Just because you can't see anything , doesn't mean you should shut your eyes.
Interpretation
Don't ignore the unseen possibilities just because they are not immediately visible.
This quote emphasizes the importance of remaining open-minded and attentive to opportunities, even when they are not obvious. It suggests that valuable insights and possibilities can exist beyond our immediate perception, and closing ourselves off to these can limit our experiences and growth.
In practice
During a motivational speech to encourage open-mindedness in students.
I suppose I've always done my share of crying, especially when there's no other way to contain my feelings. I know that men ain't supposed to cry, but I think that's wrong. Crying's always been a way for me to get things out which are buried deep, deep down. When I sing, I often cry. Crying is feeling, and feeling is being human. Oh yes, I cry.
I never wanted to be famous. I only wanted to be great.
To me, music is entertainment - what else can it be? In fact, it's the only language I know of that's universal.
Any artist, when he goes in to record, should have the feeling that any song he records can be a hit. This may sound egotistical, but it makes sense.
When I started to sing like myself - as opposed to imitating Nat Cole, which I had done for a while - when I started singing like Ray Charles, it had this spiritual and churchy, this religious or gospel sound. It had this holiness and preachy tone to it. It was very controversial. I got a lot of criticism for it.
The important thing is to feel your music, really feel it and believe it.
The fewer data needed, the better the information. And an overload of information, that is, anything much beyond what is truly needed, leads to information blackout. It does not enrich, but impoverishes.
I was bold in the pursuit of knowledge, never fearing to follow truth and reason to whatever results they led, and bearding every authority which stood in their way.
As sure as God made black and white, what's done in the dark will be brought to the light.
Ideas? My head is full of them, one after the other, but they serve no purpose there. They must be put down on paper, one after the other.
After meditating for some years, I began to see the patterns of my own behavior. As you quiet your mind, you begin to see the nature of your own resistance more clearly, struggles, inner dialogues, the way in which you procrastinate and develop passive resistance against life. As you cultivate the witness, things change. You don't have to change them. Things just change.
The pain is what you make of it. You have to find something in it that yields. I understood my guiding imperative as: keep bleeding, but find some love in the blood.
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