Looking for the best and inspirational Jay-Z quotes?
Jay-Z – born Shawn Corey Carter – was born in Brooklyn, New York, on December 4th, 1969. Jay-Z has been rapping since his teenage years, and today, he is one of the most successful rappers of all time.
He has sold more than 100 million records worldwide and, in 2009, was named the wealthiest artist in hip hop by Forbes magazine. Jay-Z’s debut album, Reasonable Doubt, was released on June 25th, 1996, and received mixed responses from critics.
He has been on a mission to use his financial success to help drive change in impoverished communities worldwide.
Check out his most famous and inspiring quotes that will motivate you to get up and pursue your success like never before.
61 Most Inspiring Jay-Z Quotes
“You learn more in failure than you ever do in success. “
“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.”
“All I got is dreams. Nobody else believes. Nobody else can see, nobody else but me.”
“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.”
“Life is for living, not living uptight. See ya somewhere up in the sky.”
“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.”
“Only two things can get you through this: that’s patience and persistence.”
“Those who are successful overcome their fears and take action. Those who aren’t submit to their fears and live with regrets.”
“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.”
“Difficult takes a day, impossible takes a week.”
“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.”
“Everything evens up, you just wait. Even a garage can gets a steak. You are not even a garbage can, you have faith!”
“We hustle out of a sense of hopelessness. Sort of desperation. Through that desperation, we become addicted. But we feel we have nothing to lose. So we offer you, well, we offer our lives. What do you bring to the table?”
“I will not lose, for even in defeat, there’s a valuable lesson learned, so it evens up for me.”
“Whenever inspiration won’t find you, you have to find it.”
“You have to find your genius level talent, and then to apply it in a way that supports that genius level talent.”
“The genius thing we did was, we didn’t give up.”
“Remind yourself, nobody’s built like you. You design yourself.”
“Life is about balance, you have to have time for work, and time for play. If you don’t allow these two things to co-exist you have an imbalance.”
“Belief in oneself and knowing who you are, I mean, that’s the foundation for everything great.”
“I’m not a businessman, I’m a business, man!”
“A man who doesn’t take care of his family, can’t be rich.”
“They talk. We live. Who cares what they say?”
“The more society treats drug addiction as a crime, the more money drug dealers will make “relieving” the suffering of the addicts.”
“A wise man told me don’t argue with fools. Because people from a distance can’t tell who is who.”
“I believe excellence is being able to perform at a high level over and over.”
“Don’t ever go with the flow. Be the flow.”
“If people don’t hate you, you’re probably not doing very big things.”
“I’m like a dog. I never speak, but I understand.”
“You have to take your craft seriously every day.”
“I’m a hustler baby; I sell water to a well.”
“I’m not afraid of dying, I’m afraid of not trying.”
“If the beat is time, flow is what we do with that time, how we live through it. The beat is everywhere, but every life has to find its own flow.”
“You can pay for school but you can’t buy class. “
“I believe everybody in the world is born with genius-level talent. Apply yourself to whatever you’re a genius at and you can do anything in the world.”
“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.”
“Leave a mark they can’t erase, neither space nor time.”
“I believe you can speak things into existence.”
“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.”
“What you see is what you reflect. If you don’t like what you see, then you’ve done something.”
“Only God can judge me so I’m gone, either love me or leave me alone.”
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.”
“Money and power don’t change you, they just further expose your true self.”
“Everyone needs a chance to evolve.”
“If it’s you and me against the world, then so be it.”
“People look at you strange, say you changed. Like you worked that hard to stay the same.”
“I went through hell, I’m expecting heaven.”
“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.”
“May the best of your todays be the worst of your tomorrows.”
“Always be inspired.”
“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.”
“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.””
“I believe everyone 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.”
“By far for me the most important thing is inspiration.”
“Don’t tell me what was said about me. Tell me why they were so comfortable to say it to you.”
“I come from a place where you had to keep your word, where people would stick with you no matter what…I just tried to be a man of my word.”
“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.”
“We change people through conversation, not through censorship.”
“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.” “Don’t tell me what was said about me… Tell me why they were so comfortable to say it to you.”
