Being too good is apt to be uninteresting.

We must use time as a tool, not as a couch.

Modesty is the color of virtue.

I didn’t come to Hollywood. Hollywood came to me. A lot of people wish they could say the things I say. Everyone out here is so phony, it’s sickening.

Whenever you’re going through a tough time, generally, you become more compassionate, you become softer, you become more thoughtful, kinder. These are all spiritual qualities that will help you to align yourself with God and God consciousness rather than with a split fear-based consciousness.

I would be a liar, a hypocrite, or a fool – and I’m not any of those – to say that I don’t write for the reader. I do. But for the reader who hears, who really will work at it, going behind what I seem to say. So I write for myself and that reader who will pay the dues.

To do all that one is able to do, is to be a man; to do all that one would like to do, is to be a god.

I don’t want to just revolve. I want to evolve. As a man, as a human, as a father, as a lover.

I suppose I am reluctant about being any sort of ‚star‘ and I didn’t particularly want to be portrayed as one.

I think happiness is a goal all of us can agree on. Let’s face it – we all would like to be happy.

Any man may be in good spirits and good temper when he’s well dressed. There ain’t much credit in that.

Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.

I don’t make people bend over backwards, and I don’t like that in people. I am definitely no diva.

Every man is his own hell.

Let our advance worrying become advance thinking and planning.

I’m just like you – I want to be a good human being. I’m doing my best, and I’m working at it. And I’m trying to be a Christian. I’m always amazed when people walk up to me and say, ‚I’m a Christian.‘ I always think, ‚Already? You’ve already got it?‘ I’m working at it. And at my age, I’ll still be working at it at 96.

Don’t only practice your art, but force your way into its secrets; art deserves that, for it and knowledge can raise man to the Divine.

Most of one’s life is one prolonged effort to prevent oneself thinking.

Don’t spend time beating on a wall, hoping to transform it into a door.

High moral character is not a precondition for great moral accomplishments.

If what you did yesterday seems big, you haven’t done anything today.

If all you’re doing is grinding for the man, it’s going to burden you. Once you say, ‚Hey, I’m grinding for the man, but I’m putting money away, and this is part of my exit strategy,‘ you’re working for you.

Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.

My family didn’t have a lot of money, so I worked my heart out to get my degrees. But the minute I graduated, suddenly everyone was asking me, ‚Well, when are you going to get married and start having kids?‘ And the truth is I had no idea how I would balance the expected role of wife and mother with a challenging career.

For a long time now I have tried simply to write the best I can. Sometimes I have good luck and write better than I can.

There is no passion to be found playing small – in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.

Keep me away from the wisdom which does not cry, the philosophy which does not laugh and the greatness which does not bow before children.

No work or love will flourish out of guilt, fear, or hollowness of heart, just as no valid plans for the future can be made by those who have no capacity for living now.

Man has two great spiritual needs. One is for forgiveness. The other is for goodness.

When you have nothing important or interesting to say, don’t let anyone persuade you to say it.

I’m not very ambitious at all.

No one has a right to consume happiness without producing it.

Surround yourself with people who take their work seriously, but not themselves, those who work hard and play hard.

Before everything else, getting ready is the secret of success.

I never had a policy; I have just tried to do my very best each and every day.

It is a common enough case, that of a man being suddenly captivated by a woman nearly the opposite of his ideal.

Freedom makes a huge requirement of every human being. With freedom comes responsibility. For the person who is unwilling to grow up, the person who does not want to carry his own weight, this is a frightening prospect.

We should purify our innate well of contentment – what a wonderful expression – and then external things will be in harmony with us.

The risk for me would be in not taking one – that’s the only thing that’s really risky for me.

The authority you establish must emerge naturally from your character, from the particular strengths you possess.

No one but a fool is always right.

Build me a son, O Lord, who will be strong enough to know when he is weak, and brave enough to face himself when he is afraid, one who will be proud and unbending in honest defeat, and humble and gentle in victory.

When you play, play hard; when you work, don’t play at all.

Does anybody really think that they didn’t get what they had because they didn’t have the talent or the strength or the endurance or the commitment?

Sometimes we be playing the politics too much and forget who we are just to win.

The most important thing is to read as much as you can, like I did. It will give you an understanding of what makes good writing and it will enlarge your vocabulary.

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

He who does not mind his belly, will hardly mind anything else.

If we are to be happy, we must first react against our tendency to follow the line of least resistance, a tendency that causes us either to remain as we are, or to look primarily to activities external to ourselves for what will provide new impetus to our lives.

The most valuable of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it has to be done, whether you like it or not.

Even when you’re 50, you can make the effort to improve your standards.

It is as healthy to enjoy sentiment as to enjoy jam.

Once we accept our limits, we go beyond them.

The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.

I know this sounds strange, but as a kid, I was really shy. Painfully shy. The turning point was freshman year, when I was the biggest geek alive. No one, I mean no one, even talked to me.

The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.

If virtue promises happiness, prosperity and peace, then progress in virtue is progress in each of these for to whatever point the perfection of anything brings us, progress is always an approach toward it.

Thanks to my reading, I have never been caught flat-footed by any situation, never at a loss for how any problem has been addressed… It doesn’t give me all the answers, but it lights what is often a dark path ahead.

God wants you to be a winner, not a whiner.

Coaching wouldn’t be for me. No, certainly not.

There are always people always asking you for something. But I feel like I have a foundation. I have a supporting cast where it doesn’t bother me too much.