I try to live what I teach. A lot of things come against us in life, but we should try to find something to be grateful for, and see each day as a gift.

If you have the insight of non-self, if you have the insight of impermanence, you should make that insight into a concentration that you keep alive throughout the day. Then what you say, what you think, and what you do will then be in the light of that wisdom and you will avoid making mistakes and creating suffering.

There is no real limit to how much better a person who really commits to getting better can get. Every manager has the potential to become an excellent manager for the rest of his or her career.

There is such a thing as ‚thanks-feeling‘ – feeling thankful. This ought to be the general, universal spirit of the Christian.

I love being American, and I love family. I love having a family, and I feel so blessed, and I feel like God gave me exactly what I wanted, so now I have to do the right thing in God’s eyes also. Just follow what God wants me to do.

I was at a New Year’s Eve party, and someone asked me how was my year, and I said, ‚I honestly think 2011 was the best year of my entire life,‘ and I actually meant it.

The simple act of paying attention can take you a long way.

I don’t look at my old work. I mean, they made nice books; the books were made without me, the one from last year and the one from this year. I – personally, I’m not interested in my own past. I’m only interested in today – perhaps tomorrow.

It is his restraint that is honorable to a person, not their liberty.

The essence of all beautiful art, all great art, is gratitude.

So many people have this idea: I want to achieve something great or be somebody great. And they neglect the step that leads to greatness. They don’t honor this step at this moment because they have this idea of some future moment where they are going to be great.

I guess I’m living in the present more than the past.

This is a moment that I deeply wish my parents could have lived to share. My father would have enjoyed what you have so generously said of me-and my mother would have believed it.

I never sell a book. I sell myself. And the way to sell yourself is to be an instrument of love.

When you’re outside, and everything is highland, it’s like nature has its own sound, and that’s one of my favorite sounds. I really loved sitting still silently outside, in a tree or in a bush, to just think.

Sometimes if you want to see a change for the better, you have to take things into your own hands.

Once someone has spent enough time cultivating bad habits and biding their time, they are much diminished. Much of what they could have been has dissipated.

Many of us have been running all our lives. Practice stopping.

If you truly get in touch with a piece of carrot, you get in touch with the soil, the rain, the sunshine. You get in touch with Mother Earth and eating in such a way, you feel in touch with true life, your roots, and that is meditation. If we chew every morsel of our food in that way we become grateful and when you are grateful, you are happy.

One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon instead of enjoying the roses that are blooming outside our windows today.

When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate.

Modesty is the color of virtue.

I already am a product.

I think it’s very important to have a feedback loop, where you’re constantly thinking about what you’ve done and how you could be doing it better. I think that’s the single best piece of advice: constantly think about how you could be doing things better and questioning yourself.

I make such big efforts to forget things and I can’t tell the story of my life because, thank God, I’m still living it.

I invented my life by taking for granted that everything I did not like would have an opposite, which I would like.

I was a chemistry major, but I’m always winding up as a teacher in English departments, so I’ve brought scientific thinking to literature. There’s been very little gratitude for this.

I’ve learned people are watching, so don’t do nothing stupid.

By any accepted standard, I have had more than nine lives. I counted them up once, and there were 13 times I almost and maybe should have died.

When any calamity has been suffered the first thing to be remembered is, how much has been escaped.

My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure.

I believe that God has put gifts and talents and ability on the inside of every one of us. When you develop that and you believe in yourself and you believe that you’re a person of influence and a person of purpose, I believe you can rise up out of any situation.

When you focus on being a blessing, God makes sure that you are always blessed in abundance.

It is my own firm belief that the strength of the soul grows in proportion as you subdue the flesh.

I’m not very ambitious at all.

If you can’t make it better, you can laugh at it.

You don’t have to give way to careless speech or complaining. You don’t have to let your feelings get in the way of what God wants to do in your life.

Keep silence for the most part, and speak only when you must, and then briefly.

Forget the past.

Perfectionists demand perfection from themselves first and foremost.

I know I do not exaggerate, unconsciously and unintentionally, the scantiness of my resources and the difficulty of my life… I know that, but for the mercy of God, I might easily have been, for any care that was taken of me, a little robber or a vagabond.

I never deny. I never contradict. I sometimes forget.

Whatever you dwell on in the conscious grows in your experience.

A lot of people are afraid to tell the truth, to say no. That’s where toughness comes into play. Toughness is not being a bully. It’s having backbone.

For me, being raised in a free America made all the difference.

No evil propensity of the human heart is so powerful that it may not be subdued by discipline.

With the past, I have nothing to do; nor with the future. I live now.

Fear, separation, hate and anger come from the wrong view that you and the Earth are two separate entities, the Earth is only the environment. You are in the centre and you want to do something for the Earth in order for you to survive. That is a dualistic way of seeing.

Changing your mind is probably one of the most beautiful things people can do. And I’ve changed my mind about a lot of things over the years.

The man never feels the want of what it never occurs to him to ask for.

Start your diet during a period of optimism and happiness.

If God treats you well by teaching you a disastrous lesson, you never forget it.

No one can give you better advice than yourself.

I thank God I’m in a position where I can pick and choose – there are some roles I don’t play.

I am mindful not only of preserving executive powers for myself, but for predecessors as well.

If my world were to cave in tomorrow, I would look back on all the pleasures, excitements and worthwhilenesses I have been lucky enough to have had. Not the sadness, not my miscarriages or my father leaving home, but the joy of everything else. It will have been enough.

Before you start a goal – let’s take care of our insecurities because they are going to surface when you put yourself in the crucible and you’re suffering.

The most positive men are the most credulous.

I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies; for the hardest victory is over self.

Who you are speaks so loudly I can’t hear what you’re saying.

You can change your world by changing your words… Remember, death and life are in the power of the tongue.