Be content to seem what you really are.

To the extent I am known, I think I am known as a person who expresses his opinion freely about things – and I was sensitive to the possibility that if I was seen taking money for saying nice things about a product, my comments and choices and opinions would become, understandably, suspect.

You may never get to that perfect world that you’re waiting for where everything’s going to be perfect and you got that much money and your house paid off.

Everyone assumes I practise all of my own laws but I don’t. I think anybody who did would be a horrible ugly person to be around.

We are all sentenced to solitary confinement inside our own skins, for life.

When you start to realise how much of what you’ve constructed of yourself is based on deception and lies, that is a horrifying realisation.

Of all the things which wisdom provides to make us entirely happy, much the greatest is the possession of friendship.

I am easily satisfied with the very best.

I have resolved on an enterprise that has no precedent and will have no imitator. I want to set before my fellow human beings a man in every way true to nature; and that man will be myself.

I’m not trying to be fashionable. Never was!

I’m always cast in these strange men… that’s not me, really.

I wish they would only take me as I am.

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

I think I’ve developed, as many people do, this sense of, ‚Don’t say the wrong thing, or else people will point at you and laugh.‘

We’re so trendy we can’t even escape ourselves.

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.

I’m not generally a sensitive person, but I tend to be more sensitive toward others and what they’re going through. I don’t know if that’s the healthiest thing, but it’s the truth.

I am not ashamed to confess that I am ignorant of what I do not know.

I’ve always been really, really aware of my insecurities – really, really aware. I never developed that thick skin that keeps you from letting things get to you.

I don’t have any secrets I need kept any more.

I don’t think I get angry.

I was ill, and everyone could see it but me.

God didn’t make me to make movies, flex muscles, buy gold. What you love the most becomes your God… If I never make another dollar, my life is complete.

It is hard sometimes to always be at the centre of attention, but when you talk about me you also have to talk about the climate.

It is the greatest of all advantages to enjoy no advantage at all.

We’re one of the only animals in the world that don’t really think of ourselves as animals, but we are animals, and we must respect our fellow animals.

In oneself lies the whole world and if you know how to look and learn, the door is there and the key is in your hand. Nobody on earth can give you either the key or the door to open, except yourself.

I think that I do feel that my nature is to express what this self, this particular self at this time, experiences in the world. And that is so organic – I use this metaphor a lot but I’ll use it again – it’s like a pine tree producing pine cones, or a blackberry bush producing blackberries – it’s just what happens with this being, now.

We have to confront ourselves. Do we like what we see in the mirror? And, according to our light, according to our understanding, according to our courage, we will have to say yea or nay – and rise!

I wanted to only create a great perfume, not any perfume that would sell, but a great artistic one that the fans would not feel cheated by.

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

Never let your ego get so close to your position that when your position goes, your ego goes with it.

I know I will never be happy, but I know I can be gay!

Wanting to be someone else is a waste of the person you are.

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.

It is not our purpose to become each other; it is to recognize each other, to learn to see the other and honor him for what he is.

Sometimes I think it would be easier to avoid old age, to die young, but then you’d never complete your life, would you? You’d never wholly know you.

It is more difficult to rule yourself than to rule a city.

My number one thing? Don’t overleverage yourself. Don’t say you can do something when you really can’t.

I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong.

I am what time, circumstance, history, have made of me, certainly, but I am also, much more than that. So are we all.

Wealth is well known to be a great comforter.

I’m stupid, I’m ugly, I’m dumb, I smell. Did I mention I’m stupid?

I was ashamed to admit I was hipped to the idea of acting. That’s why I started in with the props.

I don’t really read a lot of newspapers. I don’t pay attention to what is being said or written about me. I’ve had lots of experiences in the past when I got too much into it. That sort of diverts your focus.

We forfeit three-quarters of ourselves in order to be like other people.

Your net worth to the world is usually determined by what remains after your bad habits are subtracted from your good ones.

True contentment is a thing as active as agriculture. It is the power of getting out of any situation all that there is in it. It is arduous and it is rare.

To be idle and to be poor have always been reproaches, and therefore every man endeavors with his utmost care to hide his poverty from others, and his idleness from himself.

People become attached to their burdens sometimes more than the burdens are attached to them.

Conflict cannot survive without your participation.

People should make up their own mind about what they think of me.

It’s like, remember who you always were, where you came from, who your parents were, how they raised you. Because that authentic self is going to follow you all through life, so make sure that it’s solid so it’s something that you can hold on and be proud of for the rest of your life.

If you get your ego in your way, you will only look to other people and circumstances to blame.

The Nation of Islam’s main focus was teaching black pride and self-awareness. Why should we keep trying to force ourselves into white restaurants and schools when white people didn’t want us? Why not clean up our own neighborhoods and schools instead of trying to move out of them and into white people’s neighborhoods?

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.

Mastery passes often for egotism.

I know nothing, except the fact of my ignorance.

I have my flaws too, but I am a professional who doesn’t like to miss or lose.

Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.

I’ve never professed to be anything but an average student.