Samuel L. Jackson Quotes

My journey through life has led me through both light and dark places, and it's because of those experiences that I have learned how to work through my character defects and to help others do the same.

I feel like I am a better person because of my struggles, because of my challenges and persevering through them and realizing the mistakes that I've made, correcting them.

No one rises above who he or she has been without first having fallen down. The best time - in fact, the only time - to make a real change in your life is in the moment of seeing the need for it. He who hesitates always gets lost in the hundred reasons why tomorrow is a better day to get started.

I don't think you learn as much about yourself when you are moving forwards as when you have fallen backwards. That's when you really learn who you are. And reach for the things that have propelled you forward and made you a better person.

...We may encounter many defeats, but we must not be defeated. That sounds goody two-shoes, I know, but I believe that a diamond is the result of extreme pressure and time. Less time is crystal. Less than that is coal. Less than that is fossilized leaves. Less than that it's just plain dirt. In all my work, in the movies I write, the lyrics the poetry, the prose, the essays, I am saying that we may encounter many defeats - maybe it's imperative that we encounter the defeats - but we are much stronger than we appear to be and maybe much better than we allow ourselves to be.

Any personal crisis - you have to use it to get stronger.

I have been shaped by my mistakes and disappointments - just as I have been shaped by my successes.

I learned patience, perseverance, and dedication. Now I really know myself, and I know my voice. It's a voice of pain and victory.

We must accept life for what it actually is - a challenge to our quality without which we should never know of what stuff we are made, or grow to our full stature.

I think we all strive to push ourselves, to overcome our struggles. And when we do, we get to know ourselves better.

I am a woman in process. I'm just trying like everybody else. I try to take every conflict, every experience, and learn from it. Life is never dull.

I believe that every fight we've had is a big fight, and every fight we've had is a fight where I've learned a lot of things in the ring, I learn about myself, and it's sort of pushed me to know where I can go.

I want to become better, I don't want to let my mistakes define me.

Homeboy Industries is a healing center for broken children. I was a broken child, and they showed me how to put all those pieces back together. It's not about being a gangster. It's about being a man or a woman trying to recover and live better.

I had to do so much self-searching and self-work and learning how to navigate in a world that seemed very mean.

You cannot build up a character in a solitude; you need a formed character to stand a solitude.

This world and life of ours are filled with inequalities. The worst possible use to make of this fact, however, is to allow resentments to possess us. All of us have imagined limitations, but we have also the privilege of pushing them aside, and spreading our lives out! We never know any of our limitations until we put ourselves to the test. There are always "growing pains" working within us.

I doubt if I have made the best use of all my calamities. Soft, amiable natures they would have refined to saintliness; of strong, evil spirits they would have made demons; as for me, I have only been a woe-struck and selfish woman.

Be proud of your scars. They have everything to do with your strength, and what you've endured. They're a treasure map to the deep self.

Trying to grow up is hurting. You make mistakes. You try to learn from them, and when you don't, it hurts even more.

If I have given my all and still do not win, I haven't lost. Others might remember winning or losing; I remember the journey.

It is the measure of my individual struggle from darkness toward some measure of light.

Find the meaning behind whatever it is you're going through because everybody's got something.

If you can't go back to your mother's womb, you'd better learn to be a good fighter.