It’s not the daily increase but daily decrease. Hack away at the unessential.

People don’t usually compliment your character.

I believe that God’s dream is that we be successful in our careers, and that we be able to send our kids to college. I don’t mean that everyone is going to be rich, and I preach a lot on blooming where you’re planted. But I don’t have the mindset that money is a bad thing.

The highest result of education is tolerance.

The reason I became 297 pounds is because that was comfortable. What was very uncomfortable was running. What was very uncomfortable was being on a diet. What was very uncomfortable was trying to face things that I didn’t want to face. And I also realized, when I was really big, I had no growth. Why? Because I was living comfortable.

One of the wonderful things about Oprah: She teaches you to keep on stepping.

I realised a little bit to my astonishment that I can give a lecture for a thousand people, and there will be this tumultuous applause, so, you know, I have the feeling well, it can’t be all that bad.

When a man is wrapped up in himself, he makes a pretty small package.

I enjoy competition. I enjoy challenges. If a challenge is in front of me and it appeals to me, I will go ahead and conquer it.

I fear that many a man’s good resolutions only need the ordinary fire of daily life to make them melt away. So, too, with fine professions and the boastings of perfection which abound in this age of shams.

Choose silence of all virtues, for by it you hear other men’s imperfections, and conceal your own.

I think as long as I do a good job and put in all my effort to proving that I’m worth it, then everything should be fine.

Beware of no man more than of yourself; we carry our worst enemies within us.

I was never particularly fond of my voice.

I don’t think there’s anyone who would say they don’t want or need more of God’s power in their life.

I think I lived those years very impersonally. It was almost as though I had erected someone outside myself who was the president’s wife. I was lost somewhere deep down inside myself. That is the way I felt and worked until I left the White House.

The greatest mistake you can make in life is continually fearing that you’ll make one.

As soon as the fear approaches near, attack and destroy it.

I think I had a mild case of Asperger’s as a younger guy, but that typically just wears off after a while.

I believe that anyone can conquer fear by doing the things he fears to do, provided he keeps doing them until he gets a record of successful experience behind him.

If a person gets his attitude toward money straight, it will help straighten out almost every other area in his life.

O wretched man, wretched not just because of what you are, but also because you do not know how wretched you are!

Gentleness doesn’t get work done unless you happen to be a hen laying eggs.

To be idle and to be poor have always been reproaches, and therefore every man endeavors with his utmost care to hide his poverty from others, and his idleness from himself.

Few men would dare to read their own autobiography if all their deeds were recorded in it; few can look back upon their entire career without a blush.

What’s money? A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do.

My only fault is that I don’t realize how great I really am.

More people should read books. It’s the most concentrated experience you can have.

I always try to be smart. I try to treat all the money I’m making like it’s the last time I’m going to make it.

I learned a long time ago how to be coachable.

Men take only their needs into consideration – never their abilities.

Things do not always happen the way I would like them to happen, and I had better get used to that.

The greatest mistake we make is living in constant fear that we will make one.

The only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once.

Man is an idea, and a precious small idea once he turns his back on love.

Most people spend more time and energy going around problems than in trying to solve them.

When you’re in hell, you forget how great you really are because you’re suffering and you forget the great things you’ve done.

I’m not a regrets-type person.

There are a lot of ‚chicken Christians.‘ Chickens are generally afraid of life, and they seldom fly or reach their potential in life. And when a storm comes, all they seem to do is flap around the chicken yard, stirring up dirt and running to the chicken house.

It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.

My life is my argument.

There’s something about being in front of a live audience that’s fun. It’s a really interesting, very electric, very alive, and intense experience, and you can’t get it anywhere else. And I’ve been doing it since I was 23, so it’s part of my being – it’s part of my fabric as a person.

A game is like a mirror that allows you to look at yourself.

Energy begets energy.

I was brought up to try to see what was wrong and right it. Since I am a writer, writing is how I right it.

I’m a big believer in doing things that make you uncomfortable. So, we live in a world where we want to be as comfortable as we can. And we wonder why we have no growth. We wonder why – when the smallest thing in our life gets difficult – we wonder why we cower and we run away.

One’s only rival is one’s own potentialities. One’s only failure is failing to live up to one’s own possibilities. In this sense, every man can be a king, and must therefore be treated like a king.

The Mind that lies fallow but a single Day, sprouts up in Follies that are only to be killed by a constant and assiduous Culture.

In past generations, people would try to play younger than they really are. My trick is, I don’t try to play younger than I really am.

You fail only if you stop writing.

Outlook 2003 did create the idea of search folders and the whole Longhorn philosophy. You can see it at work in search folders, where instead of having to drop things into individual folders, and things exist only in one folder, you create these search folders and you have the criteria for the search folder.

My father wasn’t perfect. He had a temper. I took some of that. He would snap, but the older he got, he started calming down. He learned about life, but the thing that he taught my whole family was that family was the most important thing and, no matter what, if a family member needs you, you go and help them out; you get there.

He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else.

I don’t have the best track record with quotes.

I can’t jump the highest. I’m obviously not the biggest, not the strongest.

I don’t see how people are comfortable with seeing other people be great. You can be happy for anybody, but what is your excuse to not want to be great? These people are great because they just say, ‚I’ma do that,‘ and they do it. That’s it. There’s no scientifical process.

I am who I am. That’s why my friends and peers respect and appreciate me. I don’t change or cater my actions to fit my surroundings. I’m myself 24/7. People appreciate that.

My dad seemed comfortable with his decision to be a ‚have-not,‘ but I knew that I wasn’t.

I don’t have any regrets. I made all my own decisions.

Oh, God, I struggle with low self-esteem all the time! I think everyone does. I have so much wrong with me, it’s unbelievable!

Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be.