If you can't figure out your purpose, figure out your passion. For your passion will lead you right into your purpose.

If you think down, you will go down. If you think up, you will go up. You’ll always travel in the direction of your thinking.

Surround yourself with people whose definition of you is not based on your history, but your destiny.

Never make a permanent decision based on a temporary storm.. No matter how raging the billows are today, remind yourself: "This too shall pass!"

God is not preparing the Blessing for YOU, He is preparing YOU for the Blessing

When you begin to realize that your past does not necessarily dictate the outcome of your future, then you can release the hurt. It is impossible to inhale new air until you exhale the old.

Not everyone will be happy when you begin to better yourself. Those who are for you will not just celebrate in your triumphs, but they will also pray with you through your tribulations.

Real value isn’t in what you own, drive, wear or live. The greater value is found in love and life, health and strength, friends and family!

Your words will tell others what you think. Your actions will tell them what you believe.

God has invested entirely too much in you for you to be comfortable in anything less than you were created to be.

God is a businessman. He is not going to do business with someone who shows no sign of potential return. He invests in people who demonstrate an ability to handle what He has given them.

The distance doesn't matter only the first step is difficult.

The naked truth is always better than the best-dressed lie.

If I vibrate with vibrations other than yours, must you conclude that my flesh is insensitive?

There is a certain kind of maturity that can be attained only through the discipline of suffering.

Thanks to the toleration preached by the encyclopedists of the eighteenth century, the sorcerer is exempt from torture.

No union exists between church and state, and perfect freedom of opinion is guaranteed to all sects and creeds.

Our best years are only ahead of us, so we got to continue to keep pushing.

Go down where all life begins, go down that's where my love is.

If you live for pleasure, your ability to enjoy it may pass away and your senses grow dim.

Ellington is a writer and arranger, as well as a musician and leader. He does movie sound tracks.