Belief contains so many truths pertaining to God's Names and the realities contained in the universe that the most perfect science, knowledge, and virtue is belief and knowledge of God originating in a belief based on argument and investigation.

Those who are greatly occupied in physical or material matters lack sufficient knowledge or have only superficial understanding of spiritual matters. Therefore, such people's opinions and judgments concerning spiritual matters carry no weight.

Do not suffer pain and torment without reason. Somebody All-Powerful and All-Compassionate owns everything. Rely on His Power and do not accuse His Compassion. Renounce grief and anxiety ad accept relief. Be rid of your troubles and find serenity.

I'm a really, really optimistic and really, really positive person. My main thing is, 'Enjoy life. Celebrate life.'

Just really, really believe in what you're trying to do. Don't let people alter that. Let people advise you and lead you down paths to make smart business decisions. But trust your instinct and trust that overwhelming drive that made you put all your dreams and everything on the line.

I would like to be a heart surgeon or brain surgeon... something with that knowledge and the ability to save a life would be pretty cool. I wasn't that good in science class, though.

It's pretty cool to see how far music can take you.

I just cut songs I love and that represent what I want to say. And if it crosses over, that's very flattering. It's cool to know that with people listening to rock and rap, I'm sitting on their iPods along with that stuff.

Every day I wake up and I lay in bed counting my blessings and saying my prayers for how fortunate I am to have great fans and health and family.

I grew up in a family where everybody had a good time and we were at the lake every weekend and going to the beach and living a good life. It's been the way we always lived, and my wife's the same way - enjoy every day and have fun.

Obviously, fans are the beginning and end for any artist. The minute your fans embrace you and accept you, you begin this ride of being in music and having a career doing something you love. You get to go be a kid and live out your dreams by performing music for fans who come out to your shows.

If I wake up one day and people tell me I'm not sexy, I'm not going to stop making good music and having fun. That 'sex symbol' thing is typically part of being in the limelight. You better be very talented in your music, but it's good to be nice to look at, I guess.

From my dad I learned to be good to people, to always be honest and straightforward. I learned hard work and perseverance.

I'm a big sports fan in general.

I think 'Country Girl' is one song that can veer into country or hip-hop or rap. You can listen to it and enjoy the humor and the fun in it.

Growing up in Georgia, my dad was a farmer and we worked in agriculture, so we were always looking up at the sky, checking if rain was in the forecast. That always set the tone for the mood in my household, whether we had rain coming in or not - we knew the crops would be good and it was going to be a good week around the Bryan household.

How can they say my life is not a success? Have I not for more than sixty years got enough to eat and escaped being eaten?

The vitality of a new movement in Art must be gauged by the fury it arouses.

What I like in a good author is not what he says but what he whispers.

Happiness is a wine of the rarest vintage, and seems insipid to a vulgar taste.

The old know what they want; the young are sad and bewildered.

It takes a great man to give sound advice tactfully, but a greater to accept it graciously.

If you want to be thought a liar, always tell the truth.

We need two kinds of acquaintances, one to complain to, while to the others we boast.

People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading.

What is more mortifying than to feel that you have missed the plum for want of courage to shake the tree?

Even today, I am still very child-like while designing. It's a bit like Christmas - each of your designs you create is like unravelling your presents.

Cinderella is not only an iconic character when it comes to beauty, grace and fairytale love, but also shoes.

My father, who was a cabinetmaker, told me, 'Wood has a grain and if you go into the grain, you have beauty. If you go against it, you have splinters - it breaks.' And I took that as my view of life. You have to follow the grain - to be sensitive to the direction of life.

People say I am the king of painful shoes. I don't want to create painful shoes, but it is not my job to create something comfortable. I try to make high heels as comfortable as they can be, but my priority is design, beauty and sexiness. I'm not against them, but comfort is not my focus.

Strangely enough, I really think that shoes are a communication tool between people.

If you do what you love, it is the best way to relax.

The higher the better. It's more about an attitude. High heels empower women in a way.

When a woman puts on a heel, she has a different posture, a different attitude. She really stands up and has a consciousness of her body.

I mean, the shoe - there is a music to it, there is attitude, there is sound, it's a movement. Clothes - it's a different story. There are a million things I'd rather do before designing clothes: directing, landscaping.

I was born in Paris in the mid-1960s, and by the time I was 12 I had started going to the movies by myself. Most of the movies of that period never appealed to me. I didn't like the 'naturalism,' the sad or the 'down-to-earth' characters. What I wanted from film was fantasy, dreams, funny situations, extravagant decor - and beautiful women.

I would say that a good shoe is exactly like a good wine. These shoes are going to stay and last for a long time.

High heels empower women in a way.

I always loved fish for the colors and birds for the plumage. In the same way, I loved those women of the cabaret. They were birds of paradise.

Istanbul is inspiring because it has its own code of architecture, literature, poetry, music.

I was always shouted at by my teacher because I would draw straight on the table in the school.

There is an element of seduction in shoes that doesn't exist for men. A woman can be sexy, charming, witty or shy with her shoes.

Being on a trapeze is like dreaming. I feel totally outside of myself when I'm flying. You know, designing shoes, my imagination is flying in my drawings.

A shoe is not only a design, but it's a part of your body language, the way you walk. The way you're going to move is quite dictated by your shoes.

I'm a designer, and I think if you work in fashion, you have to give people fantasy.

I never was interested in being part of the fashion world - I just wanted to design shoes. I didn't even know 'Vogue' existed when I was growing up. 'Vogue,' what is that?'

I never wanted to design clothes. I never wanted to work for the fashion industry. Shoes sort of belong to the fashion industry, which is why I'm part of the fashion industry. But that's never been my thought. My thought since I was a child was really to design those shoes for girls on stage.

I never wanted to work in fashion. At age 12 or 13, I wanted to design for showgirls - for the theater! And I was crazy for the Hollywood of the 1950s: Dietrich, Elizabeth Taylor, Jennifer Jones. They were my idea of glamour - and Sylvie Vartan, the French singer.

At age 12 or 13, I wanted to design for showgirls - for the theater!

I'd already decided I wanted to design shoes after I saw a sign in the Museum of African and Oceanic Art forbidding high heels. Well, who could resist?