A man is but the product of his thoughts, what he thinks he becomes.

Each time we cooperate with God, we take one more giant step forward. Because when God asks us to change, it means that He always has something better to give us – more freedom, greater joy, and greater blessings.

Men create gods after their own image, not only with regard to their form but with regard to their mode of life.

The pleasure of work is open to anyone who can develop some specialised skill, provided that he can get satisfaction from the exercise of his skill without demanding universal applause.

Rightly defined philosophy is simply the love of wisdom.

What you have outside you counts less than what you have inside you.

Good men by nature, wish to know. I know that many will call this useless work… men who desire nothing but material riches and are absolutely devoid of that of wisdom, which is the food and only true riches of the mind.

The more you seek security, the less of it you have. But the more you seek opportunity, the more likely it is that you will achieve the security that you desire.

Truth is what works.

The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent.

The cosmos is about the smallest hole that a man can hide his head in.

I couldn’t say I ever dreamt of becoming a composer, a pianist, or anything else for that matter. I have the kind of brain where nothing is set in stone.

The first and greatest victory is to conquer yourself; to be conquered by yourself is of all things most shameful and vile.

Meditation has been a loyal friend to me. It has helped me write my books.

Judgments, value judgments concerning life, for or against, can in the last resort never be true: they possess value only as symptoms, they come into consideration only as symptoms – in themselves such judgments are stupidities.

This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.

Getting organized in the normal routines of life and finishing little projects you’ve started is an important first step toward realizing larger goals. If you can’t get a handle on the small things, how will you ever get it together to focus on the big things?

People can cry much easier than they can change.

If you wish to forget anything on the spot, make a note that this thing is to be remembered.

To the living we owe respect, but to the dead we owe only the truth.

I have thought there was some advantage even in death, by which we mingle with the herd of common men.

We are not the sum of our possessions.

In order for me to be successful… In order to be a great artist – musician, actor, painter, whatever – you must be able to be private in public at all times. That is what we do.

Strength and growth come only through continuous effort and struggle.

You don’t want to pigeonhole yourself.

I never expected to be anybody important.

A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.

I can’t keep somebody from being a star, and I can’t make somebody a star, and nobody can.

The man with a toothache thinks everyone happy whose teeth are sound. The poverty-stricken man makes the same mistake about the rich man.

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.

Theology is unnecessary.

The best preparation for tomorrow is doing your best today.

Everything passes. Nobody gets anything for keeps. And that’s how we’ve got to live.

Knowledge about life is one thing; effective occupation of a place in life, with its dynamic currents passing through your being, is another.

In my opinion, there is no aspect of reality beyond the reach of the human mind.

At the center of non-violence stands the principle of love.

I’m intimidated by the fear of being average.

If you leave the smallest corner of your head vacant for a moment, other people’s opinions will rush in from all quarters.

If it’s going to come out eventually, better have it come out immediately.

I think it’s my responsibility, as a person of influence… to sometimes try to do what I can.

Be as you wish to seem.

My interest in life comes from setting myself huge, apparently unachievable challenges and trying to rise above them.

There is nothing so stable as change.

The important thing is that men should have a purpose in life. It should be something useful, something good.

Win as if you were used to it, lose as if you enjoyed it for a change.

A well governed appetite is the greater part of liberty.

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

We all have a tendency to avoid our weaknesses. When we do that, we never progress or get any better.

All ways of living can be sanctified, and for each individual, the ideal way is that to which our Lord leads him through the natural development of his tastes and the pressure of circumstances.

I brought myself down. I impeached myself by resigning.

When one door is closed, don’t you know, another is open.

Not being afraid to be wrong – I had to learn how to do that.

Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.

Life is partly what we make it, and partly what it is made by the friends we choose.

Character develops itself in the stream of life.

You have learnt something. That always feels at first as if you had lost something.

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

I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself, I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself now and then in finding a smoother pebble or prettier shell than ordinary, while the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.

The proactive approach to a mistake is to acknowledge it instantly, correct and learn from it.

I can be a cruel person.

I just feel so much more comfortable and confident every game I play.