How much pain they have cost us, the evils which have never happened.

A man is what he thinks about all day long.

The ‚public‘ scares me, but people I trust.

Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.

Sometimes, I want to talk on a song and be angry, because I am angry. Then there’s always a part of me that remembers that this record lives past my being angry, and so do I really want to be angry about that? Is that feeling going to have longevity?

I have survivor’s curiosity, I guess.

Little minds are interested in the extraordinary; great minds in the commonplace.

No one can resist the idea of a crippled genius.

Things have never been more like the way they are today in history.

Everything that happens happens as it should, and if you observe carefully, you will find this to be so.

If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other person’s point of view and see things from that person’s angle as well as from your own.

I drive way too fast to worry about cholesterol.

Fear is present when we forget that we are a part of God’s divine design. Learning to experience authentic love means abandoning ego’s insistence that you have much to fear and that you are in an unfriendly world. You can make the decision to be free from fear and doubt and return to the brilliant light of love that is always with you.

My mother, I suppose, is still a main figure in my life because her life was so sad and unfair, and she so brave, but also because she was determined to make me into the Sunday-school-recitation little girl I was, from the age of seven or so, fighting not to be.

Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.

If I make music and people hate it, you know, whatever. I’ll die someday, and one day, they will too.

Against my will, in the course of my travels, the belief that everything worth knowing was known at Cambridge gradually wore off. In this respect my travels were very useful to me.

If we weren’t all crazy, we’d just go insane.

Usually, people have a tendency to be caught in the worries concerning the future or in the regret concerning the past. There is some kind of energy that is pushing them to run, and they are not able to establish themselves in the present moment.

A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.

When fate hands you a lemon, make lemonade.

If there is one thing I fear less than everything else, it is, I believe, persecution for my opinions. There are a good many points about which I may be diffident, but when it comes to questions of Truth and intellectual independence, there is no holding me – I can envisage no finer end than to sacrifice oneself for a conviction.

It doesn’t matter if the water is cold or warm if you’re going to have to wade through it anyway.

Death obsesses me, yes it does. I can’t really understand why it doesn’t obsess everyone – I think it does really, I’m just a little more out about it.

A pessimist? That’s a person who has been intimately acquainted with an optimist.

I won’t touch on risky, because that’s subjective. People are just afraid of things too much. Afraid of things that don’t necessarily merit fear.

I couldn’t talk to people face to face, so I got on stage and started screaming and squealing and twitching.

Nothing happens to any man that he is not formed by nature to bear.

Cursing is invoking the assistance of a spirit to help you inflict suffering. Swearing on the other hand, is invoking, only the witness of a spirit to an statement you wish to make.

I try to live what I teach. A lot of things come against us in life, but we should try to find something to be grateful for, and see each day as a gift.

The happiness of this life depends less on what befalls you than the way in which you take it.

I’m not a complete psychopath. Am I partially? Sure. I’ll accept that. But I’m not a complete psychopath.

People want to tear me down, they were going to knife me anyway.

Part of the reason that our politics seems so tough right now and facts and science and argument does not seem to be winning the day all the time is because we’re hardwired not to always think clearly when we’re scared. And the country’s scared.

It isn’t what you have, or who you are, or where you are, or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about.

I think that as you grow up, as you get older, we can’t get bitter, we can’t get jaded.

We’re not a fragile people. We’re not a frightful people. Our power doesn’t come from some self-declared savior promising that he alone can restore order as long as we do things his way. We don’t look to be ruled.

An oppressive government is more to be feared than a tiger.

Your life is like a play with several acts. Some of the characters who enter have short roles to play, others, much larger. Some are villains and others are good guys. But all of them are necessary; otherwise, they wouldn’t be in the play. Embrace them all, and move on to the next act.

Life is not a series of gig lamps symmetrically arranged; life is a luminous halo, a semi-transparent envelope surrounding us from the beginning of consciousness to the end.

I’ve had no contact with my daughter for years. That’s her choice. Anyway, you move on. If people don’t want to bother with me, fine. You know, God bless them, and move on.

Were it not for imagination a man would be as happy in arms of a chambermaid as of a duchess.

Facts do not speak for themselves. They speak for or against competing theories. Facts divorced from theories or visions are mere isolated curiosities.

It requires more courage to suffer than to die.

Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.

Changing is not just changing the things outside of us. First of all we need the right view that transcends all notions including of being and non-being, creator and creature, mind and spirit. That kind of insight is crucial for transformation and healing.

The deferring of anger is the best antidote to anger.

Thinking is a wonderful tool if it’s applied. Thinking, however, can not become the master. Thinking is a very bad master. If you’re dominated by thinking then your life becomes very restricted.

My general attitude to life is to enjoy every minute of every day. I never do anything with a feeling of, ‚Oh God, I’ve got to do this today.‘

Shame is the most powerful, master emotion. It’s the fear that we’re not good enough.

Man never thinks himself happy, but when he enjoys those things which others want or desire.

We have two ears and one tongue so that we would listen more and talk less.

When your soul is resting, your emotions are okay, your mind is okay, and your will is at peace with God, not resisting what He’s doing.

Must is a hard nut to crack, but it has a sweet kernel.

Arrange whatever pieces come your way.

Control thy passions lest they take vengence on thee.

Life is too short for long-term grudges.

No one’s policing their own minds more than an author. You spend a lot of time in your own head analysing what you think about things, and a philosophy comes.

All wrong-doing arises because of mind. If mind is transformed can wrong-doing remain?

Give yourself more opportunities for privacy, when you are not bombarded with duties and obligations. Privacy is not a rejection of those you love; it is your deserved respite for recharging your batteries.

Yeah, I wasn’t chosen to be first. I was just chosen to command that flight. Circumstance put me in that particular role. That wasn’t planned by anyone.