Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.

I always like to look on the optimistic side of life, but I am realistic enough to know that life is a complex matter.

I’m not well-read, but when I read, I read well.

Nothing has such power to broaden the mind as the ability to investigate systematically and truly all that comes under thy observation in life.

Either you run the day or the day runs you.

The reason I became 297 pounds is because that was comfortable. What was very uncomfortable was running. What was very uncomfortable was being on a diet. What was very uncomfortable was trying to face things that I didn’t want to face. And I also realized, when I was really big, I had no growth. Why? Because I was living comfortable.

If you have the chance to be exposed to a loving, understanding environment where the seed of compassion, loving kindness, can be watered every day, then you become a more loving person.

There is no great genius without some touch of madness.

People want to feel hopeful.

Water is the driving force of all nature.

When I got depressed, I watched Bruce Lee movies. I learned everything from Bruce Lee.

Every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it the seed of an equal or greater benefit.

The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up.

A word is dead when it is said, some say. I say it just begins to live that day.

When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor.

I believe with all my heart that America remains ‚the great idea‘ that inspires the world. It is a privilege to be born here. It is an honor to become a citizen here. It is a gift to raise your family here, to vote here, and to live here.

I try to be the same person I was yesterday.

When it is obvious that the goals cannot be reached, don’t adjust the goals, adjust the action steps.

If in our daily life we can smile, if we can be peaceful and happy, not only we, but everyone will profit from it. This is the most basic kind of peace work.

Faith is the complete reliance on the power and goodness of Spirit and the firm belief that you are always connected to this goodness. Always affirm your faith and not your doubt.

Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once.

The man who has done his level best… is a success, even though the world may write him down a failure.

When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.

The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.

You’re not a product of your nature. That is your genetic makeup or your nurture, the things that have happened to you. Of course those things affect you powerfully, but they do not determine you.

I’m just writing, writing, writing. I keep these tablets on me until I’m inspired to go back in and make the music. I never take a break from my pen, because I pride myself on that.

Hope is important because it can make the present moment less difficult to bear. If we believe that tomorrow will be better, we can bear a hardship today.

For novelists or musicians, if they really want to create something, they need to go downstairs and find a passage to get into the second basement. What I want to do is go down there, but still stay sane.

Do not be in a hurry to succeed. What would you have to live for afterwards? Better make the horizon your goal; it will always be ahead of you.

A man is not finished when he is defeated. He is finished when he quits.

Every day, the people I meet inspire me… every day, they make me proud… every day they remind me how blessed we are to live in the greatest nation on earth.

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

To do your best is no longer good enough. We now have to do the seemingly impossible.

A good writer possesses not only his own spirit but also the spirit of his friends.

The gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge.

I keep working because I learn something new all the time.

I would rather entertain and hope that people learned something than educate people and hope they were entertained.

Writing and cafes are strongly linked in my brain.

Do you want to know who you are? Don’t ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.

Well, in order for me to be successful… In order to be a great artist – musician, actor, painter, whatever – you must be able to be private in public at all times.

I always try to be smart. I try to treat all the money I’m making like it’s the last time I’m going to make it.

I have goals.

I don’t know anything that builds the will to win better than competitive sports.

I want to appeal to everyone. Because I’m not saying I’m the best, but we the best.

If you keep proving stuff that others have done, getting confidence, increasing the complexities of your solutions – for the fun of it – then one day you’ll turn around and discover that nobody actually did that one!

If you have only one smile in you give it to the people you love.

You can bear your own faults, and why not a fault in your wife?

Success is like reaching an important birthday and finding you’re exactly the same.

I explain the law of compensation like this: ‚Returns are minimal in spite of massive effort at the start, yet returns can be massive with minimal effort over time.

The self is hateful.

A goal is not always meant to be reached, it often serves simply as something to aim at.

The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.

To reach a port, we must sail – sail, not tie at anchor – sail, not drift.

If we’re really honest with ourselves, most of us will admit that we want to impress people, and this is what’s causing us to do what we do.

Every action needs to be prompted by a motive.

Every summer’s mine.

Instead of being concerned that you have no office, be concerned to think how you may fit yourself for office. Instead of being concerned that you are not known, seek to be worthy of being known.

Off with you! You’re a happy fellow, for you’ll give happiness and joy to many other people. There is nothing better or greater than that!

What starts the process, really, are laughs and slights and snubs when you are a kid. If your anger is deep enough and strong enough, you learn that you can change those attitudes by excellence, personal gut performance.

If you try and work out at 4:30 in the afternoon, how many people are going to chip away at that time? Your boss, your job, your work, your family, your other obligations that you might have. At 4:30 in the morning, all those people are asleep, so you can do whatever you want.

You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe deserve your love and affection.