Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content.

Do every act of your life as if it were your last.

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.

Trust not yourself, but your defects to know, make use of every friend and every foe.

It’s not an easy course. It’s not designed to be. We’re not here to get you in touch with your inner child.

Memories are thoughts that arise. They’re not realities. Only when you believe that they are real, then they have the power over you. But when you realize it’s just another thought arising about the past, then you can have a spacious relationship with that thought. The thought no longer has you in its grip.

Live one day at a time emphasizing ethics rather than rules.

You may never get to that perfect world that you’re waiting for where everything’s going to be perfect and you got that much money and your house paid off.

What? You seek something? You wish to multiply yourself tenfold, a hundredfold? You seek followers? Seek zeros!

Remind yourself that winning an argument or proving your point really gets you nowhere in the long run. Win through your actions, not your words.

Love is the flower you’ve got to let grow.

We see God face to face every hour, and know the savor of Nature.

While you’re saving your face, you’re losing your ass.

The need to be right is the sign of a vulgar mind.

If you deserve it, go get it.

I spent most of the early years of my walk with God focused on what was wrong with me. Most of us probably do that, hoping to change ourselves.

I claim to be a simple individual liable to err like any other fellow mortal. I own, however, that I have humility enough to confess my errors and to retrace my steps.

If a man does his best, what else is there?

Ever since I was a child I have had this instinctive urge for expansion and growth. To me, the function and duty of a quality human being is the sincere and honest development of one’s potential.

To know oneself, one should assert oneself.

I had never been in charge of anything. I’d always worked for someone. I worked for a furniture warehouse. I did masonry. I always had a boss yelling at me. So I’d never been in charge of an organization.

It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations.

Wanting to be someone else is a waste of the person you are.

The only cure for contempt is counter-contempt.

No one has a right to consume happiness without producing it.

A man is what he thinks about all day long.

I think the great part about what I do is that there’s a scoreboard. At the end of every week, you know how you did. You know how well you prepared. You know whether you executed your game plan. There’s a tangible score.

Silence is safer than speech.

There are going to be things I’m not going to be great at, times when I make mistakes, 100%.

Who is rich? He that rejoices in his portion.

I remember, when I was a young guy in the SEAL teams, I was very afraid of making mistakes and looking stupid or doing dumb things and getting a bad reputation.

I’m only going to stand before God and give an account for my life, not for somebody else’s life. If I have a bad attitude, then I need to say there’s no point in me blaming you for what’s wrong in my life.

Money is not required to buy one necessity of the soul.

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

Even with all of the things that are so awful, if you walk into your yard and stay there looking at almost anything for five minutes, you will be stunned by how marvelous life is and how incredibly lucky we are to have it.

Ordinary people seem not to realize that those who really apply themselves in the right way to philosophy are directly and of their own accord preparing themselves for dying and death.

At 155, I will be the same animal, an even better animal.

As a matter of self-preservation, a man needs good friends or ardent enemies, for the former instruct him and the latter take him to task.

In reality, there is, perhaps, no one of our natural passions so hard to subdue as pride.

I’m not a big believer in trying to jam stuff down somebody’s throat: ‚You’re going to do it my way.‘ I’d rather show by example and live my life and have people say, ‚You know what, I want to live like Joel has. He’s got peace and joy, and he seems content.‘

It is well for the world that in most of us, by the age of thirty, the character has set like plaster, and will never soften again.

Mind over mattress.

I’m not a natural born performer.

It is better to offer no excuse than a bad one.

The power for creating a better future is contained in the present moment: You create a good future by creating a good present.

Don’t spend time beating on a wall, hoping to transform it into a door.

Whether you come from a council estate or a country estate, your success will be determined by your own confidence and fortitude.

The true art of memory is the art of attention.

I don’t want to be too critical of what other people do, but when people go back to do the same thing that they did, I’m completely confused. I’m like, ‚Didn’t you make that movie already?‘ I’ve been very fortunate, and I’m well taken care of, so the least I can do is try to go forward.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

He best keeps from anger who remembers that God is always looking upon him.

Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears.

I respect myself and insist upon it from everybody. And because I do it, I then respect everybody, too.

Virtue she finds too painful an endeavour, content to dwell in decencies for ever.

There is but one cause of human failure. And that is man’s lack of faith in his true Self.

Anyone can have a good day, but you have to be able to perform on a bad day.

To love one that is great, is almost to be great one’s self.

Keep in mind that no matter how perfectly you get your life in order, you will never be rid of all your problems. Problems are a way of life, always have been, always will be. But how you elect to view those problems is all up to you.

You can be obsessed with the bad things people say and the good things; either way, you’re obsessed with yourself, and I’m not – you can become unhinged so easily.

Personally I’m always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught.

If you don’t know where you are going, every road will get you nowhere.