Lauryn Hill Quotations

You might win some, but you just lost one.

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.

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.

We call ourselves creators and we just copy.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

What was freely given to me, I freely give.

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

When you're young and everything dramatic is exciting, you start to believe that hype that, in order to be an artist, you have to suffer. I've graduated from that school.

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

I never did anything I'm really ashamed of.

I got into direct confrontation with everybody I love.

We have to make sure the music and the message and the words and all the elements come through in our songs and every time we appear in public.

Like Cain and Abel, Caesar and Brutus, Jesus and Judas, back stabbers do this

If they only showed Love, they would own love.

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'm a mess but God is dealing with me every day. That's what all these songs are about: problem, cause and solution.

Wow, this is so amazing. I thank God. This is crazy because this is hip-hop music.

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.

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 had to learn the hard way some really important life lessons. There was really no one there to say, don't do this or don't do that.

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

Let me be patient, let me be kind, make me unselfish, without being blind.

We don't know love like we should. We always talk about 'I have unconditional love”unconditional love iswe don't even know it. Because if a person stops stimulating us, we stop loving them. You're not interesting to talk to anymore, goodbye. But that real love, that love that sometimes is difficult, difficult to have. That's that love. And that's a confidence builder.

Love is an incredible thing but we don't know love like we should. Unconditional love we don't know it because if a person stops stimulating us, we stop loving them.

We should always be aspiring to know more, and to better ourselves, and to improve ourselves. To improve ourselves, because that's how we improve the world around us, by working within us.

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

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

Life is continued work. It's constant learning. The whole concept of retirement I don't even buy into. We should constantly be working. Maybe not physically working, but we could be spiritually, emotionally working toward bettering ourselves and bettering the lives of others around us.

Loving you is like a Song I replay every 3 Minutes and 30 Seconds of every Day...

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

To me that's a reflection of love, when someone can see you enjoying yourself, and want to participate, or want to encourage, or want to help you to do something that you enjoy.

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.

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.

If everyone is a product of this society, who will say the things that need to be said, and do the things that need to be done, without compromise? Truth will never start out popular in a world more concerned with marketability than righteousness. It will initially suffer ridicule and even violence- yet ultimately it is undeniable. All of humanity is living in a dream world, but suffering real consequences.

Whenever we submit our will to someone else’s opinion, a part of us dies

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

Once you compromise yourself in one way, you compromise yourself in another way. And you've just opened the door to compromise, mediocrity, settling.

Now I may have faith/ to make mountains fall/ But if I lack love/ then I am nothin' at all

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

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

Everyday is another chance to get things right.

In my family, there was not an abundance of wealth, but there was an abundance of love. So there was always humor, and there was joy and there was comfort and there was this environment just to have a good time.

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.

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.

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

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

It's silly when girls sell their souls because it's in.

Tomorrow, our seeds will grow. All we need is dedication.

Wisdom is better than silver and gold

It could all be so simple, but you'd rather make it hard, loving you is like a battle, and we both end up with scars

Never be afraid of not knowing. Find out.

Let’s love ourselves, then we can’t fail, To make a better situation. Tomorrow, our seeds will grow, All we need is dedication!

See no one loves you more than me...and no one ever will

It's emotional warfare telling the people we love, the most, the truth about ourselves.

It's more important to be righteous than to be right.

If I'd known white people were going to buy my last album, I never would have recorded it.

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.

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.

You could get the money, you can get the power, but keep your eyes on the final hour.

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

My mother gave me a piece of bread, which was love and encouragement. The correction was the meat, the substance. And then she would sandwich that with another piece of bread, which was love and encouragement. That was very important in shaping and molding our morality, our understanding of ourselves, making sure that we didn't think we were better than or less than anyone, feeling no more worthy or no less worthy than anyone else.

We've got to protect the music and make sure it never gets exploited.

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'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.

Tomorrow is always another day to make things right.

The sweetest thing I've ever known was like the kiss on the collarbone.

Let me be patient, let me be kind, make me unselfish, without being blind, though I may suffer, I'll envy it not and endure what comes cause he is all that I got

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.

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 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.

My concept of successful living is escaping the matrix...

This life is a process of learning.

The only help I need to live, is unprofessional. The only wealth I have to give, is not material. And if you need much more than that, I'm not available.

Let me break it down for you again, You know I only say it because I'm truly genuine: Don't be a hard rock when you really are a gem.

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