Lauryn Hill quotes:

Since those who believe they need a hero/celebrity outnumber the actual heroes/celebrities, people feel safe and comfortably justified in numbers, committing egregious crimes in the name of the greater social ego. Ironically diminishing their own true hero-celebrity nature in the process.

I had to confront my fears and master my every demonic thought about inferiority, insecurity, or the fear of being black, young, and gifted in this Western culture.

I do support artists standing by their beliefs and walking with integrity. We have to find a better way to commercially exploit music while giving artists their proper respect. This cannot be done while taking their contributions for granted or trying to control the scope of their growth and power through threats and fear tactics.

Hip-Hop isn't just music, it is also a spiritual movement of the blacks! You can't just call Hip-Hop a trend!

That strong mother doesn't tell her cub, Son, stay weak so the wolves can get you. She says, Toughen up, this is reality we are living in.

People need to understand that the Lauryn Hill they were exposed to in the beginning was all that was allowed in that arena at the time. I had to step away for the sake of the machine. I was being way too compromised. I felt uncomfortable having to smile in someone's face when I really didn't like them or know them well enough to like.

For the past several years, I have remained what others would consider underground. I did this in order to build a community of people, like-minded in their desire for freedom and the right to pursue their goals and lives without being manipulated and controlled by a media protected military industrial complex with a completely different agenda.

This life is a process of learning.

So while you're imitating Al Capone, I'll be Nina Simone, And defacating on your microphone

As musicians and artists, it's important we have an environment - and I guess when I say environment, I really mean the industry, that really nurtures these gifts. Oftentimes, the machine can overlook the need to take care of the people who produce the sounds that have a lot to do with the health and well-being of society.

Be honest, brutally honest. That is what's going to maintain relationships.

The danger I faced was not accepted as reasonable grounds for deferring my tax payments, as authorities, who despite being told all of this, still chose to pursue action against me, as opposed to finding an alternative solution.

You don't know how much artists go through to make it look so easy. It's all in the practice.

I think what people are attracted to about me, if anything, is my passion. People got exposed to my passion through music and song first.

Being young and female in America, you watch a lot of T.V., and you grow up on false images of what love truly is. We think the man with the best rap will protect and save us, about it's not usually that way. Then you learn love is something deeper and purer in form.

Real religion is no religion at all.

We can't plan life. All we can do is be available for it.

Let optimists rule the world.

Think black love, think universal love. Just think love.

I tried to manipulate and control people, and I harbored resentment. I wanted to be forgiven, but I wouldn't forgive others.

I need to be surrounded by people as passionate and as dedicated as I am.

There are a lot of young black girls who I meet in my travels who don't have a lot of self-esteem. So if I communicate to them that they're beautiful, no white person should find fault in that. It doesn't mean that young white girls aren't beautiful, because they are just as beautiful.

I believe God will make a way.

We don't want people to have expectations of us, but then we have expectations of everybody else.

I'm trying to be a loving and caring mother, a loving and caring wife-to-be, a loving and caring daughter, a loving and caring friend, a responsible person. And every day is another opportunity for me to be successful at that.

I can do what you do, easy, BELIEVE ME Frontin' niggas give me hee-bee-gee-bees

When I was working, and when I was making substantial amounts of money, I always filed and paid my taxes. This only stopped, when it was necessary to withdraw from society, in order to guarantee the safety and well-being of myself and my family.

I don't need anybody to market or promote me. If people don't want to hear this music, then it's not for them. You cannot please everybody.

In my travels all over the world, I have come to realize that what distinguishes one child from another is not ability, but access. Access to education, access to opportunity, access to love.

I got into direct confrontation with everybody I love.

I consider myself a crayon... I may not be your favorite color but one day you'll need me to complete your picture.

When I have a creative insight, there is a high. I think back in the day, I made music as much as I did because it made me feel so good. I think you could argue that there is a creative addiction - but, you know, the healthy kind.

As artists, we have an opportunity to help the public evolve, raise consciousness and awareness, teach, heal, enlighten and inspire in ways the democratic process may not be able to touch. So we keep it moving.

It's funny - more people talk about my 'babe-dom' now than they did before I had a child. Whatever. I guess I'm a role model in hot pants now. That's cool!

As long as I remember that the glory is His and not my own. When I confuse that, I get in trouble. We think that we glorify ourselves, and the object is to glorify God first, and in doing that you become glorified, you get glorified.

Heart, Desire, and Intensity and those have been the three words I kind of latched onto.

You might win some, but you just lost one.

Everything is everything What is meant to be, will be After winter, must come spring Change, it comes eventually

In my life the most influential people are people who are sort of brought to me, as opposed to people I seek out.

Everything we do should be a result of our gratitude for what God has done for us.

I went to Jamaica for six months, and in Jamaica there was a lot of stillness.

I'm in a very close-knit, very, very tight family. My grandmother had 13 kids, so we had a lot of family like 50, 60 grandchildren and we all lived in Jersey, relatively in the same area. So every time there was something, my entire family was there. And I just believed everybody's family was like that.

Miscommunication leads to complication.

Our podium is the music. It's really important that we stay focused, because things become misconstrued in the media.

I don't buy into that whole concept of success that I have this mountain with this moat around it and then I get into my big car and drive to my destination and never see people. That's not my concept of success.

I got moxie, I'm so damn cocky. Industry tried to block me like cops and paparazzi.

I can give away everything I posses, but am without love, and I have no happiness

Consequence is no coincidence.

If the entire week is a battlefield, reading the Bible is sort of like that parachute with the box of reserves that come in the middle of the war: food and water and the toothbrush and toilet paper.

Tell me who I've got to be, to get some reciprocity

See fantasy is what people want, but reality is what they need. And I just retired from the fantasy part.

I tried to manipulate and control people and I harbored resentment. I wanted to be forgiven but I wouldn't forgive others.

Nobody's going to force me to do something against my will. What do I owe anybody that I should submit my will to them?

I don't know anybody that's not emotionally unstable or schizophrenic.

From the first time someone says, Who do you think you are? we learn how to repress.

I wrote these words for everyone who struggles in their youth. Who won't accept deception instead of what is truth. It seems we lose the game, before we even start to play. Who made these rules? We're so confused. Easily led astray.

Our first album was a stupid mistake by the record company. They tried to sell us as an alternative act. A big mistake!

To those supporters who were told that I abandoned them, that is untrue. I abandoned greed, corruption, and compromise, never you, and never the artistic gifts and abilities that sustained me.

If I should fall asleep and death takes me away, Don't be surprised son, I wasn't put here to stay.

I am no longer going to become a fictional character to please people. That's too much work.

I have a couple of all-time favorites: Donny Hathaway and Roberta Flack, Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell.

I wouldn't even hold my kids sometimes because I didn't want them to spit up on me when I was dressed for an awards show.

Over-commercialization and its resulting restrictions and limitations can be very damaging and distorting to the inherent nature of the individual. I did not deliberately abandon my fans, nor did I deliberately abandon any responsibilities.

With The Fugees initially, and even with 'Miseducation', it was very hip-hop - always a singing over beats. I don't think people have really heard me sing out. So if I do record again, perhaps it will have an expanded context. Where people can hear a bit more.

I'm trying to open up my range and really sing more. With The Fugees initially, and even with 'Miseducation,' it was very hip-hop - always a singing over beats. I don't think people have really heard me sing out. So if I do record again, perhaps it will have an expanded context. Where people can hear a bit more.

We call ourselves creators and we just copy.

Reality is easy. It's deception that's the hard work.

What was freely given to me, I freely give.

The less I have, the freer I am to do whatever I want to do.

A friend once said, and I found to be true,That everyday people, they lie to God too,So what makes you think, that they won't lie to you.

A lot of us are too busy focusing on what we think people want to hear, as opposed to just saying what's in our hearts.

And deep in my heart. The answer, it was in me. And I made up my mind. To define my own destiny

And what you need ironically. Will turn out what you want to be. If you just let it.

Anything that is not growing is dead.

As painful as this thing has been I just can't be with no one else. See I know what we've got to do. You let go, and I'll let go too. 'Cause no one's hurt me more than you And no one ever will.

Being young and female in America, you watch a lot of TV and you grow up on false images of what love truly is.

Don't be a hard rock when you really are a gem!

Every day is a lesson in focus for me, and not buying into the world's concept of what you have to be. I really try every day to be individual and not just in my style or my look or my music, but in my approach to life.

Every time that God navigates my ship, there's nothing cerebral going on. There's very little thought. It's almost as if I have the directions. Every time I try to do it myself, I'm conjuring up my own concoction and trying.

Every time truth comes we hate it, because it's coming against our ego. Are you going to let the ego come between you and this person you love?

Everybody has a choice. I am not here to shove my light down everybody's throat. For those who don't want it, I have nothing to defend.

Everyday is another chance to get things right.

Everyone is in the same situation, at different levels and in different places.

Everything takes place in a season. There was a season when that's all I did was listen to the music. Now I'm just in a place where I don't listen, I create. And if I do listen there are specific things that I listen to, and for specific reasons.

For a while, the genre seemed to be just about sex and crime. Rappers are storytellers; the stories don't need to be true!

From the time that you are a child, you grow up repressing yourself.

God said, All right, I'm gonna show you. I made you what you are. God takes care of me. I'm just the one who delivers the message.

God surrounded me with the right team, with the team that I needed to help me exercise all of my ideas. You need that. You need that army, you need that force.

God teaches me about reality, so when he tells me to do something, I do, because I'm led to.

Hip-Hop started out in the heart

How you gon' win when you ain't right within. Uh uh come again

Hypocrites always wanna play innocent

I am just beginning to be more comfortable with my identity.

I am up there onstage alone with that guitar. I don't have to consider no one else and whether they are comfortable. I need very little.

I didn't have that intense ambition to be a musician or an actress. I just enjoyed it. And by enjoying it, because I loved it, it enabled me to get better at what I was doing, because there was a love behind it.

I don't feel like my money or my success defines me. I've always been very happy just bein' me.

I don't listen to a lot of music at all. I think that's very bizarre too, because it was such a comfort zone for me. But I don't know if I had my fill, but I don't listen to a lot of music, because I'm creating it.

I don't want to be religious, I want to be spiritual. Anybody can be religious. Some people jog religiously. You don't want to be that, you want to be spiritual. You want to have a relationship with God as opposed to doing what everyone else does.

I find, even though it's raining, I just go outside. I look outside and I'm just so blessed to see it and to experience it, because for such a long time I was just indoors.

I get out, I get out of all your boxes.

I get out, I get out of all your boxes. I get out, you can't hold me in these chains. I'll get out. Father free me from this bondage. Knowin' my condition is the reason I must change

I get really afraid of those little comforts, those things that make us feel like we did something great, because I've done nothing. I've done nothing. I mean that sincerely.

I had an economic system imposed on me.

I have a problem with procrastination. I have a great deal of difficulty deciding what to wear. It's a woman thing.

I have hour spurts when I feel fine and I can walk normal and stuff, other hours, I'm wobbling. I feel like there's somebody behind me kicking my legs out from underneath me. The whole tumor symptom thing is crazy. It's unpredictable. It really messes with your life.

I have inner peace. It's a different person.

I hope that by people seeing the result of freedom that they'll want some, too.

I keep letting you back in. How can I explain myself? As painful as this thing has been, I just can't be with no one else.

I knew his life deserved a chance/But everybody told me to be smart/Look at your career they said/Lauren, baby use your head/But instead I chose to use my heart.

I know there are certain gifts that each of us have. The gifts you don't have to worry about so much, because God gave them to us. It's the living, it's the life, it's the now.

I know you don't wanna hear my opinion, There come many paths and you must choose one. And if you don't change then the rain soon come. See, you might win some, but you just lost one.

I like a brother that cuts to the chase.

I never did anything I'm really ashamed of.

I play my enemies like a game of chess

I ran very fast in the wrong direction.

I rarely listen to the music for the sheer pleasure. I'm listening for the tool, I'm listening for the instrument, I'm listening for the art.

I sit here before you trying to figure out how to pay a tax debt? If that's not like enough to slavery, I don't know.

I started to see that my concept of spirituality was totally wrong.

I think everything happens in time. There's a time for everything. There's a time to be in a group, and there's a time to be solo.