To be too dissatisfied with ourselves is a weakness. To be too satisfied with ourselves is a stupidity.

Pettiness of mind, ignorance and presumption are the cause of stubbornness, because stubborn people only want to believe what they themselves can imagine, and they can imagine very few things.

It is a singular characteristic of love that we cannot hide it where it exists, or pretend it where it does not exist.

We prefer people who are trying to imitate us more than those who are trying to equal us. This is because imitation is a sign of esteem, but the desire to equal others is a sign of envy.

Honest and sincere acts mislead the wicked and cause them to lose their path to their own goals, because mean-spirited people usually believe that people never act without deceit.

It is vain and useless to survey everything that goes on in the world if our study does not help us mend our ways.

Sometimes we praise the way things used to be in order to blame the present, and we esteem what is no longer in order to scorn what is.

Mean-spirited mediocrities, especially those with a smattering of learning, are the most likely to be opinionated. Only strong minds know how to correct their opinions and abandon a bad position.

Even the best-natured people, if uninstructed, are always blind and uncertain. We must take pains to instruct ourselves so that ignorance makes us neither too timid nor too bold.

Criticism should awaken our attention, not inflame our anger. We should listen to, and not flee from, those who contradict us. Truth should be our cause, no matter in what manner it comes to us.

We think highly of men when we do not know the extent of their capabilities, for we always suppose that more exists when we only see half.

What is the universe but a lot of wavesAnd a craving desire is a wave…

Men command fewer words than they have ideas to express, and language, as Jean Paul said, is a dictionary of faded metaphors.

We live like sheep in line waiting to be slaughtered in a slaughterhouse. We eat and laugh and fight as we see those in front of us fall to the knife

As we have no immediate experience of what other men feel, we can form no idea of the manner in which they are affected, but by conceiving what we ourselves should feel in the like situation.

If Donald Trump came to visit Britain I think he would unite us all against him.

If you are successful because of Hip Hop, which I am, then you have to recognize that Hip Hop is nothing if not a product of the street, therefore you have to give something back.

It's only when they join together in a forward movement that this country moves ahead.

Man proposes, but God blocks the game.

I thought everybody got into rock 'n' roll because they didn't want to follow instructions.

Popular culture is simply a reflection of what the majority seems to want.