Few of us have vitality enough to make any of our instincts imperious.

There’s only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that’s your own self.

A man of genius has been seldom ruined but by himself.

Wherever you are, be there totally. If you find your here and now intolerable and it makes you unhappy, you have three options: remove yourself from the situation, change it, or accept it totally. If you want to take responsibility for your life, you must choose one of those three options, and you must choose now. Then accept the consequences.

This soul, or life within us, by no means agrees with the life outside us. If one has the courage to ask her what she thinks, she is always saying the very opposite to what other people say.

It was one of those evenings when men feel that truth, goodness and beauty are one. In the morning, when they commit their discovery to paper, when others read it written there, it looks wholly ridiculous.

No man is free who is not master of himself.

All of us should be on guard against beliefs that flatter ourselves. At the very least, we should check such beliefs against facts.

Always make those above you feel comfortably superior. In your desire to please or impress them, do not go too far in displaying your talents or you might accomplish the opposite – inspire fear and insecurity.

To be renewed is everything. What more could one ask for than to have one’s youth back again?

The more nobly a man wills and acts, the more avid he becomes for great and sublime aims to pursue. He will no longer be content with family, country, and the remunerative aspect of his work. He will want wider organisations to create, new paths to blaze, causes to uphold, truths to discover, an ideal to cherish and defend.

I don’t mind telling a dark side.

In this business you have to develop a thick skin, but I’m always going to feel everything. It’s my nature.

Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves.

Let us not forget who we are. Drug abuse is a repudiation of everything America is.

There is one thing that gets you out of bed in the morning, and that is discipline. Because your dreams and your goals are not there waking up for you in the morning.

From the middle of life onward, only he remains vitally alive who is ready to die with life.

That’s the biggest gift I can give anybody: ‚Wake up, be aware of who you are, what you’re doing and what you can do to prevent yourself from becoming ill.‘

The thing about the truth is, not a lot of people can handle it.

The person we believe ourselves to be will always act in a manner consistent with our self-image.

Whatever one of us blames in another, each one will find in his own heart.

I am trying to find myself. Sometimes that’s not easy.

I’m not this horrible, evil person.

I’m not a god – I do bad things.

No man ever achieved worth-while success who did not, at one time or other, find himself with at least one foot hanging well over the brink of failure.

I never get too high on my stardom or what I can do.

Let our advance worrying become advance thinking and planning.

As an athlete, you’d better laugh at yourself when you slip in the mud.

I think I have a dualistic nature.

Each one has to find his peace from within. And peace to be real must be unaffected by outside circumstances.

He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying.

Do not think of your faults, still less of other’s faults; look for what is good and strong, and try to imitate it. Your faults will drop off, like dead leaves, when their time comes.

As soon as man does not take his existence for granted, but beholds it as something unfathomably mysterious, thought begins.

One ought never to turn one’s back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it. If you do that, you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half. Never run away from anything. Never!

As a leader, the first person I need to lead is me. The first person that I should try to change is me.

I’ve watched a lot of people who became famous who completely change and I think it’s because they tend to believe all the hype that’s out there. I don’t think there’s that much hype about me.

I know I do not exaggerate, unconsciously and unintentionally, the scantiness of my resources and the difficulty of my life… I know that, but for the mercy of God, I might easily have been, for any care that was taken of me, a little robber or a vagabond.

You’re looking at a middle-class guy. I am who I am.

Create a ladder of values and priorities in your life, reminding yourself of what really matters to you.

Happiness is within the reach of everyone, rich or poor. Yet comparatively few people are happy. I believe the reason for this is that the majority don’t recognize happiness even when it is within their grasp.

Until you have formed the habit of looking for the good instead of the bad there is in others, you will be neither successful nor happy.

Feeling sorry for yourself, and your present condition, is not only a waste of energy but the worst habit you could possibly have.

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.

There is only one difference between a madman and me. The madman thinks he is sane. I know I am mad.

Upon the creatures we have made, we are, ourselves, at last, dependent.

Know your worth! People always act like they’re doing more for you than you’re doing for them.

The truth is that you can only come to know God when you give up the past and the future in your mind and merge totally into the now, because God is always here now.

You cannot always control what goes on outside. But you can always control what goes on inside.

I try to lead by example, being conscious of others and being responsible.

I do believe in self-help.

Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance.

Self-actualized people are independent of the good opinion of others.

Choosing to be positive and having a grateful attitude is going to determine how you’re going to live your life.

The proper study of Mankind is Man.

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.

I’ve learned through my own relationship with God that He’s not expecting me to be perfect; He wants me to do my best to be in His will and take steps of faith as He leads me, through His Word and the promptings He speaks to my heart.

Never be lucid, never state, if you would be regarded great.

And finally I twist my heart round again, so that the bad is on the outside and the good is on the inside, and keep on trying to find a way of becoming what I would so like to be, and could be, if there weren’t any other people living in the world.

Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire, called conscience.

We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star. But we can understand the Universe. That makes us something very special.

You are only afraid if you are not in harmony with yourself. People are afraid because they have never owned up to themselves.