Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a certain poverty of ambition. It asks too little of yourself. Because it’s only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential.

I never – you know also one of the things that would save me for a man my age, it was not that easy to lose that much weight and fall down and look like something draped.

Natural abilities can almost compensate for the want of every kind of cultivation, but no cultivation of the mind can make up for the want of natural abilities.

I believe that anyone can conquer fear by doing the things he fears to do, provided he keeps doing them until he gets a record of successful experience behind him.

In the fight between you and the world, back the world.

The experience of life consists of the experience which the spirit has of itself in matter and as matter, in mind and as mind, in emotion, as emotion, etc.

Don’t bring your need to the marketplace, bring your skill. If you don’t feel well, tell your doctor, but not the marketplace. If you need money, go to the bank, but not the marketplace.

My reputation grows with every failure.

I am very fond of truth, but not at all of martyrdom.

Complaining is dangerous business. It can damage or even destroy your relationship with God, your relationships with other people, and even with your relationship with yourself.

When I’m inspired, I get excited because I can’t wait to see what I’ll come up with next.

I had the classic 40 meltdown. I did. It’s embarrassing. It was pretty funny. But then I recovered. To me, it was like a second adolescence. Hormonally, my body was changing, my mind was changing, and so my relationship to myself and the world around me came to this assault of finiteness.

The more a person seeks security, the more that person gives up control over their life.

Experience does not err. Only your judgments err by expecting from her what is not in her power.

I have an expression I use as I’ve gone around the world through my career: ‚You never tell another man or woman what’s in their interest. They know their interest better than you know their interest.‘

The person you consider ignorant and insignificant is the one who came from God, that he might learn bliss from grief and knowledge from gloom.

Learn to think continentally.

I’m only as good as my last word, my last hook, my last bridge.

We work to become, not to acquire.

The U. S. Constitution doesn’t guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself.

A successful lawsuit is the one worn by a policeman.

There is always the danger that we may just do the work for the sake of the work. This is where the respect and the love and the devotion come in – that we do it to God, to Christ, and that’s why we try to do it as beautifully as possible.

I’ll never, ever be full. I’ll always be hungry. Obviously, I’m not talking about food. Growing up, I had nothing for such a long time. Someone told me a long time ago, and I’ve never forgotten it, ‚Once you’ve ever been hungry, really, really hungry, then you’ll never, ever be full.‘

Since we cannot know all that there is to be known about anything, we ought to know a little about everything.

History has demonstrated that the most notable winners usually encountered heartbreaking obstacles before they triumphed. They won because they refused to become discouraged by their defeats.

If at first you don’t succeed… so much for skydiving.

We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.

I do not know myself, and God forbid that I should.

No one that encounters prosperity does not also encounter danger.

I think writing really helps you heal yourself. I think if you write long enough, you will be a healthy person. That is, if you write what you need to write, as opposed to what will make money, or what will make fame.

Me not finishing school – in my head, I still have this insecurity when I’m talking to someone educated.

Single life is so overrated.

If we don’t succeed we run the risk of failure.

Running taught me valuable lessons. In cross-country competition, training counted more than intrinsic ability, and I could compensate for a lack of natural aptitude with diligence and discipline. I applied this in everything I did.

A man can be himself only so long as he is alone, and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom, for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.

I’ve noticed that when I am selling a lot of records, certain things become easier. I’m not talking about getting a table in a restaurant.

Blessed is he who has found his work; let him ask no other blessedness.

So long as a man imagines that he cannot do this or that, so long as he is determined not to do it; and consequently so long as it is impossible to him that he should do it.

To win is always good for the feeling of the whole team.

To succeed in the world it is not enough to be stupid, you must also be well-mannered.

I never sell a book. I sell myself. And the way to sell yourself is to be an instrument of love.

I’m trying to keep a level head. You have to be careful out in the world. It’s so easy to get turned.

The older I get, the better I understand that every day is a gift.

If someone has a really great boyfriend or career, I think, it’s cool that happens.

An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory.

Difficulties should act as a tonic. They should spur us to greater exertion.

This is a world of action, and not for moping and droning in.

Yeah, I like to keep myself interested – I’ll kind of throw myself into some area that I don’t completely know or understand, that I’m not adept at, so I’m forced to swim in order to stay afloat. There’s a good feeling that comes from that.

In general, pride is at the bottom of all great mistakes.

How great are the dangers I face to win a good name in Athens.

Man needs his difficulties because they are necessary to enjoy success.

The only failure one should fear, is not hugging to the purpose they see as best.

What humility does for one is it reminds us that there are people before me. I have already been paid for. And what I need to do is prepare myself so that I can pay for someone else who has yet to come but who may be here and needs me.

Make a habit of two things: to help; or at least to do no harm.

That service is the noblest which is rendered for its own sake.

The superior man is distressed by the limitations of his ability; he is not distressed by the fact that men do not recognize the ability that he has.

Such as are your habitual thoughts, such also will be the character of your mind; for the soul is dyed by the thoughts.

We do not know what we want and yet we are responsible for what we are – that is the fact.

Nature knows no pause in progress and development, and attaches her curse on all inaction.

If you want to shine like a sun, first burn like a sun.

A man is what he thinks about all day long.