For a young person, it is almost a sin, or at least a danger, to be too preoccupied with himself; but for the ageing person, it is a duty and a necessity to devote serious attention to himself.

Both in thought and in feeling, even though time be real, to realise the unimportance of time is the gate of wisdom.

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

I’ve been drunk for about a week now, and I thought it might sober me up to sit in a library.

It would be my guess that Madonna is not a very happy woman. From my own experience, having gone through persona changes like that, that kind of clawing need to be the center of attention is not a pleasant place to be.

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.

I was brought up to believe that the worst thing you could do was ‚call attention to yourself,‘ or ‚think you were smart.‘ My mother was an exception to this rule and was punished by the early onset of Parkinson’s disease.

As long as your body is healthy and under control and death is distant, try to save your soul; when death is immanent what can you do?

Reform is not pleasant, but grievous; no person can reform themselves without suffering and hard work, how much less a nation.

Seek ye first the good things of the mind, and the rest will either be supplied or its loss will not be felt.

Do not keep saying to yourself, if you can possibly avoid it, ‚But how can it be like that?‘ because you will get ‚down the drain,‘ into a blind alley from which nobody has yet escaped. Nobody knows how it can be like that.

Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers.

Early on in my life, I had a broken soul. I was abused by my father, abandoned by my mother and ended up in a destructive first marriage. By the time I was 23, I was broken in my soul. I didn’t know how to think right. I felt wrong about everything. But God stepped into my life, and I came out on the other side and didn’t even smell like smoke.

The doorstep to the temple of wisdom is a knowledge of our own ignorance.

For a long time now I have tried simply to write the best I can. Sometimes I have good luck and write better than I can.

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

The best is the enemy of the good.

You can’t take care of charity unless you take care of yourself first.

I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power the greater it will be.

A man who views the world the same at fifty as he did at twenty has wasted thirty years of his life.

Who can exhaust a man? Who knows a man’s resources?

Some guys look better as they get older.

Do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Let the day’s own trouble be sufficient for the day.

Once you start doing only what you’ve already proven you can do, you’re on the road to death.

From my perspective, I absolutely believe in a greater spiritual power, far greater than I am, from which I have derived strength in moments of sadness or fear. That’s what I believe, and it was very, very strong in the forest.

Because forgiveness is like this: a room can be dank because you have closed the windows, you’ve closed the curtains. But the sun is shining outside, and the air is fresh outside. In order to get that fresh air, you have to get up and open the window and draw the curtains apart.

Everybody should do at least two things each day that he hates to do, just for practice.

It was completely fruitless to quarrel with the world, whereas the quarrel with oneself was occasionally fruitful and always, she had to admit, interesting.

For me, money is not my definition of success. Inspiring people is a definition of success.

Aim for the highest.

I’m always cast in these strange men… that’s not me, really.

By taking responsibility for how you choose to respond to anything or anyone, you’re aligning yourself with the beautiful dance of life.

Reproach is shame, blame, disgrace, disapproval and a disrespectful attitude toward yourself. When you’re under reproach, your behavior shows it.

When you can whip any man in the world, you never know peace.

A man is but the product of his thoughts, what he thinks he becomes.

I grew up with the sea, and poverty for me was sumptuous; then I lost the sea and found all luxuries gray and poverty unbearable.

I don’t want to look sloppy, because then I feel sloppy.

I’ve done many ads because that’s my new career. It’s an inspiring extension for my mind.

A wise man should consider that health is the greatest of human blessings, and learn how by his own thought to derive benefit from his illnesses.

Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It’s perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we’ve learned something from yesterday.

Habit is a second nature that destroys the first. But what is nature? Why is habit not natural? I am very much afraid that nature itself is only a first habit, just as habit is a second nature.

Within all of us is a divine capacity to manifest and attract all that we need and desire.

I was always very curious as a young man about why older writers who I met seemed so indifferent to what was going on, whereas I, in my 20s, was reading everything. Everything seemed important. But they were only interested in the writers they admired when they were young, and I didn’t understand it then, but now, now I understand it.

I am a child but I have to think and act like a woman, this business forces you to.

A truly good book teaches me better than to read it. I must soon lay it down, and commence living on its hint. What I began by reading, I must finish by acting.

After all, life hasn’t much to offer except youth, and I suppose for older people, the love of youth in others.

One cannot violate the promptings of one’s nature without having that nature recoil upon itself.

I am always ready to learn although I do not always like being taught.

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.

Every one of my regrets has produced a song I’m proud of.

Me, as a person, I grow. I’m like a chameleon. You know? That is a gift and a curse for me. But more so a gift, because it never puts me in a box.

A man’s own manner and character is what most becomes him.

I don’t think I’m tangible to myself.

It’s one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself, to forgive. Forgive everybody.

I can’t tell anybody else how to run their life or their business, but I really believe I’ve got a good bead on myself.

Know thyself? If I knew myself I would run away.

The only tyrant I accept in this world is the still voice within.

Thoughts are mental energy; they’re the currency that you have to attract what you desire. Learn to stop spending that currency on thoughts you don’t want.

Always take hold of things by the smooth handle.

You aren’t learning anything when you’re talking.

Sleep is all about recovering. So if you’re not sleeping, you’re not recovering. And if you’re going to break your body down a lot, you better find ways to build it back up. And the only way to do that is get a lot of sleep. So for me, I go to bed at like 8:30, 9:00. As soon as I put my kids to bed. Because I’m up at 5:30 the next day.