For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged, by better information or fuller consideration, to change opinions, even on important subjects, which I once thought right but found to be otherwise.

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

What I am looking for is not out there, it is in me.

I’m living in the present, thinking about the past, hoping for the future.

The reason I became 297 pounds is because that was comfortable. What was very uncomfortable was running. What was very uncomfortable was being on a diet. What was very uncomfortable was trying to face things that I didn’t want to face. And I also realized, when I was really big, I had no growth. Why? Because I was living comfortable.

I have thought there was some advantage even in death, by which we mingle with the herd of common men.

Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god.

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

Imagine your family finally making it from nothing to something, and finally getting things going, and finally buying a beautiful house and taking care of your children – and the next day, it’s completely all gone. Zero. Boom. Flat broke. So that’s when I had to man up.

One always dies too soon or too late. And yet, life is there, finished: the line is drawn, and it must all be added up. You are nothing other than your life.

You don’t have to be like everybody else or do things like everybody else. God created you to be a unique individual, and He wants you to be free to be who He made you to be.

When you are content to be simply yourself and don’t compare or compete, everybody will respect you.

There are people in the world who have skills and strength and talent that I will never have. Never. These notions that you can ‚be whatever you want to be as long as you want it bad enough‘ are not true. They are fairy tales.

If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.

The spiritual is the parent of the practical.

The more I see the less I know for sure.

What I want for my fans and for the world, for anyone who feels pain, is to lean into that pain and embrace it as much as they can and begin the healing process.

I always wanted a family.

Never let your ego get so close to your position that when your position goes, your ego goes with it.

No man is rich enough to buy back his past.

There is nothing happens to any person but what was in his power to go through with.

Because you know when you first become famous, you start walking a little different because people are staring at you.

I do all the evil I can before I learn to shun it? Is it not enough to know the evil to shun it? If not, we should be sincere enough to admit that we love evil too well to give it up.

I’ve had a few semi-toxic relationships, but it’s not what I look for when I’m seeing someone.

Few women, I fear, have had such reason as I have to think the long sad years of youth were worth living for the sake of middle age.

I think one’s feelings waste themselves in words; they ought all to be distilled into actions which bring results.

I’m never going to be fast, and nobody will ever mistake me for being fast.

The good things of prosperity are to be wished; but the good things that belong to adversity are to be admired.

I know I will never be happy, but I know I can be gay!

I can very well do without God both in my life and in my painting, but I cannot, suffering as I am, do without something which is greater than I am, which is my life, the power to create.

I feel like my music has become a lot of things. It’s hard to label the evolution, but I like there to be an evolution. I just like to paint with all different kinds of colors.

You can either be a host to God, or a hostage to your ego. It’s your call.

My theory has always been, that if we are to dream, the flatteries of hope are as cheap, and pleasanter, than the gloom of despair.

Sports are such a great teacher. I think of everything they’ve taught me: camaraderie, humility, how to resolve differences.

Every man casts a shadow; not his body only, but his imperfectly mingled spirit. This is his grief. Let him turn which way he will, it falls opposite to the sun; short at noon, long at eve. Did you never see it?

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

Some people carry their heart in their head and some carry their head in their heart. The trick is to keep them apart yet working together.

I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever.

We are always doing something for posterity, but I would fain see posterity do something for us.

One must know oneself. If this does not serve to discover truth, it at least serves as a rule of life and there is nothing better.

God gives the nuts, but he does not crack them.

Very often, say what you will, a knave is only a fool.

Man was born free, and he is everywhere in chains.

Somehow, we have come to the erroneous belief that we are all but flesh, blood, and bones, and that’s all. So we direct our values to material things.

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

Different men seek after happiness in different ways and by different means, and so make for themselves different modes of life and forms of government.

What was God doing before the divine creation?

You are a child of the sun, you come from the sun, and that is something true with the Earth also… your relationship with the Earth is so deep, and the Earth is in you and this is something not very difficult, much less difficult then philosophy.

I am happy and I’m single.

You have to develop ways so that you can take up for yourself, and then you take up for someone else. And so sooner or later, you have enough courage to really stand up for the human race and say, ‚I’m a representative.‘

Knowledge is true opinion.

These are the soul’s changes. I don’t believe in ageing. I believe in forever altering one’s aspect to the sun. Hence my optimism.

Showing off is the fool’s idea of glory.

O God, O God, how weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of this world!

Religion is something left over from the infancy of our intelligence, it will fade away as we adopt reason and science as our guidelines.

If the people are happy, united, wealthy, and powerful, we presume the rest. We conclude that to be good from whence good is derived.

I have discovered that just because we grow weaker physically as we age, it doesn’t mean that we must grow weaker spiritually.

There is no such thing as justice in the abstract; it is merely a compact between men.

I am prepared to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.

My whole life is a theater piece.

Every man is rich or poor according to the proportion between his desires and his enjoyments.