Jay-Z Quotes

Don't tell me what was said about me. Tell me why they were so comfortable to say it to you.

Remind yourself. Nobody built like you, you design yourself.

Everybody look at you strange, say you changed Like you work that hard to stay the same.

You not feeling me, fine. It costs you nothing, pay me no mind.

A wise man told me don't argue with fools. Cause people from a distance can't tell who is who.

Don't ever go with the flow. Be the flow.

I seen the worst of the worst. I deserve every blessing I receive I'm from the dirt.

You can pay for school, but you can't buy class

Everybody can tell you how to do it but they never done it

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.

Ain't nothin' wrong with the aim, just gotta change the target.

I look in the mirror, my only opponent

I'm hungry for knowledge. The whole thing is to learn every day, to get brighter and brighter.

Males shouldnt be jealous. Thats a female trait.

The genius thing that we did was, we didn't give up.

Be true to yourself- and keep things simple. People complicate things

Niggas pray and pray on my downfall, But every time I hit the ground I bounce up like round ball

Only God can judge me so I'm gone, either love me or leave me alone.

Life is a gift, love opens it up.

Leave a mark they can't erase, neither space nor time.

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.

Remind your self. Nobody constructed like you, you style your self.

You learn more in failure than you ever do in success

Without the work, the magic won’t come.

Nine to five is how ya survive, I ain't trying to survive I'm trying to live it to the limit and love it alive

I got mouths to feed til they put flowers on me.

Only he without sin can tell me if my means justify my ends.

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.

You can't turn a bad girl good, but once a good girls' gone bad, she's gone forever.

I'd rather die enormous than live dormant.

May the best of your today's be the worst of your tomorrow's

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.

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.

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.

When you step outside of school and have to teach yourself about life, you develop a different relationship to information. I've never been a purely linear thinker. You can see it in my rhymes. My mind is always jumping around, restless, making connections, mixing and matching ideas, rather than marching in a straight line. That's why I'm always stressing focus. My thoughts chase each other from room to room in my head if I let them, so sometimes I have to slow myself down.

They say a midget standing on a giant's shoulders can see much further than the giant. So I got the whole rap world on my shoulders, they trying to see further than I am.

I will not lose, for even in defeat/There's a valuable lesson learned, so it evens up for me

No one's walking around here perfect. Everyone's gonna make mistakes. That's part of how you learn.

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.

Life is for living, not living uptight, see ya somewhere up in the sky.

In trouble waters I had to learn how to float

Put me anywhere on God's green earth, I'll triple my worth. Motherf--. I, will, not, lose.

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.

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.

Men lie, women lie, numbers dont

Hip-hop has done so much for racial relations, and I don't think it's given the proper credit. It has changed America immensely. I'm going to make a very bold statement: Hip-hop has done more than any leader, politician, or anyone to improve race relations.

We change people through conversation, not through censorship.

I'm not afraid of dying I'm afraid of not trying

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.

Don't make decisions based on the fear.