Most powerful is he who has himself in his own power.

Know, first, who you are, and then adorn yourself accordingly.

In one day, I have times where I’m feeling great, I feel like I love my life, and then 2:30 rolls around and I’m the angriest man alive. My wife sees it.

The only thing is, people have to develop courage. It is most important of all the virtues. Because without courage, you can’t practice any other virtues consistently.

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.

I don’t see myself as ever being like anybody else.

At 30 a man should know himself like the palm of his hand, know the exact number of his defects and qualities, know how far he can go, foretell his failures – be what he is. And, above all, accept these things.

Let him that would move the world first move himself.

I am not a particularly thick-skinned person.

Especially for those of us who lived in single cells, you had the time to sit down and think, and we discovered that sitting down just to think is one of the best ways of keeping yourself fresh and able, to be able to address the problems facing you, and you had the opportunity, also, of examining your past.

The best is the enemy of the good.

Leaders who fail to prune their pride will meet demise. That’s not a guess, it’s a guarantee. With pride, it’s not a matter of ‚if‘ we will fall, but ‚when.‘ There are no exceptions.

The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.

We are taught you must blame your father, your sisters, your brothers, the school, the teachers – but never blame yourself. It’s never your fault. But it’s always your fault, because if you wanted to change you’re the one who has got to change.

The best books… are those that tell you what you know already.

Education can become a self-fulfilling activity, liberating in and of itself.

Seeing myself on the screen makes me cringe. I understand that I am that way – pouty.

A man does not know what he is saying until he knows what he is not saying.

You have to just make the choices you make in life. I made the choices I made because I believed they were right for me.

Remember always that you not only have the right to be an individual, you have an obligation to be one.

The fact that you are willing to say, ‚I do not understand, and it is fine,‘ is the greatest understanding you could exhibit.

It is not necessary that you leave the house. Remain at your table and listen. Do not even listen, only wait. Do not even wait, be wholly still and alone. The world will present itself to you for its unmasking, it can do no other, in ecstasy it will writhe at your feet.

You have to feel confident. If you don’t, then you’re going to be hesitant and defensive, and there’ll be a lot of things working against you.

Everything is generated through your own will power.

I break ground. I trailblaze.

A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool.

People like to blame others. I think a person should just look at their own situation, look around them, find out what they wish to do, and seek and go and do that. And that’s it.

Intense feeling too often obscures the truth.

Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.

If a person doesn’t change, there’s something really wrong with him.

We should seek the greatest value of our action.

I no have education. I have inspiration. If I was educated, I would be a damn fool.

When you stop caring what people think, you lose your capacity for connection. When you’re defined by it, you lose our capacity for vulnerability.

Part of me suspects that I’m a loser, and the other part of me thinks I’m God Almighty.

God always wants us to be growing.

Thought can be so seductive and hypnotic that it absorbs your attention totally, so you become your thoughts.

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.

I have no delusions about my likability in every scenario. I know that in order to get things done the way you want them, oftentimes your position will be unpopular.

I exaggerate when I’m angry, but I’ve never gone around telling people things that aren’t true about me.

When you are angry or frustrated, what comes out? Whatever it is, it’s a good indication of what you’re made of.

Often, little situations trigger enormous reactions. Be there, present for it. Your partner will find it easier to see it in you, and you will find it easier to see it in them.

What’s the good of drawing in the next breath if all you do is let it out and draw in another?

Our whole life is set up in the path of least resistance. We don’t want to suffer. We don’t want to feel discomfort. So the whole time, we’re living our lives in a very comfortable area. There’s no growth in that.

I have an expression I use as I’ve gone around the world through my career: ‚You never tell another man or woman what’s in their interest. They know their interest better than you know their interest.‘

I didn’t get trained by the school system like other kids, and when I did concentrate on learning, my mind was cluttered and locked by the programming of the system.

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

Overall there’s going to be things I’m not great at.

Perhaps it is better to be irresponsible and right, than to be responsible and wrong.

Nobody can hurt me without my permission.

Nothing builds self-esteem and self-confidence like accomplishment.

Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance.

People won’t have time for you if you are always angry or complaining.

I’m not afraid to make mistakes.

I’m just an individual who doesn’t feel that I need to have somebody qualify my work in any particular way. I’m working for me.

We have a choice about how we take what happens to us in our life and whether or not we allow it to turn us. We can become consumed by hate and darkness, or we’re able to regain our humanity somehow, or come to terms with things and learn something about ourselves.

People do not seem to realize that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character.

Ability is what you’re capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it.

What is true belongs to me!

Truly it is an evil to be full of faults; but it is a still greater evil to be full of them and to be unwilling to recognize them, since that is to add the further fault of a voluntary illusion.

You’re always learning. The problem is, sometimes you stop and think you understand the world. This is not correct. The world is always moving. You never reach the point you can stop making an effort.

Every man who knows how to read has it in his power to magnify himself, to multiply the ways in which he exists, to make his life full, significant and interesting.