Better keep yourself clean and bright; you are the window through which you must see the world.

Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.

Commit yourself to a mighty purpose.

I’m not the same man I used to be, I’m not out hell-raising, stuff like that. I am a changed man.

Advice in old age is foolish; for what can be more absurd than to increase our provisions for the road the nearer we approach to our journey’s end.

I can’t do nothing just a little.

I don’t see myself as ever being like anybody else.

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

There is no way to happiness – happiness is the way.

Forty is when you actually begin even deserving to be on stage telling people what you think.

Seek always to do some good, somewhere. Every man has to seek in his own way to realize his true worth. You must give some time to your fellow man. For remember, you don’t live in a world all your own. Your brothers are here too.

If you’re going to be a winner in life, you have to constantly go beyond your best.

Whether you think that you can, or that you can’t, you are usually right.

The man with a toothache thinks everyone happy whose teeth are sound. The poverty-stricken man makes the same mistake about the rich man.

It is better to offer no excuse than a bad one.

Never elated when someone’s oppressed, never dejected when another one’s blessed.

I don’t have this feeling that 70 is really old.

Only one who devotes himself to a cause with his whole strength and soul can be a true master. For this reason mastery demands all of a person.

My life as a child did not prepare me for the fact that the world is full of cruel and bitter things.

I don’t think I get angry.

I think it does Discworld good if I don’t write about it all the time: sometimes you have to get it out of your system.

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.

Once someone has spent enough time cultivating bad habits and biding their time, they are much diminished. Much of what they could have been has dissipated.

Bring your desires down to your present means. Increase them only when your increased means permit.

No one can give you better advice than yourself.

Trust not yourself, but your defects to know, make use of every friend and every foe.

Never stop fighting until you arrive at your destined place – that is, the unique you. Have an aim in life, continuously acquire knowledge, work hard, and have perseverance to realise the great life.

The highest reward for a person’s toil is not what they get for it, but what they become by it.

You can live your life angry, bitter, mad at somebody or even guilty, not letting go of your own mistakes, but you won’t receive the good things God has in store.

You learn a lot in life but there are a lot of tools and resources in school that help you grow professionally and personally for whatever goal you may want to achieve.

No such thing as a man willing to be honest – that would be like a blind man willing to see.

Movies are fun, but they are no cure for cancer.

Great minds are related to the brief span of time during which they live as great buildings are to a little square in which they stand: you cannot see them in all their magnitude because you are standing too close to them.

A shady business never yields a sunny life.

Only the wisest and stupidest of men never change.

A daily portion is really all we need. We do not need tomorrow’s supply, for that day has not yet dawned, and its needs are still unborn.

Everyone has the potential to become an encourager. You don’t have to be rich. You don’t have to be a genius. You don’t have to have it all together. All you have to do is care about people and initiate.

Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.

We should learn to accept that change is truly the only thing that’s going on always, and learn to ride with it and enjoy it.

If you do not conquer self, you will be conquered by self.

Life is precious.

Sometimes, getting up in the morning and brushing your teeth is the hardest part of the day – it all just hurts.

You either make dust or eat dust.

What is necessary to change a person is to change his awareness of himself.

The art of being a slave is to rule one’s master.

The label ‚liberal‘ or ‚conservative,‘ any – every time I hear that, I think of the great Gilbert and Sullivan song from ‚Iolanthe.‘ It goes, ‚Every gal and every boy that’s born alive is either a little liberal or else a little conservative.‘ What do those labels mean? It depends on whose ox is being gored.

There’s no happier person than a truly thankful, content person.

If our condition were truly happy, we would not seek diversion from it in order to make ourselves happy.

Glance into the world just as though time were gone: and everything crooked will become straight to you.

Ethics is in origin the art of recommending to others the sacrifices required for cooperation with oneself.

Subdue your appetites, my dears, and you’ve conquered human nature.

Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.

Your Highest Self only wants you to be at peace. It does not judge, compare, or demand that you defeat anyone or be better than anyone.

It were a real increase of human happiness, could all young men from the age of nineteen be covered under barrels, or rendered otherwise invisible; and there left to follow their lawful studies and callings, till they emerged, sadder and wiser, at the age of twenty-five.

Is it not important to find out how to listen not only to what is being said but to everything – to the noise in the streets, to the chatter of birds, to the noise of the tramcar, to the restless sea, to the voice of your husband, to your wife, to your friends, to the cry of a baby?

No change of circumstances can repair a defect of character.

To a profound pessimist about life, being in danger is not depressing.

Mistakes are, after all, the foundations of truth, and if a man does not know what a thing is, it is at least an increase in knowledge if he knows what it is not.

Expect nothing. Live frugally on surprise.

I am absolutely my own biggest critic.

A person places themselves on a level with the ones they praise.