It is after all the greatest art to limit and isolate oneself.

A great city, whose image dwells in the memory of man, is the type of some great idea. Rome represents conquest; Faith hovers over the towers of Jerusalem; and Athens embodies the pre-eminent quality of the antique world, Art.

One ought never to turn one’s back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it. If you do that, you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half. Never run away from anything. Never!

Yes, there is a terrible moral in ‚Dorian Gray‘ – a moral which the prurient will not be able to find in it, but it will be revealed to all whose minds are healthy. Is this an artistic error? I fear it is. It is the only error in the book.

The art which we may call generally art of the wayside, as opposed to that which is the business of men’s lives, is, in the best sense of the word, Grotesque.

Choose people who lift you up.

I’ve started doing book reviews for Barnes & Noble! They saw that I did a lot of book reviews on the site, and they figured that it might not be a bad thing if they got me to do some for them as well. I gave them five categories I’d be interested in reviewing, from art to fiction to music.

Man falls from the pursuit of the ideal of plan living and high thinking the moment he wants to multiply his daily wants. Man’s happiness really lies in contentment.

You cannot find peace by avoiding life.

The best part of beauty is that which no picture can express.

However happy people say they are, nobody is satisfied: we always have to be with the prettiest woman, buy a bigger house, change cars, desire what we do not have.

I’m about being the best.

What’s wrong with being a boring kind of guy?

I think beating myself up sometimes and knowing I am not happy when I do it makes me work harder to do a good job.

We can never make ourselves better by trying… praying more or longer, studying more of the Word, performing good works, etc. Don’t get me wrong… it’s not bad to do any of these things. In fact, it’s good. It’s just that doing them in God’s power is the only way those things will have any real and lasting effect in our lives.

Healthy discontent is the prelude to progress.

The only thing I have to go by is what my mother and father told me, how I was brought up.

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

I intend to inspire people with my story: motivate young people that grew up like myself, or even not like myself. Just, you know, go through the human experience.

People tend to dwell more on negative things than on good things. So the mind then becomes obsessed with negative things, with judgments, guilt and anxiety produced by thoughts about the future and so on.

Seek ye first the good things of the mind, and the rest will either be supplied or its loss will not be felt.

I do some kind of work, whether writing or painting or recording, on a daily basis. And it’s so essential that when I’m involved in the actual process, my so-called ‚real life‘ becomes almost incidental, which becomes worrying.

It’s not the load that breaks you down, it’s the way you carry it.

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.

Simply put, you believe that things or people make you unhappy, but this is not accurate. You make yourself unhappy.

Constant development is the law of life, and a man who always tries to maintain his dogmas in order to appear consistent drives himself into a false position.

Once you begin to fall off the track and believe you breathe different air to everyone else, you’re doomed; you’re finished.

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

Basically you have to suppress your own ambitions in order to be who you need to be.

As long as I’m learning something, I figure I’m OK – it’s a decent day.

If we are to be happy, we must first react against our tendency to follow the line of least resistance, a tendency that causes us either to remain as we are, or to look primarily to activities external to ourselves for what will provide new impetus to our lives.

People don’t usually compliment your character.

It’s more interesting for me to figure out how to be superior in areas where I’m naive, where I’m a novice.

It’s not an easy course. It’s not designed to be. We’re not here to get you in touch with your inner child.

The highest reward for a person’s toil is not what they get for it, but what they become by it.

Get mad, then get over it.

If it is surely the means to the highest end we know, can any work be humble or disgusting? Will it not rather be elevating as a ladder, the means by which we are translated?

The art of being a slave is to rule one’s master.

Hitch your wagon to a star.

I have brought myself, by long meditation, to the conviction that a human being with a settled purpose must accomplish it, and that nothing can resist a will which will stake even existence upon its fulfillment.

My whole thing now is I know how to think properly to be successful in all aspects of my life. It’s not about ultra running or being a SEAL or pull-up records: it’s about if you want to be better you, have to change your perceived limitations and take the barriers down.

I’m not this horrible, evil person.

The learning and knowledge that we have, is, at the most, but little compared with that of which we are ignorant.

True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, as those move easiest who have learn’d to dance.

Try and leave this world a little better than you found it, and when your turn comes to die, you can die happy in feeling that at any rate, you have not wasted your time but have done your best.

If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else.

I never look at my watch when I’m sketching!

I can’t tell anybody else how to run their life or their business, but I really believe I’ve got a good bead on myself.

You cannot see the changes that you’re dreaming about, because they’re internal.

The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.

Those who do not know how to live must make a merit of dying.

For me, education was power.

You simply have to accept that your demons are a part of you.

And, honestly, if somebody wants to criticize me for not being a trainwreck, that’s fine with me!

Sleeping is no mean art: for its sake one must stay awake all day.

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

I’m never going to be fast, and nobody will ever mistake me for being fast.

One might say that our words are a movie screen that reveals what we have been thinking and the attitudes we have.

I worked out early on to give up things I couldn’t do well at all.

A book should serve as the ax for the frozen sea within us.

A lot of times, people feel that if they forgive the person who hurt them, then they will continue to take advantage of them or not take responsibility for what they did wrong.