Jay-Z quotes: lyrics n’ lessons for the aspiring millionaires out there.
“When you completely, 100% back yourself, anything is possible. If you live as if you are destined to be successful, you will become successful.”
“You can want success all you want. But to get it, you can’t falter. You can’t slip, you can’t sleep, one eye open, for real, and forever.”
“Without the work, the magic won’t come.”
“Strive for what you believe in, set goals, and you can achieve them – anything.”
“All I got is dreams. Nobody else believes. Nobody else can see. Nobody else but me.”
“Don’t ever go with the flow. Be the flow.”
“I believe everybody in the world is born with genius-level talent. Apply yourself to whatever you’re genius at and you can do anything in the world.”
“Belief in oneself and knowing who you are, I mean, that’s the foundation for everything great.”
“Remind yourself, nobody’s built like you. You design yourself.”
“Be true to yourself and keep things simple. People complicate things.”
“Difficult takes a day, impossible takes a week.”
“You learn more in failure than you ever do in success.”
“No one’s walking around here perfect. Everyone’s gonna make mistakes. That’s part of how you learn.”
“I will not lose, for even in defeat, there’s a valuable lesson learned, so it evens up for me.”
“Life is a trip so sometimes we gonna stumble. You gotta go through pain in order to become you.”
“I believe excellence is being able to perform at a high level over and over.”
“I’m hungry for knowledge. The whole thing is to learn every day, to get brighter and brighter.”
“Everyone needs a chance to evolve.”
“Those who are successful overcome their fears and take action. Those who aren’t submit to their fears and live with regrets.”
“In order to survive, gotta learn to live with regrets.”
“A wise man told me don’t argue with fools. Cuz people from a distance can’t tell who is who. There will always be resistance on the path to success. Some of that resistance will come in the form of people. Those people will tell you you are foolish. They may even say you are crazy for following your dreams. Ignore them.”
“I’m not a businessman. I’m a business, man.”
“I’m far from being God, but I work God damn hard.”
“My brands are an extension of me. They’re close to me.”
“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.”
“A poet’s mission is to make words do more work than they normally do, to make them work on more than one level.”
“Shakespeare was a man who wrote poetry. I’m a man who writes poetry. Why not compare yourself to the best?”
“I was an artist, I was executive producer on my first album, so I’ve always had to manage both. I couldn’t get a record deal. It wasn’t by choice – I couldn’t get a record deal, so I had to figure it out.”
“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.”
“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.”
“We were living in a tough situation, but my mother managed; she juggled. Sometimes we’d pay the light bill, sometimes we paid the phone, sometimes the gas went off.”
“I was a really good student. In the 6th grade, I was reading at a 12th grade reading level. But I got bored.”
“Around 20, I’d been trying to transition from the streets to the music business, but I would make demos and then quit for six months. And I started to realize that I couldn’t be successful until I let the street life go.”
“My first album didn’t come out until I was 26.”
“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.”
“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?”
“I like a girl who spends a little cash for her shoes.”
“I’ve never looked at myself and said that I need to be a certain way to be around a certain sort of people. I’ve always wanted to stay true to myself, and I’ve managed to do that. People have to accept that.”
“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.”
“Be more concerned with your character than your reputation. Because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.”
“Money and power don’t change you, they just further expose your true self.”
“I treat people based on who they really are, not the name. Everyone has to be respectful and be a human being. No one’s above – that’s how I carry it with anybody.”
“If people don’t hate you, you’re probably not doing very big things.”
“Either love me or leave me alone.”
“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.”
“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.”
“I love what I do, and when you love what you do, you want to be the best at it.”
“What’s better than one billionaire? Two. Especially when they’re the same hue as you.”
“Momma ain’t raised no fool. Put me anywhere on God’s green earth, I’ll triple my worth.”
“I’m not afraid of dying. I’m afraid of not trying.”
“May the best of your todays be the worst of your tomorrows.”
“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.'”
Jigga, out. Now peep his wife’s words next.
