Either you think, or else others have to think for you and take power from you, pervert and discipline your natural tastes, civilize and sterilize you.

An elusive, enigmatic aura will make people want to know more, drawing them into your circle. Create such a power by hinting at something contradictory within you.

I don’t think I am evangelical in my work.

Religion is just mind control.

A fanatic is a man who consciously over compensates a secret doubt.

If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them.

I’m always afraid of failing. I have to quiet that fear if I’m going to get up in the morning.

So near is falsehood to truth that a wise man would do well not to trust himself on the narrow edge.

I am impelled, not to squeak like a grateful and apologetic mouse, but to roar like a lion out of pride in my profession.

I want kids to know: Don’t wait for somebody to come along and tell you you’re special. Because that may never happen.

I try to live what I teach. A lot of things come against us in life, but we should try to find something to be grateful for, and see each day as a gift.

It’s not fun to get out of bed early in the morning. When the alarm goes off, it doesn’t sing you a song: it hits you in the head with a baseball bat. So how do you respond to that? Do you crawl underneath your covers and hide? Or do you get up, get aggressive, and attack the day?

I think we need more idiot control.

I’m not claiming divinity. I’ve never claimed purity of soul. I’ve never claimed to have the answers to life. I only put out songs and answer questions as honestly as I can… But I still believe in peace, love and understanding.

But for me to have the opportunity to stand in front of a bunch of executives and present myself, I had to hustle in my own way. I can’t tell you how frustrating it was that they didn’t get that. No joke – I’d leave meetings crying all the time.

My earliest books focus almost entirely on psychological tools to help readers employ effective commonsense approaches to problems. There are no references to God or a higher self in the first 15 or so years of my publishing history.

You don’t want to pigeonhole yourself.

The only way to avoid being miserable is not to have enough leisure to wonder whether you are happy or not.

I don’t ever want to be caught up in a system of thinking I can do one thing ‚cos that’s just… that’s just telling yourself a lie.

I don’t feel much pressure to fit in. I never have. I’ve always just wanted to do my thing. I have really good friends and good family, and if I don’t fit in somewhere else, I fit in at home.

Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.

Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your position falls, your ego goes with it.

That’s all I could ever hope for, to have a positive effect on women. ‚Cos women are powerful, powerful beings. But they’re also the most doubtful beings. They’ll never know – we’ll never know – how powerful we are.

The world can criticize me, but l can always criticize it back.

You should never give up your inner self.

I look at myself like a show dog. I’ve got to keep her clipped and trimmed and in good shape.

Your love is not outside; it is deep within you. You can never lose it, and it cannot leave you. It is not dependent on some other body, some external form.

We are in a far better position to observe instincts in animals or in primitives than in ourselves. This is due to the fact that we have grown accustomed to scrutinizing our own actions and to seeking rational explanations for them.

The utmost extent of man’s knowledge, is to know that he knows nothing.

It’s nice to be included in people’s fantasies but you also like to be accepted for your own sake.

The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.

I have some good friends of my own who happen to be gay, and when it comes to gay, straight, or whatever, I’m for anything life-affirmative. I’m for gay power, straight power, male power, female power; everybody should feel empowered without oppressing anyone who’s different.

All of us are in the same place, each with our own rooms, and we were allowed to do whatever we wanted. Which is totally different than college, where they manage your schedule for you. In the NBA, you’re on your own.

I was raised to be independent.

I never realized until lately that women were supposed to be the inferior sex.

What troubles me most about my lovely country is that its children are seldom taught that American freedom will vanish, if, when they grow up, and in the exercise of their duties as citizens, they insist that our courts and policemen and prisons be guided by divine or natural law.

One man with courage is a majority.

I think my vice would be outdoing myself.

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

It is his restraint that is honorable to a person, not their liberty.

When you are content to be simply yourself and don’t compare or compete, everybody will respect you.

But blind to former as to future fate, what mortal knows his pre-existent state?

We still think of a powerful man as a born leader and a powerful woman as an anomaly.

I’m super self-critical, which I think is good, because then I get exactly what I want. I’m critical of other people, too – I try not to be, though.

I’m not a sheep.

Freedom means you are unobstructed in living your life as you choose. Anything less is a form of slavery.

One of the greatest discoveries a man makes, one of his great surprises, is to find he can do what he was afraid he couldn’t do.

Power is given only to those who dare to lower themselves and pick it up. Only one thing matters, one thing; to be able to dare!

There are many things I do where the centre of it is… It’s almost more my humanitarian work than art.

All cruelty springs from weakness.

That nice, soft pillow and the warm blanket, and it’s all comfortable, and no one wants to leave that comfort – but if you can wake up early in the morning, get a head start on everyone else that’s still sleeping, get productive time doing things that you need to do – that’s a huge piece to moving your life forward.

Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong.

I say, ‚Yeah, Taylor Swift.‘ I think she is a smart, beautiful girl. I think she’s making all the right moves. She’s got a good head on her shoulders. She’s surrounded with wonderful people. Her songs are great. She keeps herself anchored. She knows who she is, and she’s living and standing by that.

I would like to see people more aware of where their food comes from. I would like to see small farmers empowered. I feed my daughter almost exclusively organic food.

To do the same thing over and over again is not only boredom: it is to be controlled by rather than to control what you do.

The man of genius inspires us with a boundless confidence in our own powers.

Know, first, who you are, and then adorn yourself accordingly.

One is still what one is going to cease to be and already what one is going to become. One lives one’s death, one dies one’s life.

Everyone knows nowadays that people ‚have complexes‘. What is not so well known, though far more important theoretically, is that complexes can have us.

I came up from a difficult background.

My powers are ordinary. Only my application brings me success.