Boredom is just the reverse side of fascination: both depend on being outside rather than inside a situation, and one leads to the other.

I’m more of a realist when it comes to life, and I’d much rather my mother be in a spiritual place in Heaven than in a bed, sick, fighting for her life.

Sensual love deceives one as to the nature of heavenly love; it could not do so alone, but since it unconsciously has the element of heavenly love within it, it can do so.

If you desire to be good, begin by believing that you are wicked.

Old age is like a plane flying through a storm. Once you’re aboard, there’s nothing you can do.

I really don’t pay attention to the outside world when I’m incarcerated, because being in prison is like being in a different world. So I don’t pay attention to what’s going on outside of jail, because it’s all beyond my control.

While on top of Everest, I looked across the valley towards the great peak Makalu and mentally worked out a route about how it could be climbed. It showed me that even though I was standing on top of the world, it wasn’t the end of everything. I was still looking beyond to other interesting challenges.

When I am angry I can pray well and preach well.

You will never know the feeling of a driver when winning a race. The helmet hides feelings that cannot be understood.

I’m interested in the fact that the less secure a man is, the more likely he is to have extreme prejudice.

To correct a natural indifference I was placed half-way between misery and the sun. Misery kept me from believing that all was well under the sun, and the sun taught me that history wasn’t everything.

In the West, as well as some other parts of the world, the personal sense of ego tends to predominate, whereas in other areas, there is a more collective sense of ego. This collective ego emphasizes the ‚we‘ rather than the ‚I.‘

We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think. When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves.

I’ve never understood why people consider youth a time of freedom and joy. It’s probably because they have forgotten their own.

Fear clogs; faith liberates.

To God everything is beautiful, good, and just; humans, however, think some things are unjust and others just.

Whatever I’m feeling, whatever I’m going through, whatever mood I’m in… If I’m feeling like dancing or clubbing, then it will be reflected in the music. If I’m feeling dark and vulnerable, then it will reflect in the music, too.

Intense feeling too often obscures the truth.

We see the world not as it is, but as we are.

‚Mean‘ is a song I wrote about somebody who wrote things that were so mean so many times that it would ruin my day. Then it would ruin the next day. And it would level me so many times, I just felt like I was being hit in the face every time this person would take to their computer.

Cry if you have a compound fracture, by all means. Or if your grandpa died. But otherwise, save it for your pillow.

The smallest seed of faith is better than the largest fruit of happiness.

Vanity can apply to both insecurity and egotism. So I distance myself, because I feel everything.

What we think, we become.

Be the hunter, not the hunted.

A stair not worn hollow by footsteps is, regarded from its own point of view, only a boring something made of wood.

Strong emotions such as passion and bliss are indications that you’re connected to Spirit, or ‚inspired,‘ if you will. When you’re inspired, you activate dormant forces, and the abundance you seek in any form comes streaming into your life.

I never think about myself as an artist working in this time. I think about it in macro.

First ask yourself: What is the worst that can happen? Then prepare to accept it. Then proceed to improve on the worst.

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.

Players today moan about the number of games, but when you’re young, you can’t play enough.

For me, often, there’s such a cloud of melancholia about knowing I’m going to have to leave my daughter on her own. I don’t know what age that is going to be, thank God. It just doubles me up in grief.

The loss of young first love is so painful that it borders on the ludicrous.

I love those who can smile in trouble, who can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. ‚Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but they whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves their conduct, will pursue their principles unto death.

Remembering what you’ve been through and how that has strengthened your mindset can lift you out of a negative brain loop and help you bypass those weak, one-second impulses to give in. Even if you’re feeling low and beat down by life right now, I guarantee you can think of a time or two when you overcame odds and tasted success.

We have communion with Christ in His thoughts, views, and purposes; for His thoughts are our thoughts according to our capacity and sanctity. Believers take the same view of matters as Jesus does; that which pleases Him pleases them, and that which grieves His grieves them also.

Necessity is not an established fact, but an interpretation.

You might not always get what you want, but you always get what you expect.

There are certain nights you and your image just aren’t in the same bed.

I walk every day, and I look at the mountains and the fields and the small city, and I say: ‚Oh my God, what a blessing.‘ Then you realise it’s important to put it in a context beyond this woman, this man, this city, this country, this universe.

Life is not living in the suburbs with a white picket fence. That’s not life. Somehow our American culture has made it out that that’s what life needs to be – and that if it’s not that, it’s all screwed up. It’s not.

To do the same thing over and over again is not only boredom: it is to be controlled by rather than to control what you do.

‚Tis education forms the common mind; just as the twig is bent the tree’s inclined.

Of course, ‚I Will Always Love You‘ is the biggest song so far in my career. I’m famous for several, but that one has been recorded by more people and made me more money, I think, than all of them. But that song did come from a true and deep place in my heart.

When I don’t feel free and can’t do what I want I just react. I go against it.

There’s a part of you – the born-again part, your spirit – that’s dead to sin. That’s why it bothers you now when you sin. The ‚wilderness‘ part of you – your soul – is your unrenewed mind, out-of-control emotions, and stubborn will.

As long as a man stands in his own way, everything seems to be in his way.

Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute.

‚Tis healthy to be sick sometimes.

If you think nobody cares about you, try missing a couple of payments.

Get busy living, or get busy dying.

A fanatic is a man who consciously over compensates a secret doubt.

We choose what attitudes we have right now. And it’s a continuing choice.

The way up and the way down are one and the same.

Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other.

I’m seeing the world partially through the eyes of a kid. Not all the time. There’s no black and white to it. But sometimes I’m seeing it like I’m 4.

To a guy like me, a laugh is full of information.

The need for change bulldozed a road down the center of my mind.

Bottom line is, I didn’t return to Apple to make a fortune. I’ve been very lucky in my life and already have one. When I was 25, my net worth was $100 million or so. I decided then that I wasn’t going to let it ruin my life. There’s no way you could ever spend it all, and I don’t view wealth as something that validates my intelligence.

The collective unconscious consists of the sum of the instincts and their correlates, the archetypes. Just as everybody possesses instincts, so he also possesses a stock of archetypal images.

Fear is pain arising from the anticipation of evil.