Henry David Thoreau Quotes

The hardest thing to do is to be true to yourself, especially when everybody is watching.

If I couldn't get to where I wanted to by being my organic self - which is a smart, funny, unapologetically black woman - then I felt like it's not worth doing it if I can't do it the most organic way possible. Which is why I left the music business.

I can only be myself, and if I have to suffer for that, that's okay, because to pretend to be somebody else - I tried that, it's terrible.

So many people are concerned with being the perfect 'something.' Whether it's the perfect singer, the perfect sexy girl, or the perfect feminist. I don't want to be the perfect anything.

For that, one has to drop all the masks, one has to risk many things, particularly respectability. That is a bribe by the society. It will give you a Nobel prize and it will give you many honours; it will do everything to make you feel great, if you can fulfil one condition: if you are obedient, obedient like a robot, then all respect is for you. Then the society will make you a great hero, but there will be no grace, no beauty, no freedom, no truth, no being; you have committed a real suicide.

But we all must be true to our own nature. Acting as anyone other than yourself merely brings you pain and makes you appear ashamed of who and what you are. Others will feed off that shame, and soon it will be all that you are.

Try to find your individuality, your integrity, and make the effort of not compromising. Because the more you compromise, the less you are an individual. You are only a cog in the wheel, just a part in the vast mechanism, just a small part of the mob - not an individual in your own beauty, in your own right. I am absolutely against compromise. Death is far more beautiful than a life of compromise.

Nothing is perfect. Flaws are interesting. Be the tree.

It takes a lot of courage to be the same person on the outside that you are on the inside.

People are timid and apologetic; they are no longer upright; they dare not say "I think," "I am," but quote some saint or sage. They are ashamed before the blade of grass or the blowing rose. These roses under my window make no reference to former roses or to better ones; they are for what they are; they exist with God to-day.

I don't like to act in my personal life. I like to be straightforward.

Be your true self. Because if you're not, there are consequences to be paid.

If you do not express your own original ideas, if you do not listen to your own being, you will have betrayed yourself.

I like to be human and not lose myself in becoming a mannequin, which people in showbiz are accused of.

Justice Rehnquist was friendly and unpretentious. He wore scuffed Hush Puppy shoes. That was my first lesson. Clothes do not make the man. The Justice sported long sideburns and Buddy Holly glasses long after they were fashionable. And he wore loud ties that I am confident were never fashionable.

I can't go against my nature because I am what I am. I don't try to be anyone different to who I am.

I think a part of being successful or trying to be successful is staying true to who you are. Be genuine.

Sure, I could of done it different... put my clown in a closet and dressed up in straight clothing. I could of compromised my essence, and swallowed my soul.

In order to remain true to oneself one ought to renounce one's party three times a day.

It's important to be true to yourself and your vision.

I'd like to have mass appeal, but not at the expense of what I am and what I do best.

In a way, I'd rather go into an interview and be disliked, and have unpleasant things written about me, than to have a wonderful, glowing article written that is in no way a reflection of who I am.

I don't ever want to be a person that I'm not. A lot of girls fall into the trap where they are trying to impress other people, and that's the time when they lose themselves.

Isn't it nice not to have to compartmentalize yourself?

I've always tried to stay true to my authentic self.