Everyone goes through adversity in life, but what matters is how you learn from it.

I think I have always had a little humor.

Few men would dare to read their own autobiography if all their deeds were recorded in it; few can look back upon their entire career without a blush.

Man seems to be capable of great virtues but not of small virtues; capable of defying his torturer but not of keeping his temper.

The young think that failure is the Siberian end of the line, banishment from all the living, and tend to do what I then did – which was to hide.

You pray for rain, you gotta deal with the mud too. That’s a part of it.

I made a commitment to completely cut out drinking and anything that might hamper me from getting my mind and body together. And the floodgates of goodness have opened upon me – spiritually and financially.

I was bullied as a boy – lots of kids are, but hopefully most of us get on with our lives and grow up.

I feel the emotion that life conjures up and the songs I write get me closer to my feelings and realising who I am. It’s a natural process.

Oh, you weak, beautiful people who give up with such grace. What you need is someone to take hold of you – gently, with love, and hand your life back to you.

There are many victories worse than a defeat.

What you have outside you counts less than what you have inside you.

Everything you are against weakens you. Everything you are for empowers you.

We didn’t crumble after 9/11. We didn’t falter after the Boston Marathon. But we’re America. Americans will never, ever stand down. We endure. We overcome. We own the finish line.

Wisdom allows nothing to be good that will not be so forever; no man to be happy but he that needs no other happiness than what he has within himself; no man to be great or powerful that is not master of himself.

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

You’re not going to say anything about me that I’m not going to say about myself. There’s so many things that I think about myself; if someone really wanted to get at me, they could say this and this and this. So I’m going to say it before they can. It’s the best policy for me.

When death, the great reconciler, has come, it is never our tenderness that we repent of, but our severity.

Take things as they are. Punch when you have to punch. Kick when you have to kick.

I’m very secure about my talents and about who I am.

When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.

My faith was tested like Job. That’s the message I try to tell other people: just because you believe in God, serve God, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, people gotta realize, it don’t mean things not gonna happen to you.

I was born with a great gift, and sometimes with that comes a destructive streak.

The fact is that since you’re a divine creation who originated in the world of Spirit, you have exactly the right amount of smarts to accomplish all that you need and want to do while you’re here on earth. It’s all perfect… and so are you!

The world around me has changed, and I have learned to adapt but not change. But I’m changing into the woman I am meant to be.

The Lord gets his best soldiers out of the highlands of affliction.

What is normal? Normal was yesterday. If you lose a leg, one day you’re hopping around on one leg, so you know the difference.

The greatest and most important problems of life are all fundamentally insoluble. They can never be solved but only outgrown.

I don’t think I will ever be content. I am somebody who is always hungry.

Almost all of our sorrows spring out of our relations with other people.

My work is the only ground I’ve ever had to stand on. To put it bluntly, I seem to have a whole superstructure with no foundation, but I’m working on the foundation.

Great emergencies and crises show us how much greater our vital resources are than we had supposed.

My ‚fear‘ is my substance, and probably the best part of me.

There’s always a bittersweet kind of thing, but I feel like everything had to work out the way it is. Everything that had to happen, happened.

You have to like the present; if not your life becomes secondhand, if you think it was better before. Or that it will be better in the future.

It were a real increase of human happiness, could all young men from the age of nineteen be covered under barrels, or rendered otherwise invisible; and there left to follow their lawful studies and callings, till they emerged, sadder and wiser, at the age of twenty-five.

My lectures, based on Islamic teachings, were on various subjects. Some of the titles were, ‚The Intoxication of Life,‘ ‚The Purpose of Life,‘ ‚The Real Cause of Man’s Distress,‘ ‚The Journey to the Goal in Life,‘ and, one of my favorites, ‚The Heart of Man.‘ They contained important insights that spoke to something deep inside me.

There is no value in life except what you choose to place upon it and no happiness in any place except what you bring to it yourself.

I don’t suffer of anything that I’ve lost.

This is certain, that a man that studieth revenge keeps his wounds green, which otherwise would heal and do well.

What you are, you are by accident of birth; what I am, I am by myself. There are and will be a thousand princes; there is only one Beethoven.

People who want the most approval get the least and people who need approval the least get the most.

I think I’m like most people – we fear the unknown and the things that have yet to come to pass, which are the very things that don’t deserve to be feared. When you give God complete control, it’s very hard not to be fearless.

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.

The time when most of you should withdraw into yourself is when you are forced to be in a crowd.

Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.

If you are not willing to risk the unusual, you will have to settle for the ordinary.

Things do not change; we change.

I can tell you, honest friend, what to believe: believe life; it teaches better that book or orator.

It requires more courage to suffer than to die.

I think being able to age gracefully is a very important talent. It is too late for me.

Here is the rule to remember in the future, When anything tempts you to be bitter: not, ‚This is a misfortune‘ but ‚To bear this worthily is good fortune.‘

I always had faith in my creative capacity.

I wish they would only take me as I am.

‚Suffering should not make us bitter people,‘ my mother once said, ‚it should make us better comforters.‘ Young people need to hear this from those who have walked before them, because someday they’ll be walking those same steps, but there may not be anyone following behind.

I always try to do as much as I can do. I’m never a person that does not enough, because I’d regret not doing enough and think I probably could have done more. I probably go too far and have to reel myself back in, which works in some things, and other things it doesn’t work.

The greatest gift that you can give to others is the gift of unconditional love and acceptance.

Peace is one of the most precious gifts God has promised His children. I know, because for many years my life was not peaceful, and I was miserable.

Sometimes I’m a bit under-aggressive and sometimes a bit over. But I think it’s good to have both.

Don’t just read the easy stuff. You may be entertained by it, but you will never grow from it.

A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike. And all plans, safeguards, policing, and coercion are fruitless. We find that after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us.