Character, not circumstances, makes the man.

If you want small changes in your life, work on your attitude. But if you want big and primary changes, work on your paradigm.

I am afraid we must make the world honest before we can honestly say to our children that honesty is the best policy.

At some point, you grow out of being attracted to that flame that burns you over and over and over again.

We just seem to have lost all our morals and principles and values these days.

There are 309 million people out there that are trying to improve their lot in life. And we’ve got a system that allows them to do it.

I have thought a sufficient measure of civilization is the influence of good women.

Of the billionaires I have known, money just brings out the basic traits in them. If they were jerks before they had money, they are simply jerks with a billion dollars.

This above all, to refuse to be a victim.

Storytelling is about two things; it’s about character and plot.

Apply yourself both now and in the next life. Without effort, you cannot be prosperous. Though the land be good, You cannot have an abundant crop without cultivation.

Whosoever desires constant success must change his conduct with the times.

The best preparation for tomorrow is doing your best today.

Do what nobody else can do for you. Omit to do anything else.

Anything you’re good at contributes to happiness.

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

The key is taking responsibility and initiative, deciding what your life is about and prioritizing your life around the most important things.

I’ve actually not read any books on time management.

Sometimes if you want to see a change for the better, you have to take things into your own hands.

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

You may be always victorious if you will never enter into any contest where the issue does not wholly depend upon yourself.

One must steer, not talk.

We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.

Some mystery should be left in the revelation of character in a play, just as a great deal of mystery is always left in the revelation of character in life, even in one’s own character to himself.

Communication is a skill that you can learn. It’s like riding a bicycle or typing. If you’re willing to work at it, you can rapidly improve the quality of evry part of your life.

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.

Most sets of values would give rise to universes that, although they might be very beautiful, would contain no one able to wonder at that beauty.

I’ve said this time and again: My greatest concern coming into the White House was making sure my girls came out whole and normal, and decent and kind, just like I would expect them to if we were living on the South Side of Chicago. And it takes work to keep White House life normal for the kids.

Take advantage of every opportunity to practice your communication skills so that when important occasions arise, you will have the gift, the style, the sharpness, the clarity, and the emotions to affect other people.

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.

I think big business is a terrible thing for the spirit of the country, as our spirit is the best thing about us.

Almost every man wastes part of his life attempting to display qualities which he does not possess.

I was a grade B housewife, maybe a B minus. But when I got time to write, I would be unable to finish a sentence. I had anxiety attacks. Partly it was a way of personifying the situation because I couldn’t breathe. I was surrounded by people and by duties. I was a housewife and the children’s mother, and I was judged on how I performed those roles.

Accountability breeds response-ability.

If you want to see the true measure of a man, watch how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.

The supreme quality for leadership is unquestionably integrity. Without it, no real success is possible, no matter whether it is on a section gang, a football field, in an army, or in an office.

If man makes himself a worm he must not complain when he is trodden on.

My parents taught me service – not by saying, but by doing. That was my culture, the culture of my family.

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

I believe that every person is born with talent.

I would as soon leave my son a curse as the almighty dollar.

How could youths better learn to live than by at once trying the experiment of living?

I’m not critic-proof, and I still take it personally, but I take it less personally now.

Don’t say the old lady screamed. Bring her on and let her scream.

The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world’s problems.

Each of us has a vision of good and of evil. We have to encourage people to move towards what they think is good… Everyone has his own idea of good and evil and must choose to follow the good and fight evil as he conceives them. That would be enough to make the world a better place.

A man’s character is his fate.

Bottom line is, I didn’t return to Apple to make a fortune. I’ve been very lucky in my life and already have one. When I was 25, my net worth was $100 million or so. I decided then that I wasn’t going to let it ruin my life. There’s no way you could ever spend it all, and I don’t view wealth as something that validates my intelligence.

We can improve our relationships with others by leaps and bounds if we become encouragers instead of critics.

Associate with men of good quality if you esteem your own reputation; for it is better to be alone than in bad company.

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

Learning to live for others isn’t something that just comes naturally to anybody. You have to train yourself to do it.

We identify in our experience a differentiation between what we do and what happens to us.

You cannot push any one up a ladder unless he be willing to climb a little himself.

Religion, any religion, no matter what sort of wonderful religion, never be universal. So now education is universal, so we have to sort of find ways and means through education system, from kindergarten up to university level, to make awareness these good things, the values, inner values.

People who add value to others do so intentionally. I say that because to add value, leaders must give of themselves, and that rarely occurs by accident.

Could the young but realize how soon they will become mere walking bundles of habits, they would give more heed to their conduct while in the plastic state.

People intoxicate themselves with work so they won’t see how they really are.

Action may not always bring happiness; but there is no happiness without action.

Is fear preventing you from taking action? Acknowledge the fear, watch it, take your attention into it, be fully present with it. Doing so cuts the link between the fear and your thinking. Don’t let the fear rise up into your mind. Use the power of the Now. Fear cannot prevail against it.

Be brave. Take risks. Nothing can substitute experience.