The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be.

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

We acquire the strength we have overcome.

I don’t really know that much about love, it turns out.

I find with most of my readers are kind of like me, sort of people who were a little bit naive in life and then learned the hard way that this is what’s going on, the political games and most of my readers write to me telling me that the book helped them open their eyes to what other people are doing to them.

Let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit.

Every man in his lifetime needs to thank his faults.

Jealousy… is a mental cancer.

Correcting bad habits cannot be done by forbidding or punishment.

As a matter of self-preservation, a man needs good friends or ardent enemies, for the former instruct him and the latter take him to task.

There’s room for role models who make mistakes.

Once you start doing only what you’ve already proven you can do, you’re on the road to death.

Whenever I’m around some who is modest, I think, ‚Run like hell and all of fire.‘ You don’t want modesty, you want humility.

The formation of one’s character ought to be everyone’s chief aim.

I realized the other day that I’ve lived in New York longer than I’ve lived anywhere else. It’s amazing: I am a New Yorker. It’s strange; I never thought I would be.

The person who goes farthest is generally the one who is willing to do and dare. The sure-thing boat never gets far from shore.

It’s hard to be clear about who you are when you are carrying around a bunch of baggage from the past. I’ve learned to let go and move more quickly into the next place.

The longer I live, the more I feel that true repose consists in ‚renouncing‘ one’s own self, by which I mean making up one’s mind to admit that there is no importance whatever in being ‚happy‘ or ‚unhappy‘ in the usual meaning of the words.

Whatever I am, it’s natural… I don’t have to pretend to be aggressive, don’t have to show the opposition that I am on the field. Being aggressive comes naturally to me, helps me perform.

More compassionate mind, more sense of concern for other’s well-being, is source of happiness.

It is not God’s will merely that we should be happy, but that we should make ourselves happy.

As a kid from Compton, you can get all the success in the world and still question your worth.

Anything I’ve ever said, I certainly was feeling at the time.

Make the most of your regrets; never smother your sorrow, but tend and cherish it till it comes to have a separate and integral interest. To regret deeply is to live afresh.

Difficulties should act as a tonic. They should spur us to greater exertion.

Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.

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

As unique as we all are, an awful lot of us want the same things. We want to shake up our current less-than-fulfilling lives. We want to be happier, more loving, forgiving and connected with the people around us.

Become aware of your own insufficiency.

I think country music is popular – has been popular and will always be popular because I think a lot of real people singing about a lot of real stuff about real people. And it’s simple enough for people to understand it. And we kind of roll with the punches.

I want to work; then, as my kids get older, I want to have adventures. I want to visit all their countries: learn and live inside all their cultures.

All of us are mentors. You’re mentors right here and now. And one of the things I’ve always done throughout my life, I have always found that person, that group of people that I was going to reach my hand out and help bring them along with me.

Sports are such a great teacher. I think of everything they’ve taught me: camaraderie, humility, how to resolve differences.

Most of us aren’t defeated in one decisive battle. We are defeated one tiny, seemingly insignificant surrender at a time that chips away at who we should really be.

Until you have cultivated the habit of saying some kind word of those whom you do not admire, you will be neither successful nor happy.

I’ve never been a manipulator, even in my bachelor days. I never wanted to do things to people that could catch up with me later on.

A man’s character is his fate.

I don’t care if people I admire criticize me because their opinion is valuable to me.

There’s no point in saying anything but the truth.

Only the ideas that we really live have any value.

True wealth is not of the pocket, but of the heart and of the mind.

I’ve been reckless, but I’m not a rebel without a cause.

I could never identify with that word, ‚weak.‘

A great secret of success is to go through life as a man who never gets used up.

Death most resembles a prophet who is without honor in his own land or a poet who is a stranger among his people.

Virtue she finds too painful an endeavour, content to dwell in decencies for ever.

I’m different from any other designer, businesswise, in that I’ve built this company up and I own it. I never had business hype behind me to promote my image… My image is real… I have never had marketing people telling me what to do.

The challenge is to stay cool enough to handle the pressure in the moment so that you can succeed in the future.

I was never really good at anything except for the ability to learn.

It is in self-limitation that a master first shows himself.

If I was to go to sleep before midnight, I would feel weird about myself, like I wasted a day. My most productive hours are between midnight and five.

I never fall in love.

It is one of the beautiful compensations in this life that no one can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.

People aren’t supposed to look back. I’m certainly not going to do it anymore.

Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.

Those people who develop the ability to continuously acquire new and better forms of knowledge that they can apply to their work and to their lives will be the movers and shakers in our society for the indefinite future.

I’m not going to say I’m cool, because I don’t really feel that. I just don’t care at all, and I guess that’s what people think is cool.

Die to everything of yesterday so that your mind is always fresh, always young, innocent, full of vigor and passion.

No man who worships education has got the best out of education… Without a gentle contempt for education no man’s education is complete.

I really started writing music to challenge myself, to see what I could write.

It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations.