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This Is Why We Shouldn't Be Afraid. There Are Two Possibilities: One Is That There's More To Life Than The Physical Life, That Our Souls "will Find An Even Higher Place To Dwell" When This Life Is Over. If That's True, There's No Reason To Fear Failure Or Death. The Other Possibility Is That This Life Is All There Is. And If That's True, Then We Have To Really Live It - We Have To Take It For Everything It Has And "die Enormous" Instead Of "living Dormant," As I Said Way Back On "can I Live." Either Way, Fear Is A Waste Of Time.

-Jay-Z

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This Is Why We

Jay-Z

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This Is Why We Shouldn't Be Afraid. There Are Two Possibilities: One Is That There's More To Life Than The Physical Life, That Our Souls "will Find An Even Higher Place To Dwell" When This Life Is Over. If That's True, There's No Reason To Fear Failure Or Death. The Other Possibility Is That This Life Is All There Is. And If That's True, Then We Have To Really Live It - We Have To Take It For Everything It Has And "die Enormous" Instead Of "living Dormant," As I Said Way Back On "can I Live." Either Way, Fear Is A Waste Of Time.

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I Will Not Lose, For Even In Defeat/there's A Valuable Lesson Learned, So It Evens Up For Me

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And Through Our Travels We Get Separated, Never Forget: In Order To Survive, Got To Learn To Live With Regrets.

I Get My By Any Means On, Whenever There's A Drought Get Your Umbrellas Out Because That's When I Brainstorm.

I Ain't Lookin' At You Dudes -i'm Lookin' Past You.

I Was Forced To Be An Artist And A Ceo From The Beginning, So I Was Forced To Be Like A Businessman Because When I Was Trying To Get A Record Deal, It Was So Hard To Get A Record Deal On My Own That It Was Either Give Up Or Create My Own Company.

Difficult Takes A Day Impossible Takes A Week I Do This In My Sleep

Life Is For Living, Not Living Uptight, See Ya Somewhere Up In The Sky.

It's Hilarious A Lot Of Times. You Have A Conversation With Someone, And He's Like, 'you Speak So Well!' I'm Like, 'what Do You Mean? Do You Understand That's An Insult?

I'm A Mirror. If You're Cool With Me, I'm Cool With You, And The Exchange Starts. What You See Is What You Reflect. If You Don't Like What You See, Then You've Done Something. If I'm Standoffish, That's Because You Are.

Ain't Nothin' Wrong With The Aim, Just Gotta Change The Target.

Everyone Needs A Chance To Evolve.

[banning Marriage Equality Is] Discrimination, Plain And Simple. It's Really Not About Votes. It's About People. I Think It's The Right Thing To Do As A Human Being.

By The Time I Got To Record My First Album, I Was 26, I Didn't Need Pen Or Paper - My Memory Had Been Trained Just To Listen To A Song, Think Of The Words, And Lay Them To Tape.

I Believe Excellence Is Being Able To Perform At A High Level Over And Over.

All These Ways We Classify Things As R&b And Hip-hop And Rock... It's Bullshit. It's All Music. If You Put Yourself In That Box, Then You Won't Be Able To Hear That It's All Music At Its Soul.

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That's Why This Generation Is The Least Racist Generation Ever. You See It All The Time. Go To Any Club. People Are Intermingling, Hanging Out, Having Fun, Enjoying The Same Music. Hip-hop Is Not Just In The Bronx Anymore. It's Worldwide. Everywhere You Go, People Are Listening To Hip-hop And Partying Together. Hip-hop Has Done That.

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Successful People Have A Bigger Fear Of Failure Than People Who've Never Done Anything Because If You Haven't Been Successful, Then You Don't Know How It Feels To Lose It All.

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A Poet's Mission Is To Make Words Do More Work Than They Normally Do, To Make Them Work On More Than One Level.

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Men Lie, Women Lie, Numbers Dont

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Don't Ever Go With The Flow. Be The Flow.

So Many People That I've Seen Can't Get Clean Water. It's A Crime.

And Now We're Lethal, Infected With D'evils

I'm Trying To Tell The Story In The Most Clear, Concise, And Truthful Way, Taking Those Everyday Words And Phrases And Capturing Them In A Way That They Become Something Else.

Everything Evens Up, You Just Wait, Even A Garbage Can Gets A Steak, You Ain't Even A Garbage Can, You Have Faith!

As Kids We Didn't Complain About Being Poor; We Talked About How Rich We Were Going To Be And Made Moves To Get The Lifestyle We Aspired To By Any Means We Could. And As Soon As We Had A Little Money, We Were Eager To Show It.

You Can't Turn A Bad Girl Good, But Once A Good Girls' Gone Bad, She's Gone Forever.

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When I Come Back Like Jordan, Wearing The 4-5. It Ain't To Play Games With You, It's To Aim At You, Probably Maim You. If I Owe You I'm Blowin' You To Smithereens.

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Without The Work, The Magic Won’t Come.

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I Had Success. I Had A Number One Record. I Had A Number One Album. I Have To Make This Kind Of Record Again Or Else I'm Going To Lose It All. That's How You End Up Making The Same Song Over And Over.

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I Came, I Saw, I Conquered From Record Sales To Sold Out Concerts.

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The Average Rap Life Is Two Or Three Albums. You're Lucky To Get To Your Second Album In Rap!

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As Sure As This Earth Is Turnin, Souls Burnin / In Search Of Higher Learnin, Turnin In Every Direction Seeking Direction / My Moms Cryin Cause Her Insides Are Dyin / Her Son Tryin Her Patience, Keep Her Heart Racin / A Million Beats A Minute, I Know I Push You To Your Limit / But It's This Game, Love—i'm Caught Up All In It / They Make It So You Can't Prevent It, Never Give It / You Gotta Take It, Can't Fake It, I Keep It Authentic

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Be True To Yourself

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Shakespeare Was A Man Who Wrote Poetry. I'm A Man Who Writes Poetry. Why Not Compare Yourself To The Best?

Hip-hop Is More About Attaining Wealth. People Respect Success. They Respect Big. They Don't Even Have To Like Your Music. If You're Big Enough, People Are Drawn To You.

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Only He Without Sin Can Tell Me If My Means Justify My Ends.

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You Not Feeling Me, Fine. It Costs You Nothing, Pay Me No Mind.

In The End, You Can't Censor The Truth, Especially When It Comes Packaged In Hot Music.

Got Some, Dirt On My Shoulder, Could You Brush It Off For Me?

Put Me Anywhere On God's Green Earth, I'll Triple My Worth. Motherf--. I, Will, Not, Lose.

I Smoked Some Weed, And That's How I Finished 'izzo.'

If I Don't Show The World Growth, How Are We Going To Grow?

I'd Rather Die Enormous Than Live Dormant.

New York Has A Thousand Universes In It That Don't Always Connect But We Do All Walk The Same Streets, Hear The Same Sirens, Ride The Same Subways, See The Same Headlines In The Post, Read The Same Writings On The Walls. That Shared Landscape Gets Inside Of All Of Us And, In Some Small Way, Unites Us, Makes Us Think We Know Each Other Even When We Don't.

Sometimes I Trip On How Happy We Could Be And So I Put This On My Life Nobody Or Nothing Will Ever Come Between Us And I Promise I'll Give My Life

Boxing Is A Glorious Sport To Watch And Boxers Are Incredible, Heroic Athletes, But It's Also, To Be Honest, A Stupid Game To Play. Even The Winners Can End Up With Crippling Brain Damage. In A Lot Of Ways, Hustling Is The Same. But You Learn Something Special From Playing The Most Difficult Games, The Games Where Winning Is Close To Impossible And Losing Is Catastrophic: You Learn How To Compete As If Your Life Depended On It. That's The Lesson I Brought With Me To The So-called "legitimate" World.

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When You're Growing Up, Your Dad Is Your Superhero. Once You've Let Yourself Fall That In Love With Someone, Once You Put Him On Such A High Pedestal And He Lets You Down, You Never Want To Experience That Pain Again.

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[t]he Truth Is That Drug Addicts Have A Disease. It Only Takes A Short Time In The Streets To Realize That Out-of-control Addiction Is A Medical Problem, Not A Form Of Recreational Or Criminal Behavior. And The More Society Treats Drug Addiction As A Crime, The More Money Drug Dealers Will Make "relieving" The Suffering Of The Addicts.

Medical Problems

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Well I'm Not Just Gon' Go And Do Rap Songs. I Wanna Touch, And Maybe Help, And See What I Can Do In These Areas.' As I Start Looking Around Me, Looking At Things In Ways That I Can Become Helpful, Starting At The First Thing, Water. Something As Simple As Water.

Their Gunnin' For Me, Want To See Me Fall, You Know My Story, Been Through It All, Times I Felt Like Dyin', But I Ain't Cryin', What Didn't Kill Me, Makes Me Strong As Iron.

Kurt Cobain Od'd On Heroin Before Committing Suicide, But He Also Od'd On Fame. Cobain Was Like Basquiat: They Both Wanted To Be Famous, And Were Brilliant Enough To Make It Happen. But Then What? Drug Addicts Kill Themselves Trying To Get That Feeling They Got From Their First High, Looking For An Experience They'll Never Get Again. In His Suicide Note, Cobain Asked Himself, "why Don't You Just Enjoy It?" And Then Answered, "i Don't Know!" It's Amazing How Much Of A Mindfuck Success Can Be.

No One's Walking Around Here Perfect. Everyone's Gonna Make Mistakes. That's Part Of How You Learn.

Making Mistakes

You Learn More In Failure Than You Ever Do In Success

I Think The Consumption Of Music Is At An All-time High. But I Think The Ways That Record Companies Are Trying To Monetize It Is Just All Over The Place. At The End Of The Day, Music Is In The Clouds. Before, You Could Hold It, Look At It, Turn It Around. Now, It's Just In The Air.

Can I Hit It In The Morning With Out Giving You Have Of My Dough?

[t]he Truth Is You Don't Need Some External Demon To Take Control Of You To Turn You Into A Raging, Money-obsessed Sociopath, You Only Need To Let Loose The Demons You Already Have Inside Of You.

On The Night He Died - He Was Twenty-seven - Basquiat Had Been Planning To See A Run-dmc Show. When People Asked Him What His Art Was About, He'd Hit Them With The Same Three Words: "royalty, Heroism, And The Streets.

You Can Put A New Shirt On Your Back, Slide A Fresh Chain Around Your Neck, And Accumulate All The Money And Power In The World, But At The End Of The Day Those Are Just Layers. Money And Power Don't Change You, They Just Further Expose Your True Self.

The End Of The Day

Ex-d-boy, Used To Park My Beamer Now Look At Me, I Can Park In My Own Arena

Wherever I Go, I Bring The Culture With Me, So That They Can Understand That It's Attainable. I Didn't Do It Any Other Way Than Through Hip-hop.

Niggas Pray And Pray On My Downfall, But Every Time I Hit The Ground I Bounce Up Like Round Ball

Rap Has Been A Path Between Cultures In The Best Tradition Of Popular Music.

I Believe You Can Speak Things Into Existence.

I Use A Lot Of Double Meanings. I Hide 'em Like Easter Eggs.

Screamin' 'carpe Diem!' Until I'm A Dead Poet.

I Jack, I Rob, I Sin. Aw Man, I'm Jackie Robinson 'cept When I Run Base, I Dodge The Pen

Everybody Can Tell You How To Do It But They Never Done It

I Can Think Of No One More Relevant And Credible In The Hip-hop Community To Build Upon Def Jam's Fantastic Legacy And Move The Company Into Its Next Groundbreaking Era.

I'm Gonna Fight, And I'm Gonna Make Something Out Of Nothing. That's Pretty Much The American Dream. So, For Me, The Realization That I Could Speak To People Like That Came First On A Small Scale. Then It Just Started Happening. I Started Having This Vibration.

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Personal Growth

It Was A Very Intense And Stressful Situation. There Was Playing In The Johnny-pump (an Opened Fire Hydrant) And The Ice-cream Man Coming Around And All Of These Games That We'd Play, And Suddenly It Would Turn Just Violent And There Would Be Shootings At 12 In The Afternoon On Any Given Day.

My Life After Childhood Has Two Main Stories: The Story Of The Hustler And The Story Of The Rapper, And The Two Overlap As Much As They Diverge. I Was On The Streets For More Than Half Of My Life From The Time I Was Thirteen Years Old. People Sometimes Say That Now I'm So Far Away From That Life - Now That I've Got Businesses And Grammys And Magazine Covers - That I Have No Right To Rap About It. But How Distant Is The Story Of Your Own Life Ever Going To Be? The Feelings I Had During That Part Of My Life Were Burned Into Me Like A Brand. It Was Life During Wartime.

I Collect Art, And I Drink Wine... Things That I Like That I Had Never Been Exposed To. But I Never Said, 'i'm Going To Buy Art To Impress This Crowd.' That's Just Ridiculous To Me. I Don't Live My Life Like That, Because How Could You Be Happy With Yourself?

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Artists Can Have Greater Access To Reality; They Can See Patterns And Details And Connections That Other People, Distracted By The Blur Of Life, Might Miss. Just Sharing That Truth Can Be A Very Powerful Thing.

I'm Hungry For Knowledge. The Whole Thing Is To Learn Every Day, To Get Brighter And Brighter. That's What This World Is About. You Look At Someone Like Gandhi, And He Glowed. Martin Luther King Glowed. Muhammad Ali Glows. I Think That's From Being Bright All The Time, And Trying To Be Brighter.

There's The Gift, There's The Spirit, And There's The Work-all Three Have To Come Together. If One Of Those Things Is Off, It Can Stop You From Becoming Who You Were Meant To Be.

Were Meant To Be

Your Future Is Ahead Of You. Imagine The Notion Of The Past Fifteen Years Of Your Life Being A Blip In Your Story.

No Matter Where You Go, You Are What You Are Playa.

The Most Amazing Feeling I Feel Words Can't Describe What I'm Feeling For Real Maybe I Paint The Sky Blue My Greatest Creation Was You.

I Spring Train In The Winter, Around Early December...

If Skills Sold Truth Be Told I'd Probably Be Lyrically Talib Kweli Truthfully I Want To Rhyme Like Common Sense (but I Did Five Mil) I Ain't Been Rhyming Like Common Since.

How Could I Be Out There And Not Do Anything?

I'm Hungry For Knowledge. The Whole Thing Is To Learn Every Day, To Get Brighter And Brighter.

Hungry For Success

Hungry For Knowledge

The Reason I've Been Groundedand Able To Make Albums, Is Because I've Allowed My Friends To Come With Me And Voice An Opinion. That's Who Keeps You Grounded, The People Who Have Known You Longest.

We'll Have A Baby Who Stutters Repeatedly We'll Name Him History

Is To Have Had And Lost/better Than Not Having At All?

The Burden Of Poverty Isn't Just That You Don't Always Have The Things You Need, It's The Feeling Of Being Embarrassed Every Day Of Your Life, And You'd Do Anything To Lift That Burden.

Hip-hop Gave A Generation A Common Ground That Didn't Require Either Race To Lose Anything; Everyone Gained.

No Matter Where You Go You Are What You Are Player And You Can Try To Change But That's Just The Top Layer Man You Was Who You Was Before You Got Here

My Thing Is Related To Who I Am As A Person. The Clothes Are An Extension Of Me. The Music Is An Extension Of Me. All My Businesses Are Part Of The Culture, So I Have To Stay True To Whatever I'm Feeling At The Time, Whatever Direction I'm Heading In. And Hopefully, Everyone Follows.

Be Fluid. Treat Each Project Differently. Be Water, Man. The Best Style Is No Style. Because Styles Can Be Figured Out. And When You Have No Style They Can't Figure You Out.

Leave A Mark They Can't Erase, Neither Space Nor Time.

Stop Screamin', You Know The Demon Said It's Best To Die, And Even If Jehovah Witness, Bet He'll Never Testify, D'evils.

Growing Up, Politics Never Trickled Down To The Areas We Come From. But People From Obama's Camp, And Obama Himself, Reached Out To Me And Asked For My Help On The Campaign. We've Sat And Had Dinner, And We've Spoken On The Phone. He's A Very Sharp Guy. Very Charming. Very Cool.

The Genius Thing That We Did Was, We Didn't Give Up.

In Trouble Waters I Had To Learn How To Float

If Your Dad Died Before You Were Born, Yeah, It Hurts — But It’s Not Like You Had A Connection With Something That Was Real. Not To Say It’s Any Better — But To Have That Connection And Then Have It Ripped Away Was, Like, The Worst. My Dad Was Such A Good Dad That When He Left, He Left A Huge Scar. He Was My Superhero.

We Change People Through Conversation, Not Through Censorship.

Remind Your Self. Nobody Constructed Like You, You Style Your Self.

Driving Benzes With No Benefits, Not Bad Huh, For Some Immigrants?

If You Want The Old Me, Go Buy My Old Albums.

I Keep My Enemies Close/ I Give 'em Enough Rope/ They Put Themselves In The Air/ I Just Kick Away The Chair.

I'm A Hustler, Baby; I Sell Water To A Well!

One Of The Reasons Inequality Gets So Deep In This Country Is That Everyone Wants To Be Rich. That's The American Ideal. Poor People Don't Like Talking About Poverty Because Even Though They Might Live In The Projects Surrounded By Other Poor People And Have, Like, Ten Dollars In The Bank, They Don't Like To Think Of Themselves As Poor.

You Ain't Gotta Go To Church To Find Your God.

Electing A Black Man Named Barack Obama President In The Same Country That Elected George W. Bush - Twice! - Is As Far-fetched As A Hustler From Marcy Performing At That President's Inauguration. But It Happened.

I Like A Girl Who Spend A Little Cash For Her Shoes.

Whoever Said That Artists Shouldn't Pay Attention To Their Business Was Probably Someone W/their Hand In Some Artist's Pocket.

I'm Not Afraid Of Dying I'm Afraid Of Not Trying

Young Entrepreneurs

I Noticed That Difference Early On, Like If You Were Successful In Rock 'n' Roll, That Was A Really Bad Thing, You Almost Had To Hide It. You Had These Guys Selling 200 Million Records With Dirty T-shirts On. I Was Like, 'come On, Man. Come On. We Know You're Successful.' Hip-hop Is More About Attaining Wealth. People Respect Success. They Respect Big. They Don't Even Have To Like Your Music. If You're Big Enough, People Are Drawn To You.

For Me, The Challenge Is Just Making Great Albums, Because Talent - And Writing In General - Is Not Tangible. There's No Expiration Date On It. At The Same Time, You Might Wake Up Tomorrow And Be Unable To Write Music.

I Have Inherited Two Of The Most Important Brands In Hip-hop, Def Jam And Roc-a-fella. Reid And Universal Music Group Have Given Me The Opportunity To Manage The Companies I Have Contributed To My Whole Career. I Feel This Is A Giant Step For Me And The Entire Artist Community.

I Gave You Prophecy On My First Joint, And Y'all Lamed Out Didn't Really Appreciate It, 'til The Second One Came Out

I'm Far From Being God, But I Work God Damn Hard.

I Got This Black Chick, She Don't Know How To Act Always Talkin' Out Her Neck, Makin' Her Fingers Snap She Like, "listen Jigga Man, I Don't Care If You Rap You Better - R-e-s-p-e-c-t Me

Identity Is A Prison You Can Never Escape, But The Way To Redeem Your Past Is Not To Run From It, But To Try To Understand It, And Use It As A Foundation To Grow.

You Know The Type: Loud As A Motorbike But Wouldn't Bust A Grape In A Fruit Fight.

I'm Not A Businessman, I'm A Business, Man!

May The Best Of Your Today's Be The Worst Of Your Tomorrow's

I'm Not Concerned With Noise Because I'm Playing The Long Game.

I Love That Because That's What I'm Supposed To Be Doing - Whether It's Accepted B Everybody Or Not. I'm Supposed To Be Pushing That Envelope And Trying New Things. And People Are Supposed To Say, Hov, You Might Have Went Too Far.

Males Shouldnt Be Jealous. Thats A Female Trait.

I'm Not Saying I'm God. But As Far As Lyrics, I'm God Mc.

Jealousy’s A Weak Emotion.

Rosa Parks Sat So Martin Luther King Could Walk. Martin Luther King Walked So Obama Could Run. Obama's Running So We All Can Fly.

It Was A Weird Mix Of Emotions. One Day, Your Best Friend Could Be Killed. The Day Before, You Could Be Celebrating Him Getting A Brand-new Bike.

Hip-hop Is A Perfect Mix Between Poetry And Boxing.

Remind Yourself. Nobody Built Like You, You Design Yourself.

Personal Growth

The Nets' A Stone Throw From Where I Used To Throw Bricks ...so It's Only Right I'm Still Tossing 'round Knicks.

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