He who praises everybody, praises nobody.

Your most important work is always ahead of you, never behind you.

People can try to reinvent themselves. I don’t think you can really change who you are, though, because who you are is pretty much where you came from and what you’ve done up to now.

Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose.

There’s a victory, and defeat; the first and best of victories, the lowest and worst of defeats which each man gains or sustains at the hands not of another, but of himself.

I can express myself.

Man becomes great exactly in the degree in which he works for the welfare of his fellow-men.

I’m not perfect.

What consumerism really is, at its worst is getting people to buy things that don’t actually improve their lives.

I don’t know what drives me to succeed.

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

I will praise any man that will praise me.

I’ve never been a boyfriend kind of girl.

If a person gets his attitude toward money straight, it will help straighten out almost every other area in his life.

My ultimate goal is to end up being happy. Most of the time.

There’s only one effectively redemptive sacrifice, the sacrifice of self-will to make room for the knowledge of God.

If you have the ability to pick yourself up by the bootstraps and start over, you come out stronger because you learn from whatever mistakes you made.

If you’re embarrassed because you have some notion about how men are supposed to behave, and it doesn’t include weeping, then you have some personal work to do.

I believe every human has a finite number of heartbeats. I don’t intend to waste any of mine.

For a highly motivated learner, it’s not like knowledge is secret and somehow the Internet made it not secret. It just made knowledge easy to find. If you’re a motivated enough learner, books are pretty good.

Sometimes when you make a film you can go away for three months and then come back and live your life. But this struck a much deeper chord. I don’t have the ability yet to speak about it in an objective.

Everybody has a purpose.

There are no limitations to the mind except those we acknowledge.

There may sometimes be ungenerous attempts to keep a young man down; and they will succeed, too, if he allows his mind to be diverted from its true channel to brood over the attempted injury.

When one does away with oneself one does the most estimable thing possible: one thereby almost deserves to live.

I have total recall. I remember being born. I remember being in the womb, I remember being inside. Coming out was great.

God enters by a private door into every individual.

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.

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

Difficulties mastered are opportunities won.

You not supposed to feel down over whatever happen to you. I mean, you’re supposed to use whatever happen to you as some type of upper, not a downer.

Courage that grows from constitution often forsakes a man when he has occasion for it; courage which arises from a sense of duty acts; in a uniform manner.

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

Send forth the child and childish man together, and blush for the pride that libels our own old happy state, and gives its title to an ugly and distorted image.

To live is to find out for yourself what is true, and you can do this only when there is freedom, when there is continuous revolution inwardly, within yourself.

It is better to do one’s own duty, however defective it may be, than to follow the duty of another, however well one may perform it. He who does his duty as his own nature reveals it, never sins.

Better is the enemy of good.

Let the refining and improving of your own life keep you so busy that you have little time to criticize others.

I give opinions, not advice.

Your greatest asset is your earning ability. Your greatest resource is your time.

The best preparation for tomorrow is doing your best today.

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.

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

You get to a point where it’s like you can’t really do anything right, and people will pick on you for whatever decisions you make, so I just try and take no notice and get on with my music.

I didn’t want to be a fashion designer, and for a good half of my career I didn’t like it. I always wanted to do other things.

I think I mainly climb mountains because I get a great deal of enjoyment out of it. I never attempt to analyze these things too thoroughly, but I think that all mountaineers do get a great deal of satisfaction out of overcoming some challenge which they think is very difficult for them, or which perhaps may be a little dangerous.

Have you not learned that strength comes to an ordinary soul when given an extraordinary calling?

I’m confident in who I am. I’ve come to a place in my life where I’ve accepted things that are me, as opposed to feeling pressure to explain myself to people around me. That’s just the way I’ve always tried to be. It didn’t change when I became a star.

I have promised myself that I’m going to do everything I can for as long as I can.

Resist the need to be ‚right‘ all the time or to always have the last word.

We should purify our innate well of contentment – what a wonderful expression – and then external things will be in harmony with us.

I have always believed, and I still believe, that whatever good or bad fortune may come our way we can always give it meaning and transform it into something of value.

We cannot change anything until we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses.

Whenever I write a novel, I have a strong sense that I am doing something I was unable to do before. With each new work, I move up a step and discover something new inside me.

An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of preaching.

Learning to live for others isn’t something that just comes naturally to anybody. You have to train yourself to do it.

My favorite thing in life is writing about life, specifically the parts of life concerning love. Because, as far as I’m concerned, love is absolutely everything.

You must do the things you think you cannot do.

I used to worry about every little thing, trying to figure out every problem. Well, I realize now how foolish that was. I was no more in control of my life than the man on the moon.

Thirty was so strange for me. I’ve really had to come to terms with the fact that I am now a walking and talking adult.

Billy Graham is one of my great lifetime heroes. I think he epitomizes the essence of what a Christian leader should be. I have participated in some of his crusades a couple of times in Atlanta. I’ve seen the profound impact he’s had on me personally, and on other people who were not Christians and accepted Christ as Savior.