Quotes about Authenticity

I'm not one of those politicians, to my probably discredit, who thinks very far ahead. It has to feel right to me and not be about a careful plot and plan.

As a public poet, people often don't see the reality of my life.

It's one thing to talk the talk; it's another thing to walk after getting whacked with a coconut.

I take my music very serious. I don't call myself a comedian.

Do not compare yourself to what others seem to be.

Positive characterizations are complex characterizations. That's all we need to know. They shouldn't be saccharine. They shouldn't feel like medicine.

Positive characterizations are complex characterizations. That's all we need to know. They shouldn't be saccharine. They shouldn't feel like medicine.

I really believe in not compromising your art. I feel like I've never compromised my art.

I always have been an activist for things that were just authentically a part of my life, that I felt connected to.

The highest type of leadership maintains itself by its intrinsic worth, sans panoply, pomp and power. Of course, there are never enough real leaders to go around. Wherefore it becomes necessary to dress some men up and by other artificial means to give them a prestige and a power which they could not win by their own resources.

The selfish thing to do was to play to everyone's needs to feel accepted. The unselfish thing to do was to be the person God created me to be, to serve him and people, to speak the truth, even when the truth wasn't going to make me popular.

Hypocrisy is a proud desire to appear better than you are. Be thoroughly humbled and vile in your own eyes, and hypocrisy is done.