I am tough, but deep inside my toughness, I like to let people know I’m an old-fashioned mama’s boy.

Most people treat the present moment as if it were an obstacle that they need to overcome. Since the present moment is life itself, it is an insane way to live.

Love is a state of being.

What comes out when life squeezes you? When someone hurts or offends you? If anger, pain and fear come out of you, it’s because that’s what’s inside.

Think occasionally of the suffering of which you spare yourself the sight.

My ‚fear‘ is my substance, and probably the best part of me.

Growing up in the place I did I never was aware of any other option but to question everything.

An Englishman thinks he is moral when he is only uncomfortable.

He who falls in love with himself will have no rivals.

If you think dealing with issues like worthiness and authenticity and vulnerability are not worthwhile because there are more pressing issues, like the bottom line or attendance or standardized test scores, you are sadly, sadly mistaken. It underpins everything.

I was raised in a family where vulnerability was barely tolerated: no training wheels on our bicycles, no goggles in the pool, just get it done. And so I grew up not only with discomfort about my own vulnerability, I didn’t care for it in other people either.

Don’t ever forget two things I’m going to tell you. One, don’t believe everything that’s written about you. Two, don’t pick up too many checks.

Pride deafens us to the advice or warnings of those around us.

Vanity is great motivation, to be fair.

I’m not frightened of appearing vulnerable.

Listening has importance only when one is not projecting one’s own desires through which one listens.

I’ve been writing poems since I was in the Navy – to Rosalynn. I found I could say things in poems that I never could in prose. Deeper, more personal things. I could write a poem about my mother that I could never tell my mother. Or feelings about being on a submarine that I would have been too embarrassed to share with fellow submariners.

Talking much about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself.

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

We do not yet possess ourselves, and we know at the same time that we are much more.

I think that there is never an indispensable leader, you know? I think that there is a time with dignity that one needs to leave.

I had no talent for science. What was infinitely worse: all my fraternity brothers were engineers.

I do all the evil I can before I learn to shun it? Is it not enough to know the evil to shun it? If not, we should be sincere enough to admit that we love evil too well to give it up.

Catering to bad feelings feeds and empowers them.

A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.

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.

Indecision may or may not be my problem.

Your emotions are very unstable and should never be the foundation for direction in your life.

If I am walking with two other men, each of them will serve as my teacher. I will pick out the good points of the one and imitate them, and the bad points of the other and correct them in myself.

The question is not, ‚Do you have a problem?‘ The question is, ‚Does the problem have you?‘

He who knows others is wise. He who knows himself is enlightened.

My body is quite tiny, but a lot of the emotions I feel are pretty explosive. They have to come out.

The conscience can be a strong guide in life if we allow it.

As we advance in life we learn the limits of our abilities.

Go to you bosom: Knock there, and ask your heart what it doth know.

Millions of people live their entire lives without finding themselves. But it is something I must do.

People should not make me out to be like Jesus; I don’t walk on water.

I think I have always had a little humor.

My philosophy is it’s none of my business what people say of me and think of me. I am what I am, and I do what I do. I expect nothing and accept everything. And it makes life so much easier.

It was completely fruitless to quarrel with the world, whereas the quarrel with oneself was occasionally fruitful and always, she had to admit, interesting.

It’s hard to articulate how I think about myself as a public figure.

Deep down, I know I have this intuition or instinct that a lot of creative people have, that their demons are also what make them create.

I had a period in my life where I decided that I would never be bored again and that, if I had any free time at all, I would make plans, and I would always be doing things. It actually was great for a year or so, but then I lost all of my friends.

We’re always looking over our shoulders, ‚what they will think, what the press will think, what will this one – am I making the right career move?‘ When you’re young you have to do all that to survive, I suppose.

I’m confident in who I am. I’ve come to a place in my life where I’ve accepted things that are me, as opposed to feeling pressure to explain myself to people around me. That’s just the way I’ve always tried to be. It didn’t change when I became a star.

Always be sincere, even if you don’t mean it.

Men must know their limitations.

To be conscious means not simply to be, but to be reported, known, to have awareness of one’s being added to that being.

No, I’m not a French designer either. I’m from nowhere. I’m a European, old European is all I am.

All of our problems start in our minds.

Is fear preventing you from taking action? Acknowledge the fear, watch it, take your attention into it, be fully present with it. Doing so cuts the link between the fear and your thinking. Don’t let the fear rise up into your mind. Use the power of the Now. Fear cannot prevail against it.

Some men never feel small, but these are the few men who are.

I’m no leader; I’m a little humble follower.

The doorstep to the temple of wisdom is a knowledge of our own ignorance.

All of us should be on guard against beliefs that flatter ourselves. At the very least, we should check such beliefs against facts.

I have never felt more confident in myself, more clear on who I am as a woman. But I am constantly thinking about my own health and making sure that I’m eating right and getting exercise and watching the aches and pains. I want to be this really fly 80-90-year old.

The truth is: Belonging starts with self-acceptance. Your level of belonging, in fact, can never be greater than your level of self-acceptance, because believing that you’re enough is what gives you the courage to be authentic, vulnerable and imperfect.

It is not he who reviles or strikes you who insults you, but your opinion that these things are insulting.

I will not be concerned at other men’s not knowing me; I will be concerned at my own want of ability.

I ask you to judge me by the enemies I have made.

First, I’m trying to prove to myself that I’m a person. Then maybe I’ll convince myself that I’m an actress.