Natural abilities are like natural plants, that need pruning by study; and studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience.

On the field, aggression can sometimes be a positive emotion. It boosts performance and can lift your game. But over the years, I have learnt that restrained aggression is a better animal. That way, you will conserve your energy and won’t spend yourself quickly.

Do the thing you fear most and the death of fear is certain.

Don’t talk about what you have done or what you are going to do.

One must verify or expel his doubts, and convert them into the certainty of Yes or NO.

Our character is basically a composite of our habits. Because they are consistent, often unconcious patterns, they constantly, daily, express our character.

You cannot control what happens to you, but you can control your attitude toward what happens to you, and in that, you will be mastering change rather than allowing it to master you.

Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune.

It is for us to pray not for tasks equal to our powers, but for powers equal to our tasks, to go forward with a great desire forever beating at the door of our hearts as we travel toward our distant goal.

Well, I wouldn’t say that I was in the great class, but I had a great time while I was trying to be great.

The only real security that a man can have in this world is a reserve of knowledge, experience and ability.

Two things control men’s nature, instinct and experience.

It is what you read when you don’t have to that determines what you will be when you can’t help it.

The Edge… there is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over.

To be good is noble; but to show others how to be good is nobler and no trouble.

The fatal metaphor of progress, which means leaving things behind us, has utterly obscured the real idea of growth, which means leaving things inside us.

Wisdom allows nothing to be good that will not be so forever; no man to be happy but he that needs no other happiness than what he has within himself; no man to be great or powerful that is not master of himself.

Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes.

Never go to a doctor whose office plants have died.

In my later years, I have looked in the mirror each day and found a happy person staring back. Occasionally I wonder why I can be so happy. The answer is that every day of my life I’ve worked only for myself and for the joy that comes from writing and creating. The image in my mirror is not optimistic, but the result of optimal behavior.

Think of yourself as on the threshold of unparalleled success. A whole, clear, glorious life lies before you. Achieve! Achieve!

Become aware of your own insufficiency.

I’d be more frightened by not using whatever abilities I’d been given. I’d be more frightened by procrastination and laziness.

There’s a deceptive sin that can keep us from walking in love: pride. It’s deceptive because when you have pride, you’re usually too proud to admit it. I know this because I used to have teachings on pride and they didn’t sell well.

The teacher is the one who gets the most out of the lessons, and the true teacher is the learner.

If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.

Nearly all the things I do that are of any merit at all start off just being good fun, and I think I’m sort of building up to doing something else quite soon.

The confessional is not a torture chamber, but the place in which the Lord’s mercy motivates us to do better.

If your treat an individual… as if he were what he ought to be and could be, he will become what he ought to be and could be.

I don’t let even a day go by wherein I don’t give at 100 per cent.

Fear clogs; faith liberates.

If a man does his best, what else is there?

I myself would like to become more disciplined within my work.

It was always a plan that we were going to have a retail side with what were doing musically, like an Apple store or Nike Town. I wanted something where you can come get everything – ‚Marathon‘ or ‚All Money‘ or ‚Crenshaw‘ – and make it like an experience. Especially with what Crenshaw and Slauson meant to my story.

So I’ve seen life as one long learning process. And if I see – you know, if I fly on somebody else’s airline and find the experience is not a pleasant one, which it wasn’t in – 21 years ago, then I’d think, well, you know, maybe I can create the kind of airline that I’d like to fly on.

Your big opportunity may be right where you are now.

Study the past, if you would divine the future.

If all you’re doing is grinding for the man, it’s going to burden you. Once you say, ‚Hey, I’m grinding for the man, but I’m putting money away, and this is part of my exit strategy,‘ you’re working for you.

Man must cease attributing his problems to his environment, and learn again to exercise his will – his personal responsibility in the realm of faith and morals.

People suffer because they are caught in their views. As soon as we release those views, we are free and we don’t suffer anymore.

You know, not to sound corny or nuthin‘, but I felt like a fighter comin‘ up, man. I felt like, you know, I’m being attacked for this reason or that reason, and I gotta fight my way through this.

Never complain and never explain.

All of us should be on guard against beliefs that flatter ourselves. At the very least, we should check such beliefs against facts.

If I’d had some set idea of a finish line, don’t you think I would have crossed it years ago?

I do have motivation. A lot of motivation.

The left paw has done me well over the years. I’m not a scientist, I’m a martial artist.

If someone is going down the wrong road, he doesn’t need motivation to speed him up. What he needs is education to turn him around.

Anyone can have a good day, but you have to be able to perform on a bad day.

Don’t bring your need to the marketplace, bring your skill. If you don’t feel well, tell your doctor, but not the marketplace. If you need money, go to the bank, but not the marketplace.

I was a journeyman chef of middling abilities. Whatever authority I have as a commenter on this world comes from the sheer weight of 28 years in the business. I kicked around for 28 years and came out the other end alive and able to form a sentence.

We must use time as a tool, not as a couch.

I think you can have 10,000 explanations for failure, but no good explanation for success.

I focus on my own job.

There is only one sort of discipline, perfect discipline.

Suppose that we are wise enough to learn and know – and yet not wise enough to control our learning and knowledge, so that we use it to destroy ourselves? Even if that is so, knowledge remains better than ignorance.

I don’t care if people I admire criticize me because their opinion is valuable to me.

As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.

Develop an attitude of gratitude, and give thanks for everything that happens to you, knowing that every step forward is a step toward achieving something bigger and better than your current situation.

Sometimes you have to take two steps back to take ten forward.

Always do what you are afraid to do.

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