but every now and again, I feel like I need iron or something – something that I’m missing.