RZA Quotes & Sayings

Once you've got an inspired spark, you've got to strive. You've gotta keep putting wood on it, so they say, to keep it burning. But then there's the alchemist side of it, that's the fire that's burning but it don't burn. — RZA

I think most of my approach to life has been like that, to find order in chaos, to be in the middle of a bunch of things happening at the same time, but find focus. I strive to be like the sun sitting in the middle of the solar system with all the planets spinning around it - millions of things going on. It's just sitting there being the sun, but exerting gravitational effect on everything. I think man should look at himself that way. — RZA

Once you have some yes's in your life, the no's are not that bad. — RZA

If you live through defeat, you are not defeated. If you are beaten but acquire wisdom, you have won. Lose yourself to improve yourself. Only when we shed all self-definition do we find who we really are. — RZA

Every cell has certain knowledge. I think knowledge is contained within the genetics, even. I think scientists will find that. I don't think there's a gay gene, though. They may argue that down, but I don't think that, because that's a preference. — RZA

Through great input you get great output. — RZA

The fundamental message of the Wu Tang music is as vast as the ocean in all reality, but it's still a straight path. You can take one lyric and by researching what that lyric is giving out to you, it should give you more than a day's worth of school, maybe three days' worth of school. — RZA

You are a 64-track recording - the tracks are always there, they're always with you. Sometimes the harsh tracks are cranked up and the rest are rolled down to zero. Other times the sweet tracks are high and the darkness is low. But it's all you. — RZA

I think you gotta have some humor [in your story]. People gotta have a moment to laugh and feel that it's not taken 100% serious. That's important. — RZA

That's what I am. I warn people. Whenever I see and I feel things in my heart, I speak it. — RZA

I invested in the album. Look, if I never did anything again in music, it wouldn't affect my life materially. I live a very satisfying life. Not because I've made a few dollars, but because I have a wife who loves me and children who wait for me to come home. And that is beautiful. I think that's the American dream: to be at peace at home. — RZA

Whether I went to school or not, I would always study. — RZA

Happiness is something you get from yourself. If you're completely satisfied with yourself, nobody can take it away from you. — RZA

Don't wait till you die to go to heaven. — RZA

The truth shall set you free. When you hear the truth, it sets you free. So mathematics is truth. It adds up. There's no error. Only time there's an error is when man miscalculates his own problems or his own equations. — RZA

Love is mistranslated into sex, because sex is not an expression of love. Sex is an expression of physical activity. It can be an expression of love between two people in love, but it's a carnal expression. — RZA

I think one thing most of faiths have in common is they all realize that everything manifests from one [god]. That's whether you're dealing with science, religion, Bible, whatever. They all realize it all came from one, and then from one, you got many. — RZA

In today's society, the forces against you are heavy against you. The whole goal is to get knowledge of yourself, but people are so far from themselves that they don't believe themselves. — RZA

How can you defame mud when such a beautiful flower grows from it? — RZA

The knowledge of self is the most important thing, because how are you going to know God if you don't know yourself? How are you going to know anything if you don't know yourself? — RZA

Inspiration is found everywhere if you look hard enough. — RZA

I advise everyone to find an island in this life. Find a place where this culture can't take energy away from you, sap your will and originality. Since anything physical can be mental, that island can be your home. Turn off the electromagnetic waves being forced upon you, the countless invisible forces coming at you all the time. — RZA

There's strong men of wisdom in many different fields. They say 5% of the people are wise and righteous and 10% are wise but use their wiseness for wickedness or to deceive others. It's like a magician: he knows the answer to the trick, but you don't. He has to keep you blind to the truth in order for the illusion to work. When you've got that kind of wisdom and somebody else doesn't, you can always take advantage of them. — RZA

Knowledge is like fire 'cause it breaks down things so you can see what they truly are. It's like how a fire breaks your body down to carbon. — RZA

An architect is a person who builds homes or structures, stadiums even. A Supreme Architect is someone who actually built the universe. So, if I say I am the Supreme Architecture, I'm letting Allah speak. I'm becoming a vehicle. — RZA

The most revealing books are the Holy Koran and the Holy Bible. The Bhagavad Gita is a great book as well, and the works of Buddha. These are the major influences on the world. — RZA

Just as you must come through a woman's womb to attain physical birth, so must you come through Wisdom to achieve mental birth. And like childbirth, Wisdom often comes with pain. — RZA

The idea that music is art has been something we advocated for years. And yet it doesn't receive the same treatment as art in the sense of the value of what it is, especially nowadays when it's been devalued and diminished to almost the point that it has to be given away for free. — RZA

Complainin' to my lawyer how this rookie tried to frisk me ...
Jealous of my jeep, I gave his badge to the chief,
And got his ass directin' traffic in the heat for a week. — RZA

You can see the weakness of a man right through his iris. — RZA

When I started emceein', you had 500 maybe 1000 rappers in the whole world. Now there's 1.000.000, nahmean? — RZA

I know for an actual fact that the things I say or that my brothers say on the mic are valid for life. What we say, if you're smart you get it, if you're stupid, you learn about 3 years later. — RZA

Keep my planets in orbit,
Never forfeit or quit,
Move forward ...
I talk with the awkward slang,
I walk with the Wu-Tang. — RZA

How can hip hop be dead if Wu-Tang is forever? — RZA

I feel when I say I can do something and carry this opportunity to make movies, it's because I took the time to study it. A boxer can't just jump in the ring. You've got to practice and practice and practice. — RZA

Experience is the best teacher. But in our day and time, what we need is wisdom, because wisdom overcomes experience, because experience is wisdom, but there's a level of wisdom that overcomes the experience, and that's the experience that's already lived by others. I'm not trying to repeat the histories. I already learned from what they did. — RZA

We say knowledge is the basic foundation of the universe. Everything is first based on something being known. — RZA

We put out real hip-hop at a time when it was turning into pop or R&B ... We brought the focus back to the music in its rawest form, without studio polish or radio hooks ... People want something that gives them an adrenaline rush. We're here to supply that fix. — RZA

Grew up in Stapleton House village, where blood flood the waters in the streets like oil spillage — RZA

Just bring love. Everybody keeps bringing violence, let's bring love. — RZA

I love vinyl, you know? To me it has depth, warmth, it's the best way to really sample. — RZA

Kung fu was made so the monks could train their bodies and move their bodies with strength, so they could be physical enough to gain mental enlightenment. Before that, they kept falling asleep when [masters] were trying to teach them. — RZA

Took two drags off the blunts, and started breaking down the flag:
The blue is for the Crips, the red is for the Bloods,
The whites for the cops, and the stars come from the clubs
Or the slugs that ignite, through the night,
By the dawn early light, why is sons fighting for the stripe? — RZA

The word "knowledge" itself, we like to break it down into two different words, "know" and "ledge." You've got to know the ledge. Know the limitation of things. Know where they go, know where they start from. We say knowledge is the basic foundation of the universe. But everything is first based on something being known. Then, when it's known, then it can be manifested. — RZA

This is a robbery, boy, gimme them dollars.
We hit the lottery, boy, it's in ya wallets! — RZA

Knowledge is first and wisdom is the manifestation of knowledge. To understand this tone and pattern of thinking in the numerical way automatically resonated with me. — RZA

I ask people what piece they are on the chessboard. And some people say 'I'm the king' or 'I'm the knight.' And then they ask me what piece I am, and I say, 'I'm no piece. I take the position of God.' — RZA

After knowledge comes wisdom. After wisdom comes understanding. — RZA

Happiness is total and complete satisfaction with yourself — RZA

When you feel this knowledge and this spark in yourself, you've gotta continue feeding it. The best thing is to spend time around other wise men, that keeps it burning. That keeps it in every degree sharp as steel, but make sure you absorb enough to find out how it sparks from yourself, how the self starts the self. Once you've got that you should be free. That's freedom, to me. — RZA

Cats be talkin', "Bobby I ain't feelin' ya."
But I bet if I was peelin' your cap back with a two-shot Dillinger
Hot lead released from my cylinder,
You'd be talkin' 'bout, "Bobby I'm feelin' ya!" — RZA

You can be born gay, but not because of your genetics, I think because of your subconscious more than your genetics. I think genetically, we're made to reproduce. We can't survive this route. Genetically, that's the way to go. Genetically, we have to reproduce, but subconsciously, and preferentially, you can be born with that. — RZA

If you don't know yourself, you don't know your nature. If you don't know your nature, you don't know where to exist. By knowing your nature, knowing yourself, you know what to be and how to live. And that only comes from knowledge of self, knowing yourself. — RZA

A day to God is a thousand years,
Men walk around with a thousand fears.
The true joy of love brings a thousand tears,
In the world of desire, there's a thousand snares. — RZA

But for the wise, it says in the Bible: when a wise man hears wisdom, he reacts. When a fool hears it, his acts are folly. If you wanna be a fool, help yourself, it's not my problem. — RZA

There's the 5% of the people that are wise and righteous and I'd definitely be amongst them, building, communicating, and continuing to try and figure out how we can awaken the 85%. The 85% are walking around [like] cattle, not realizing the things we do, the violence we do; you see people falling victim to all sorts of unnecessary things because they just don't know the way and nobody is showing them the way. — RZA

One thing that definitely did calculate properly for me was the mathematics that makes sense every day, no matter how I look at it, I can't get around it. I try to get around it, I keep trying to find one plus one is not two, somehow. I can't. People can talk about string theory, parallel realities, different dimensions, it's still one plus one is two, baby. — RZA

I'd hate to compare art to life but I think a movie is an entity of its own, and when it's done, you want everybody to like it like you want everybody to like your children. — RZA

Find your true self. The old question, asked in many ages, "Who am I?" Once you figure out who am I, and you know who am I, then you have that knowledge of self. — RZA

One of the greatest things that ever taught me a super lesson was when I seen a baby come out of my woman's womb. Seeing this war that could end with both lives being lost, or both lives being made, gave me an enlightenment of life itself. It sparked my whole mind to a whole other level of living. And if I never would have seen it, I never would have understood life. I never would have appreciated life. — RZA

There are many names to Allah plus one you don't know. And each name is an attribute that flexes his characteristics: the Benevolent, the Merciful, the All-Knower ... And to me, my names be flexin' personalities of myself: Prince Rakeem, Bobby Digital, Bobby Steels, the RZA, the Rzarector ... These are personalities of myself. — RZA

Aiyyo, camoflouge chameleon,
ninjas scalin' your building,
No time to grab the gun,
I already got your wife and children — RZA

Every aspect of your personality, if you're wise, you're able to separate each one of them and put them to use at the best time for the best position. — RZA

The body is a vehicle for the mind, and that vehicle is how you travel through space. — RZA

Wayne is definitely one of the top five MCs to ever come out of the South. — RZA