Great men are rarely isolated mountain-peaks; they are the summits of ranges.

The first wild-flower of the year is like land after sea.

To be really cosmopolitan a man must be at home even in his own country.

It is no discredit to Walt Whitman that he wrote Leaves of Grass, only that he did not burn it afterwards.

How many lessons of faith and beauty we should lose, if there were no winter in our year!

Do not waste a minute - not a second - in trying to demonstrate to others the merits of your performance. If your work does not vindicate itself, you cannot vindicate it.

What are Raphael's Madonnas but the shadow of a mother's love, fixed in permanent outline forever?

How much that the world calls selfishness is only generosity with narrow walls,--a too exclusive solicitude to maintain a wife in luxury, or make one's children rich.

There is certainly no defence or water -proof garment against adverse fortune which is, on the whole, so effectual as an habitual sense of humor.

The most fertile soil does not necessarily produce the most abundant harvest. It is the use we make of our faculties which renders them valuable.

Originality is simply a pair of fresh eyes.

The only way to keep your health is to eat what you don't want, drink what you don't like, and do what you'd rather not.

I want to produce with people that are going to be on the charts and win Grammys because having regular old street songs is cool, but I did all that already.

Most of the successful people I know mostly listen, not talk.

I've said many a time that I think the Un-American Activities Committee in the House of Representatives was the most un-American thing in America!

I'm usually not the straight guy. I'm sometimes more the funny guy, depending on the situation.

i would court you with passion, if things were different. you'd never get me off your porch swing.

My attitude of love must not be sacrificed on the altar of activity.

Policy changes like what you desire come from our politicians. So let them know what you think.

Everybody in the South loves the one closeted homosexual who's married. It's just too funny to not have in a movie about the South. It's an epidemic. You gotta represent!

I got into rapping by being a victim of circumstances; it was a hard situation with my brother. Mainly my older brother got hit with a life sentence, so he kind of inspired me.