Lauryn Hill
Everything we do should be a result of our gratitude for what God has done for us.Collection: God
Be honest, brutally honest. That is what's going to maintain relationships.Collection: Relationship
Reality is easy. It's deception that's the hard work.Collection: Work
I had to confront my fears and master my every demonic thought about inferiority, insecurity, or the fear of being black, young, and gifted in this Western culture.Collection: Fear
As musicians and artists, it's important we have an environment - and I guess when I say environment, I really mean the industry, that really nurtures these gifts. Oftentimes, the machine can overlook the need to take care of the people who produce the sounds that have a lot to do with the health and well-being of society.Collection: Health
That strong mother doesn't tell her cub, Son, stay weak so the wolves can get you. She says, Toughen up, this is reality we are living in.Collection: Mom
People need to understand that the Lauryn Hill they were exposed to in the beginning was all that was allowed in that arena at the time. I had to step away for the sake of the machine. I was being way too compromised. I felt uncomfortable having to smile in someone's face when I really didn't like them or know them well enough to like.Collection: Smile
I do support artists standing by their beliefs and walking with integrity. We have to find a better way to commercially exploit music while giving artists their proper respect. This cannot be done while taking their contributions for granted or trying to control the scope of their growth and power through threats and fear tactics.Collection: Respect
This life is a process of learning.Collection: Learning
Hip-Hop isn't just music, it is also a spiritual movement of the blacks! You can't just call Hip-Hop a trend!Collection: Music
We can't plan life. All we can do is be available for it.Collection: Life
To those supporters who were told that I abandoned them, that is untrue. I abandoned greed, corruption, and compromise, never you, and never the artistic gifts and abilities that sustained me.
We don't want people to have expectations of us, but then we have expectations of everybody else.
I believe God will make a way.
I need to be surrounded by people as passionate and as dedicated as I am.
I don't know anybody that's not emotionally unstable or schizophrenic.
Being young and female in America, you watch a lot of T.V., and you grow up on false images of what love truly is. We think the man with the best rap will protect and save us, about it's not usually that way. Then you learn love is something deeper and purer in form.
You don't know how much artists go through to make it look so easy. It's all in the practice.
Nobody's going to force me to do something against my will. What do I owe anybody that I should submit my will to them?
From the first time someone says, Who do you think you are? we learn how to repress.
We call ourselves creators and we just copy.
When you're young and everything dramatic is exciting, you start to believe that hype that, in order to be an artist, you have to suffer. I've graduated from that school.
Real religion is no religion at all.
We have to make sure the music and the message and the words and all the elements come through in our songs and every time we appear in public.
Let optimists rule the world.
The less I have, the freer I am to do whatever I want to do.
I never did anything I'm really ashamed of.
Since those who believe they need a hero/celebrity outnumber the actual heroes/celebrities, people feel safe and comfortably justified in numbers, committing egregious crimes in the name of the greater social ego. Ironically diminishing their own true hero-celebrity nature in the process.
I got into direct confrontation with everybody I love.
I have a couple of all-time favorites: Donny Hathaway and Roberta Flack, Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell.
I think what people are attracted to about me, if anything, is my passion. People got exposed to my passion through music and song first.
Over-commercialization and its resulting restrictions and limitations can be very damaging and distorting to the inherent nature of the individual. I did not deliberately abandon my fans, nor did I deliberately abandon any responsibilities.
When I have a creative insight, there is a high. I think back in the day, I made music as much as I did because it made me feel so good. I think you could argue that there is a creative addiction - but, you know, the healthy kind.
I tried to manipulate and control people, and I harbored resentment. I wanted to be forgiven, but I wouldn't forgive others.
I don't need anybody to market or promote me. If people don't want to hear this music, then it's not for them. You cannot please everybody.
I wouldn't even hold my kids sometimes because I didn't want them to spit up on me when I was dressed for an awards show.
What was freely given to me, I freely give.
I'm trying to open up my range and really sing more. With The Fugees initially, and even with 'Miseducation,' it was very hip-hop - always a singing over beats. I don't think people have really heard me sing out. So if I do record again, perhaps it will have an expanded context. Where people can hear a bit more.
The danger I faced was not accepted as reasonable grounds for deferring my tax payments, as authorities, who despite being told all of this, still chose to pursue action against me, as opposed to finding an alternative solution.
When I was working, and when I was making substantial amounts of money, I always filed and paid my taxes. This only stopped, when it was necessary to withdraw from society, in order to guarantee the safety and well-being of myself and my family.
With The Fugees initially, and even with 'Miseducation', it was very hip-hop - always a singing over beats. I don't think people have really heard me sing out. So if I do record again, perhaps it will have an expanded context. Where people can hear a bit more.
We should always be aspiring to know more, and to better ourselves, and to improve ourselves. To improve ourselves, because that's how we improve the world around us, by working within us.Collection: World
I consider myself a crayon... I may not be your favorite color but one day you'll need me to complete your picture.Collection: Funny Life
Let me be patient, let me be kind, make me unselfish, without being blind.Collection: Be Kind
We don't know love like we should. We always talk about 'I have unconditional love' unconditional love is... we don't even know it. Because if a person stops stimulating us, we stop loving them. You're not interesting to talk to anymore, goodbye. But that real love, that love that sometimes is difficult, difficult to have. That's that love. And that's a confidence builder.Collection: Goodbye
And deep in my heart. The answer, it was in me. And I made up my mind. To define my own destinyCollection: Heart
Don't be a hard rock when you really are a gem!Collection: Encouraging
We should constantly be aspiring to reach higher and higher and higher. We should never be comfortable where we are.Collection: Should
Never be afraid of not knowing. Find out.Collection: Knowing
If everyone is a product of this society, who will say the things that need to be said, and do the things that need to be done, without compromise? Truth will never start out popular in a world more concerned with marketability than righteousness. It will initially suffer ridicule and even violence - yet ultimately it is undeniable. All of humanity is living in a dream world, but suffering real consequences.Collection: Dream