I’ve arrived at the place if I’m not taking a career risk, I’m not happy. If I’m scared, then I know I’m being challenged.

The earth laughs in flowers.

I’m afraid to fail again.

Let go of yesterday.

I’ve learned a lot since I was a new mother. My approach to struggle and shame now is to talk to yourself like you’d talk to someone you love and reach out to tell your story.

Only by joy and sorrow does a person know anything about themselves and their destiny. They learn what to do and what to avoid.

No one can be happy who has been thrust outside the pale of truth. And there are two ways that one can be removed from this realm: by lying, or by being lied to.

A wise man will make haste to forgive, because he knows the true value of time, and will not suffer it to pass away in unnecessary pain.

Without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods.

Weak character will neutralize all of the other possible good qualities a person might possess.

It’s always a struggle growing up in Akron.

For me, it’s about the way I carry myself and the way I treat other people. My relationship and how I feel about God and what He does for me, is something deeply personal. It’s where I came from, my family, I was brought up in a religious household and that’s very important to me.

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

There is a luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves we feel no one else has a right to blame us.

Why regret anything? Where does it get you to regret anything you’ve ever done in your life? It gets you nowhere. It’s a pathetic emotion that you can wallow in.

In dwelling, live close to the ground. In thinking, keep to the simple. In conflict, be fair and generous. In governing, don’t try to control. In work, do what you enjoy. In family life, be completely present.

We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out.

We are continually shaped by the forces of coincidence.

There are no constraints on the human mind, no walls around the human spirit, no barriers to our progress except those we ourselves erect.

Some virtues are only seen in affliction and others only in prosperity.

I think, for years, people have been pushed down by religion, and I don’t say that disrespectfully, but they’ve been shown a God that you can’t measure up to.

You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

As iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend.

I’ve never been a jealous person, and I’ve never felt built up by someone else’s failure – that’s a cheap thrill.

People can try to reinvent themselves. I don’t think you can really change who you are, though, because who you are is pretty much where you came from and what you’ve done up to now.

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.

It is the working man who is the happy man. It is the idle man who is the miserable man.

For most of us, wisdom is acquired in the thicket of experience and usually meets us somewhere along the way if we live long enough. But sooner is better than later.

How happy is the blameless vestal’s lot? The world forgetting, by the world forgot.

Man has two great spiritual needs. One is for forgiveness. The other is for goodness.

If you have an enemy, then learn and know your enemy, don’t just be mad at him or her.

We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers. A man thinking or working is always alone, let him be where he will.

I don’t think human beings learn anything without desperation. Desperation is a necessary ingredient to learning anything or creating anything. Period. If you ain’t desperate at some point, you ain’t interesting.

People become attached to their burdens sometimes more than the burdens are attached to them.

It’s normal for human beings to identify with their own separate self. The problem is that we get caught in that notion of ourself as a separate individual and caught in that individual self’s agenda.

Anything you’re good at contributes to happiness.

No married man is genuinely happy if he has to drink worse whisky than he used to drink when he was single.

I fear that too many have sadly surrendered their agency to the adversary and are saying by their conduct, ‚I care more about satisfying my own desires than I do about bearing the Savior’s power to bless others.‘

Whatever you are, be a good one.

Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.

A man must now swallow more belief than he can digest.

I always try to do as much as I can do. I’m never a person that does not enough, because I’d regret not doing enough and think I probably could have done more. I probably go too far and have to reel myself back in, which works in some things, and other things it doesn’t work.

The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government.

Saints can be happy under every circumstance.

I have a dogmatic certainty: God is in every person’s life. God is in everyone’s life. Even if the life of a person has been a disaster, even if it is destroyed by vices, drugs or anything else – God is in this person’s life. You can – you must – try to seek God in every human life.

I kinda live where I find myself.

Without being the most confident person in the world, I think I am the right person for Liverpool.

You have to be willing to go to war with yourself and create a whole new identity.

Success is only meaningful and enjoyable if it feels like your own.

But O, how bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man’s eyes.

Realize deeply that the present moment is all you ever have. Make the Now the primary focus of your life.

I seldom end up where I wanted to go, but almost always end up where I need to be.

I’d like to think you don’t stop being creative once you get happy. My ultimate goal is to end up being happy. Most of the time.

Catering to bad feelings feeds and empowers them.

There is no austerity equal to a balanced mind, and there is no happiness equal to contentment; there is no disease like covetousness, and no virtue like mercy.

Ordinary readers, forgive my paradoxes: one must make them when one reflects; and whatever you may say, I prefer being a man with paradoxes than a man with prejudices.

That which does not kill us makes us stronger.

It’s true that I’ve never had a burning desire to rebel against my parents.

I’ve been called a recluse. There’s definitely truth in that. I like to spend time alone.

My entire childhood was steeped in poverty. For me, poverty, in a way, was the first inspiration of my life, a commitment to do something for the poor.

If I wished to do something, even if I couldn’t find anyone who wanted to make the effort with me, I would go out solo climbing. I did find solo climbing very challenging and a little frightening. You knew that you were completely on your own, and you had to overcome all the problems and possible dangers.