Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfils the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.

There are some cases in which the sense of injury breeds not the will to inflict injuries and climb over them as a ladder, but a hatred of all injury.

You can become an even more excellent person by constantly setting higher and higher standards for yourself and then by doing everything possible to live up to those standards.

We work to become, not to acquire.

The aim of the wise is not to secure pleasure, but to avoid pain.

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

He who praises everybody, praises nobody.

A man only learns in two ways, one by reading, and the other by association with smarter people.

When you play sports like tennis, you’re alone, and that’s a good school for life, but it’s also a good school for life to bring your best and make those around you better, too – helping others in difficult moments.

The big question about how people behave is whether they’ve got an Inner Scorecard or an Outer Scorecard. It helps if you can be satisfied with an Inner Scorecard.

An individual step in character training is to put responsibility on the individual.

You cannot change your destination overnight, but you can change your direction overnight.

I have brought myself, by long meditation, to the conviction that a human being with a settled purpose must accomplish it, and that nothing can resist a will which will stake even existence upon its fulfillment.

The reward of a thing well done is having done it.

If you would lift me up you must be on higher ground.

You simply have to accept that your demons are a part of you.

A wise man is cured of ambition by ambition itself; his aim is so exalted that riches, office, fortune and favour cannot satisfy him.

Never find fault with the absent.

Reading is a basic tool in the living of a good life.

If a man empties his purse into his head, no one can take it from him.

I say, beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes.

I’m never going to be fast, and nobody will ever mistake me for being fast.

I know my country has not perfected itself. At times, we’ve struggled to keep the promise of liberty and equality for all of our people. We’ve made our share of mistakes, and there are times when our actions around the world have not lived up to our best intentions.

You get to a point where it’s like you can’t really do anything right, and people will pick on you for whatever decisions you make, so I just try and take no notice and get on with my music.

If small things have the power to disturb you, then who you think you are is exactly that: small.

The end is the beginning of all things, Suppressed and hidden, Awaiting to be released through the rhythm Of pain and pleasure.

The beginning of compunction is the beginning of a new life.

My focus is to forget the pain of life. Forget the pain, mock the pain, reduce it. And laugh.

I think my vice would be outdoing myself.

I always teach myself calm and visualization stuff.

Guilt is perhaps the most painful companion of death.

All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.

Nature gives you the face you have at twenty; it is up to you to merit the face you have at fifty.

How much pain they have cost us, the evils which have never happened.

I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday.

My experience has been that work is almost the best way to pull oneself out of the depths.

Only strength can cooperate. Weakness can only beg.

Science has revealed that the human body is made up of millions and millions of atoms… For example, I am made up of 5.8×10 27 atoms.

I knew ‚Crenshaw‘ had elevated me and distinguished me.

My goal was never to be the loudest or the craziest. It was to be the most entertaining.

I’m always attracted to people who interest me. They’ve got to be people who are really true to themselves somehow, and who are always trying to do something that makes their life more interesting, or better, or something for somebody else. They’re interested in people.

I know, to banish anger altogether from one’s breast is a difficult task. It cannot be achieved through pure personal effort. It can be done only by God’s grace.

Think not that humility is weakness; it shall supply the marrow of strength to thy bones. Stoop and conquer; bow thyself and become invincible.

For good nurture and education implant good constitutions.

The major value in life is not what you get. The major value in life is what you become.

The highest reward that God gives us for good work is the ability to do better work.

There’s a deceptive sin that can keep us from walking in love: pride. It’s deceptive because when you have pride, you’re usually too proud to admit it. I know this because I used to have teachings on pride and they didn’t sell well.

I have long understood that losing always comes with the territory when you wander into the gambling business, just as getting crippled for life is an acceptable risk in the linebacker business. They both are extremely violent sports, and pain is part of the bargain. Buy the ticket, take the ride.

I grow daily to honour facts more and more, and theory less and less. A fact, it seems to me, is a great thing; a sentence printed, if not by God, then at least by the Devil.

I break ground. I trailblaze.

Being too good is apt to be uninteresting.

I know black people love the idea that we finally have a beautiful, good-looking black president. But if he is doing awful things to us, we should wake up.

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

In those days he was wiser than he is now; he used to frequently take my advice.

I need to keep working on myself for a while.

It is a curious sensation: the sort of pain that goes mercifully beyond our powers of feeling. When your heart is broken, your boats are burned: nothing matters any more. It is the end of happiness and the beginning of peace.

Success has always been a great liar.

Our whole life is set up in the path of least resistance. We don’t want to suffer. We don’t want to feel discomfort. So the whole time, we’re living our lives in a very comfortable area. There’s no growth in that.

If I am no longer disturbed myself, I will deal less with disturbed people, but I don’t regret having concerned myself with them because I think most of us are disturbed.

Want balance in your life? Then sure, get your own act together, but don’t forget four powerful disciplines of execution in your team and organization.

I don’t want to look sloppy, because then I feel sloppy.