Because of its phantom nature, and despite elaborate defense mechanisms, the ego is very vulnerable and insecure, and it sees itself as constantly under threat. This, by the way, is the case even if the ego is outwardly very confident.

It is well for the world that in most of us, by the age of thirty, the character has set like plaster, and will never soften again.

How simple a thing it seems to me that to know ourselves as we are, we must know our mothers names.

Whenever I climb I am followed by a dog called ‚Ego‘.

An unexciting truth may be eclipsed by a thrilling lie.

Do not think of your faults, still less of other’s faults; look for what is good and strong, and try to imitate it. Your faults will drop off, like dead leaves, when their time comes.

Most people say that it is the intellect which makes a great scientist. They are wrong: it is character.

It is unwise to be too sure of one’s own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err.

I feel like everything we do comes down to how it looks. Even no branding is branding. For example, you had no face or image to put to my music at first. That was branding.

No matter how dull, or how mean, or how wise a man is, he feels that happiness is his indisputable right.

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

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

Leaders who fail to prune their pride will meet demise. That’s not a guess, it’s a guarantee. With pride, it’s not a matter of ‚if‘ we will fall, but ‚when.‘ There are no exceptions.

Not always actions show the man; we find who does a kindness is not therefore kind.

We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our education system.

No man is hurt but by himself.

These things bring you to reality as to how fragile you are; at the same moment you are doing something that nobody else is able to do. The same moment that you are seen as the best, the fastest and somebody that cannot be touched, you are enormously fragile.

Beauty is all very well at first sight; but who ever looks at it when it has been in the house three days?

Men are nearly always willing to believe what they wish.

I’m all about evolution. I’m the first person to judge myself.

When you go to war as a boy, you have a great illusion of immortality. Other people get killed, not you… Then, when you are badly wounded the first time, you lose that illusion, and you know it can happen to you.

I think that I am better than the people who are trying to reform me.

Knowing that you are going to die is, I suspect, the beginning of wisdom.

In an interconnected age when opportunistic adversaries can work in tandem to destroy stability and prosperity, our country needs to regain its strategic footing. We need to bring the clarity to our efforts before we lose the confidence of the American people and the support of potential allies.

The line between failure and success is so fine that we scarcely know when we pass it: so fine that we are often on the line and do not know it.

Clothing & fashion are kind of my security blanket, almost.

All wars signify the failure of conflict resolution mechanisms, and they need post-war rebuilding of faith, trust and confidence.

Faith indeed tells what the senses do not tell, but not the contrary of what they see. It is above them and not contrary to them.

One thing I hope I’ll never be is drunk with my own power. And anybody who says I am will never work in this town again.

There is such a thing as old emotional pain living inside you. It is an accumulation of painful life experience that was not fully faced and accepted in the moment it arose. It leaves behind an energy form of emotional pain.

Well, there are some things that I just can’t get out of my head, and they start to annoy me after a while. Sometimes they’re of my own creation, as well – and they’re just as annoying. It’s not only other people’s ear worms that bug me, it’s my own, as well.

I’ve learned people are watching, so don’t do nothing stupid.

Beauty is an outward gift, which is seldom despised, except by those to whom it has been refused.

What’s wrong with being a boring kind of guy?

Enlightened people seldom or never possess a sense of responsibility.

Pretension is a poor joke that you play on yourself. Snap out of it. Recognise your strengths, work on your weaknesses. Real achievement is liking what you see in the mirror every morning.

The aim of a joke is not to degrade the human being, but to remind him that he is already degraded.

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

As an athlete, you’d better laugh at yourself when you slip in the mud.

As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.

Thoughts are fine when you don’t confuse them with who you are, and then thoughts are not a problem. Thinking is a wonderful tool to create things in this world. It only becomes problematic and a source of suffering when you confuse thinking with who you are.

Memory is the way we keep telling ourselves our stories – and telling other people a somewhat different version of our stories.

The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.

Such as we are made of, such we be.

I was everything an R&B singer wasn’t. I wasn’t in shape. I wasn’t a pretty boy.

Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.

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

I do value the respect I get from my contemporaries, but to have Oasis cover my song, to have Puff Daddy cover a song, to have Goldie come along to my gigs – that’s where my ego is at. To have my fellow musicians like what I do, that’s very cool.

I think I am smart unless I am really, really in love, and then I am ridiculously stupid.

I talk to myself all the time. Just make sure you answer.

The nobler a man, the harder it is for him to suspect inferiority in others.

We are afraid to care too much, for fear that the other person does not care at all.

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

Men and women do think differently, and frankly, we don’t understand each other. Not at all! But that’s what makes relationships so amazing.

The eye of a human being is a microscope, which makes the world seem bigger than it really is.

The reason why men do not obey us, is because they see the mud at the bottom of our eye.

A man’s delight in looking forward to and hoping for some particular satisfaction is a part of the pleasure flowing out of it, enjoyed in advance. But this is afterward deducted, for the more we look forward to anything the less we enjoy it when it comes.

Comfort and luxury are usually the chief requirements of life for your ego – its top priorities tend to be accumulations, achievements, and the approval of others.

If all my bridge coach ever told me was that I was ‚satisfactory,‘ I would have no hope of ever getting better. How would I know who was the best? How would I know what I was doing differently?

Anger is never without a reason, but seldom with a good one.

Whatever one of us blames in another, each one will find in his own heart.