My responsibility is to truth and beauty.

The artist's role is to raise the consciousness of the people. To make them understand life, the world and themselves more completely. That's how I see it. Otherwise, I don't know why you do it.

A man is either free or he is not. There cannot be any apprenticeship for freedom.

There is no justice in America, but it is the fight for justice that sustains you

The torture of being the unseen object, and the constantly observed subject.

In America, black is a country.

I'd say I'm a revolutionary optimist. I believe that the good guys -the people- are going to win.

There is no depth to education without art.

Thought is more important than art....To revere art and have no understanding of the process that forces it into existence, is finally not even to understand what art is.

All thinking people oppose terrorism both domestic & international but one should not be used to cover the other

When I die, the consciousness I carry I will to black people. May they pick me apart and take the useful parts, the sweet meat of my feelings. And leave the bitter bullshit rotten white parts alone.

There is no progress or accomplishment without sacrifice.

We cannot perceive what we are not vibrationally a part of. We cannot be affected by an experience of evil, when we are focused on peace, harmony and love.

I don't leave my room, and all I am surrounded by are guitars and equipment, y'know? It's not always the best place to be.

Seeing a man praying to Allah is enough for some people to assume he is a terrorist.

I think the one thing that's going on here is that people are saying, uh-oh, the Chinese economy might be slowing more than we thought and the government is having a hard time stimulating it again.

You can’t focus on what everyone else is doing — it has to be about what’s really broken and what you can do to fix it.

How can a man be said to have a country when he has not right of a square inch of it.

On the dance floor, as much as you say, 'Ladies, you are the car. He is the driver. You can only go where he takes you,' they still try to be in control.

Go after what you want as if your life depended on it. Because it Does!

I prefer to be refuted than to refute, for it is a greater good for oneself to be freed from the greatest evil than to free another.