All of my misfortunes come from having thought too well of my fellows.

Deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance.

We are looking for happiness and running after it in such a way that creates anger, fear and discrimination. So when you attend a retreat, you have a chance to look at the deep roots of this pollution of the collective energy that is unwholesome.

The reason why the world lacks unity, and lies broken and in heaps, is, because man is disunited with himself.

In my later years, I have looked in the mirror each day and found a happy person staring back. Occasionally I wonder why I can be so happy. The answer is that every day of my life I’ve worked only for myself and for the joy that comes from writing and creating. The image in my mirror is not optimistic, but the result of optimal behavior.

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.

Sometimes, I feel like one who is on the sidelines, who has missed life itself.

All my life I’ve been taught how to die, but no one ever taught me how to grow old.

I’m on record that it didn’t really traumatize me to do away with some people.

Ah! yes, I know: those who see me rarely trust my word: I must look too intelligent to keep it.

So let’s be honest with ourselves and not take ourselves too serious, and never condemn the other fellow for doing what we are doing every day, only in a different way.

Every thought you produce, anything you say, any action you do, it bears your signature.

The self is hateful.

People don’t usually compliment your character.

Pick the day. Enjoy it – to the hilt. The day as it comes. People as they come… The past, I think, has helped me appreciate the present – and I don’t want to spoil any of it by fretting about the future.

Everybody has done something that we wish we didn’t say or do and wish we could take it back.

Knowledge of the self is the mother of all knowledge. So it is incumbent on me to know my self, to know it completely, to know its minutiae, its characteristics, its subtleties, and its very atoms.

The vanity of being known to be trusted with a secret is generally one of the chief motives to disclose it.

You’re just left with yourself all the time, whatever you do anyway. You’ve got to get down to your own God in your own temple. It’s all down to you, mate.

It is more shameful to distrust our friends than to be deceived by them.

Honor thy error as a hidden intention.

Light troubles speak; the weighty are struck dumb.

When the intensity of emotional conviction subsides, a man who is in the habit of reasoning will search for logical grounds in favour of the belief which he finds in himself.

I believe that a trusting attitude and a patient attitude go hand in hand. You see, when you let go and learn to trust God, it releases joy in your life. And when you trust God, you’re able to be more patient. Patience is not just about waiting for something… it’s about how you wait, or your attitude while waiting.

Constant kindness can accomplish much. As the sun makes ice melt, kindness causes misunderstanding, mistrust, and hostility to evaporate.

Over the years I’ve learned how to lock myself up in a prison of hope, knowing that God has nothing but His best planned for me. He promised me things concerning my ministry and my life.

As a kid, I’d go into the bathroom when I was having a tantrum. I’d be in the bathroom crying, studying myself in the mirror. I was preparing for future roles.

For a young person, it is almost a sin, or at least a danger, to be too preoccupied with himself; but for the ageing person, it is a duty and a necessity to devote serious attention to himself.

Getting old is a fascination thing. The older you get, the older you want to get.

I desire to press forward for direction to my Master in all things; but as to trusting to my own obedience and righteousness, I should be worse than a fool and ten times worse than a madman.

However far back I go into my childhood, nothing seems to me more characteristic of, or more familiar in, my interior economy than the appetite or irresistible demand for some ‚Unique all-sufficing and necessary reality.‘

It seems to me that if you or I must choose between two courses of thought or action, we should remember our dying and try so to live that our death brings no pleasure on the world.

Here’s something that’s contrary to popular belief: I actually don’t like thinking. I think people think I like to think a lot. And I don’t. I do not like to think at all.

Writing in a diary is a really strange experience for someone like me. Not only because I’ve never written anything before, but also because it seems to me that later on neither I nor anyone else will be interested in the musings of a thirteen-year-old schoolgirl.

Your life is like a play with several acts. Some of the characters who enter have short roles to play, others, much larger. Some are villains and others are good guys. But all of them are necessary; otherwise, they wouldn’t be in the play. Embrace them all, and move on to the next act.

I can be jubilant one moment and pensive the next, and a cloud could go by and make that happen.

I carry a small sheet of paper in my wallet that has written on it the names of people whose opinions of me matter. To be on that list, you have to love me for my strengths and struggles.

Trust, but verify.

Everything God tells us to do is for our good. Whether it’s direction you get in His Word or something He’s specifically put in your heart for your situation in life, the absolute best thing you can ever do is obey Him promptly and completely.

I’ve been careful in love. I’ve been careless in love. And I’ve had adventures I wouldn’t trade for anything.

I’ve had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn’t it.

Then suddenly something just kicked me. I kind of woke up and realised that I was in a different atmosphere than you normally are. My immediate reaction was to back off, slow down.

Vanity is as ill at ease under indifference as tenderness is under a love which it cannot return.

There are three things extremely hard: steel, a diamond, and to know one’s self.

I think and that is all that I am.

What I see, what I went through, what a friend of mine may have went through, whatever – I rap about it.

I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts.

I’m giving all that I have in this life. I’m opening up my notebook, and I’m saying everything in there out loud.

All in all, I just don’t trust journalists – and I don’t think it’s a good practice for me to trust journalists.

God’s got you in the palm of His hand. You won’t leave one second before your time. If God wants you to be here, then you’re going to be here.

Every man supposes himself not to be fully understood or appreciated.

I’m aware that, whatever the circumstances, there will always be speculation about me.

There is a great deal of unmapped country within us which would have to be taken into account in an explanation of our gusts and storms.

I disagree with everything I used to say.

The size of your success is measured by the strength of your desire; the size of your dream; and how you handle disappointment along the way.

It would be my guess that Madonna is not a very happy woman. From my own experience, having gone through persona changes like that, that kind of clawing need to be the center of attention is not a pleasant place to be.

If we examine our thoughts, we shall find them always occupied with the past and the future.

I was inspired to spend an entire year – my 65th year – reading, researching, and meditating on Lao-tzu’s messages, practicing them and ultimately writing down these insights as I felt Lao-tzu wanted us to know them.

How do you know what it’s like to be stupid if you’ve never been smart?

The primary distinction of the artist is that he must actively cultivate that state which most men, necessarily, must avoid; the state of being alone.

The abdomen is the reason why man does not readily take himself to be a god.