However happy people say they are, nobody is satisfied: we always have to be with the prettiest woman, buy a bigger house, change cars, desire what we do not have.

I do believe in self-help.

What a blind person needs is not a teacher but another self.

Jealousy is both reasonable and belongs to reasonable men, while envy is base and belongs to the base, for the one makes himself get good things by jealousy, while the other does not allow his neighbour to have them through envy.

Work out your own salvation. Do not depend on others.

If I am not allowed to laugh in heaven, I don’t want to go there.

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

If a man does his best, what else is there?

It’s really hard to guarantee things in life. I guarantee if you get up in the morning and you work out, and you work hard, you will have a better day – 100% guaranteed.

A man who is not afraid is not aggressive, a man who has no sense of fear of any kind is really a free, a peaceful man.

Wrinkles will only go where the smiles have been.

A man can do what he wants, but not want what he wants.

To reform a world, to reform a nation, no wise man will undertake; and all but foolish men know, that the only solid, though a far slower reformation, is what each begins and perfects on himself.

There’s only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that’s your own self.

We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aid, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn.

Timidity makes a person modest. It makes him or her say, ‚I’m not worthy of being written up in the record of deeds in heaven or on earth.‘ Timidity keeps people from their good. They are afraid to say, ‚Yes, I deserve it.‘

How people treat you is their karma; how you react is yours.

As pessimistic as I am about the nature of human beings and our capacity for atrocity and malevolence and betrayal and laziness and inertia, and all those things, I think we can transcend all that and set things straight.

Always fall in with what you’re asked to accept. Take what is given, and make it over your way. My aim in life has always been to hold my own with whatever’s going. Not against: with.

To make headway, improve your head.

Become aware of your own insufficiency.

Every man who knows how to read has it in his power to magnify himself, to multiply the ways in which he exists, to make his life full, significant and interesting.

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 idea of recognising your strengths and using them in as versatile a way as you can is cool to me.

I think the best thing I ever did with my life was stand up and say I’ve got Alzheimer’s.

I restore myself when I’m alone.

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

Virtue she finds too painful an endeavour, content to dwell in decencies for ever.

Maybe other people will try to limit me but I don’t limit myself.

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’m not looking to freak people out – eating rodents or bugs. I don’t do that anymore.

It takes time to persuade men to do even what is for their own good.

I try to teach my heart not to want things it can’t have.

Value is what you get.

The nobler a man, the harder it is for him to suspect inferiority in others.

I never fall in love.

As a sportsperson, the best thing is people recognising you and loving you for what you do. For me, glamour is 100 people in the hotel feeling happy to see you.

Live the life you’ve dreamed.

I’m not a big believer in trying to jam stuff down somebody’s throat: ‚You’re going to do it my way.‘ I’d rather show by example and live my life and have people say, ‚You know what, I want to live like Joel has. He’s got peace and joy, and he seems content.‘

When you are discontent, you always want more, more, more. Your desire can never be satisfied. But when you practice contentment, you can say to yourself, ‚Oh yes – I already have everything that I really need.‘

Concentration is one of the happiest things in my life.

I claim to be a simple individual liable to err like any other fellow mortal. I own, however, that I have humility enough in me to confess my errors and to retrace my steps.

If in our daily life we can smile, if we can be peaceful and happy, not only we, but everyone will profit from it. This is the most basic kind of peace work.

You don’t have to give way to careless speech or complaining. You don’t have to let your feelings get in the way of what God wants to do in your life.

In all my work, in the movies I write, the lyrics, the poetry, the prose, the essays, I am saying that we may encounter many defeats – maybe it’s imperative that we encounter the defeats – but we are much stronger than we appear to be and maybe much better than we allow ourselves to be. Human beings are more alike than unalike.

One of the things I’ve told men over and over and over and over is if you’re being rejected by all the women that you approach, it’s not the women!

It’s no secret that in New York during the last 30 years there has been a tragic exodus from the churches into materialism, secularism and humanism.

Success is not greedy, as people think, but insignificant. That is why it satisfies nobody.

Do we not realize that self respect comes with self reliance?

I feel real good because it’s about representing the young world and how to uplift each other and how to push us to be greater and make sure we don’t fall or get trapped or get in trouble, you know what I mean. Stay focused, you know what I mean.

Realize deeply that the present moment is all you ever have. Make the Now the primary focus of your life.

I even found it difficult to watch myself playing on TV because I couldn’t identify with the person on the screen. I couldn’t get to grips with it. It was as if it was all happening to someone else.

There comes a time when people get tired of being pushed out of the glittering sunlight of life’s July and left standing amid the piercing chill of an alpine November.

To me, constructive criticism is when people take ownership of their ideas. That’s why I don’t listen to anything that’s anonymous. But it’s hard; when there’s something hurtful out there, I still want to read it over and over and memorize it and explain my point of view to the person.

Needing to have things perfect is the surest way to immobilize yourself with frustration.

I’m the kind of person who needs to feel like everything happens for a reason. When you date a guy and it goes badly, that’s horrible. But if you can write a song about it, then it was worth it.

For a man to conquer himself is the first and noblest of all victories.

I built a label at the same time I built a career.

I’d be more frightened by not using whatever abilities I’d been given. I’d be more frightened by procrastination and laziness.

Not only must we be good, but we must also be good for something.

It’s better to hang out with people better than you. Pick out associates whose behavior is better than yours and you’ll drift in that direction.