Difficulties are things that show a person what they are.

I sometimes have a tendency to walk on the dark side.

Don’t despair, not even over the fact that you don’t despair.

I was in a terrible mess in my childhood.

Secretly we’re all a little more absurd than we make ourselves out to be.

The good things of prosperity are to be wished; but the good things that belong to adversity are to be admired.

I want you to be everything that’s you, deep at the center of your being.

I have had fun being who I became, so to speak.

I think there is a lot made out of age, and what age you feel.

When your higher self is present, it always promotes peace.

There will always be something to ruin our lives, it all depends on what or which finds us first. We are always ripe and ready to be taken.

Show me someone who has done something worthwhile, and I’ll show you someone who has overcome adversity.

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

Culture is the process by which a person becomes all that they were created capable of being.

Being beautiful is not so fun when you’re in a business with all men.

We need to recognize that the situation in Ferguson speaks to broader challenges that we still face as a nation. The fact is, in too many parts of this country, a deep distrust exists between law enforcement and communities of color. Some of this is the result of the legacy of racial discrimination in this country.

A man can be himself only so long as he is alone, and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom, for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.

Thinking is easy, acting is difficult, and to put one’s thoughts into action is the most difficult thing in the world.

Old friends pass away, new friends appear. It is just like the days. An old day passes, a new day arrives. The important thing is to make it meaningful: a meaningful friend – or a meaningful day.

To teach how to live without certainty and yet without being paralysed by hesitation is perhaps the chief thing that philosophy, in our age, can do for those who study it.

People want to tear me down, they were going to knife me anyway.

I’m a big believer in doing things that make you uncomfortable. So, we live in a world where we want to be as comfortable as we can. And we wonder why we have no growth. We wonder why – when the smallest thing in our life gets difficult – we wonder why we cower and we run away.

I do not think that there is any other quality so essential to success of any kind as the quality of perseverance. It overcomes almost everything, even nature.

Always do whatever’s next.

‚Bellyache‘ is totally fictional. I like writing about things that aren’t real. The song is about not trusting anyone and then putting trust in yourself and realizing that you don’t know what you are doing, either. Or realizing that things you do with a group of people that you think are cool in the moment are ultimately all on you.

Your Highest Self is not just an idea that sounds lofty and spiritual. It is a way of being. It is the very first principle that you must come to understand and embrace as you move toward attracting to you that which you want and need for this parenthesis in eternity that you know as your life.

When you tell a recruiter that you’re almost 300 pounds and you want to be a SEAL, it doesn’t go too well. I got hung up on a lot.

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

Blessed are the hearts that can bend; they shall never be broken.

We are not what we are, nor do we treat or esteem each other for such, but for what we are capable of being.

I was born in a very poor family. I used to sell tea in a railway coach as a child. My mother used to wash utensils and do lowly household work in the houses of others to earn a livelihood. I have seen poverty very closely. I have lived in poverty. As a child, my entire childhood was steeped in poverty.

I like touring extensively because I think the more hours you spend onstage, the more you know who you are onstage.

Why don’t you start believing that no matter what you have or haven’t done, that your best days are still out in front of you.

It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.

We cannot live being obsessed with what other people think about us. It’s impossible to live like that. Not even God managed to please the entire world.

I’ll never, ever be full. I’ll always be hungry. Obviously, I’m not talking about food. Growing up, I had nothing for such a long time. Someone told me a long time ago, and I’ve never forgotten it, ‚Once you’ve ever been hungry, really, really hungry, then you’ll never, ever be full.‘

Just because something didn’t work out your way, or somebody disappointed you, that does not change who you are.

My philosophy is: It’s none of my business what people say of me and think of me.

When I was a kid, I had a tendency to criticize. But when I did, my mum would whisk me off to the bathroom to stand in front of a mirror. Ten minutes, never less. To think about how criticism is a poor reflection on the one who criticizes.

A man who has not passed through the inferno of his passions has never overcome them.

Be willing to have it so. Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune.

When something an affliction happens to you, you either let it defeat you, or you defeat it.

The challenge of work-life balance is without question one of the most significant struggles faced by modern man.

It is only a man’s own fundamental thoughts that have truth and life in them. For it is these that he really and completely understands. To read the thoughts of others is like taking the remains of someone else’s meal, like putting on the discarded clothes of a stranger.

Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil and you’re a thousand miles from the corn field.

Such as are your habitual thoughts, such also will be the character of your mind; for the soul is dyed by the thoughts.

Why go through life if you’re not going to challenge yourself?

Some Christians feel guilty when they are doing something that isn’t ‚spiritual.‘ Somehow or another, they feel the need to hurry through the grocery store, dash through the house cleaning, and rush through all the daily aspects of life that seem irrelevant to their faith.

Guarding your heart and protecting your dignity are a little bit more important than clarifying the emotions of someone who’s only texting you back three words. I’ve learned that from trying to figure out people who don’t deserve to be figured out.

I am two with nature.

You should read history and look at ostracism, persecution, martyrdom, and that kind of thing. They always happen to the best men, you know.

Every movie I make teaches me something. That’s why I keep making them.

Writing is challenging work because it’s so easy to get consumed with how it’s going, what’s going to happen to it, who’s going to like or not like it. You want to get all of that stuff out of your head and just let the work flow.

People say you have to hit rock bottom, and, I can tell you, almost dying is as rock bottom as it gets.

We all gonna die eventually from something or other, but don’t be a wimp. Put up a good fight.

Therapy? I don’t need that. The roles that I choose are my therapy.

That is why, no matter how desperate the predicament is, I am always very much in earnest about clutching my cane, straightening my derby hat and fixing my tie, even though I have just landed on my head.

I’ve had a few semi-toxic relationships, but it’s not what I look for when I’m seeing someone.

My mom cleaned toilets for a long time, and she’d seen a lot of terrible things, but she was still the strength of our family. And there are women like that all across the country – all around the world – who show that type of fortitude.

Sometimes the hardest thing to do is to trust your team. It’s a lesson I’ve had to relearn quite a few times.

In the fight between you and the world, back the world.