I always entertain the notion that I’m wrong, or that I’ll have to revise my opinion. Most of the time that feels good; sometimes it really hurts and is embarrassing.

I have never yet seen any plan which has not been mended by the observations of those who were much inferior in understanding to the person who took the lead in the business.

Me not finishing school – in my head, I still have this insecurity when I’m talking to someone educated.

As long as a man stands in his own way, everything seems to be in his way.

Success is like reaching an important birthday and finding you’re exactly the same.

Forget the past.

Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul.

There are some Christian people who taste and see and enjoy religion in their own souls, and who get at a deeper knowledge of it than books can ever give them, though they should search all their days.

The final forming of a person’s character lies in their own hands.

Whatever the universal nature assigns to any man at any time is for the good of that man at that time.

I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself, I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself now and then in finding a smoother pebble or prettier shell than ordinary, while the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.

Humanity, you never had it to begin with.

An author who speaks about their own books is almost as bad as a mother who speaks about her own children.

Is it not rather what we expect in men, that they should have numerous strands of experience lying side by side and never compare them with each other?

Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.

I’ve been searching for ways to heal myself, and I’ve found that kindness is the best way.

A man should always consider how much he has more than he wants.

The hardest thing for – not only an artist but for anybody to do is look themselves in the mirror and acknowledge, you know, their own flaws and fears and imperfections and put them out there in the open for people to relate to it.

People who boast about their I.Q. are losers.

The beginning of compunction is the beginning of a new life.

Things do not change; we change.

Use your health, even to the point of wearing it out. That is what it is for. Spend all you have before you die; do not outlive yourself.

Indeed, it is as important to learn how to receive a blessing as it is to be willing to give one.

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

Man the individual consoles himself for his passing with the thought of the offspring or the works which he leaves behind.

There are a lot of things I never did, because I believe in watching those true Hollywood stories and I see how easy it is to lose track of your life.

Some of us think holding on makes us strong; but sometimes it is letting go.

The spirit becomes free only when it ceases to be a support.

I always say, decisions I make, I live with them. There’s always ways you can correct them or ways you can do them better. At the end of the day, I live with them.

You’re going to die. You’re going to be dead. It could be 20 years, it could be tomorrow, anytime. So am I. I mean, we’re just going to be gone. The world’s going to go on without us. All right now. You do your job in the face of that, and how seriously you take yourself you decide for yourself.

Sometimes you must suffer through something to defeat your fear of it.

I’ve been called a moron since I was about four. My father called me a moron. My grandfather said I was a moron. And a lot of times when I’m driving, I hear I’m a moron. I like being a moron.

Seeing myself on the screen makes me cringe. I understand that I am that way – pouty.

Knowledge of the self is the mother of all knowledge. So it is incumbent on me to know my self, to know it completely, to know its minutiae, its characteristics, its subtleties, and its very atoms.

Sometimes when you’ve had a long series of disappointing things happen, you can get into the very bad habit of just expecting more of what you’ve already had.

The great epochs of our life are the occasions when we gain the courage to rebaptize our evil qualities as our best qualities.

If evil be spoken of you and it be true, correct yourself, if it be a lie, laugh at it.

I was at a New Year’s Eve party, and someone asked me how was my year, and I said, ‚I honestly think 2011 was the best year of my entire life,‘ and I actually meant it.

Thirty-three-years-old, still creating art. It’s rage, it’s creativity, it’s pain, it’s hurt, but it’s the opportunity to still have my voice get out there through music.

The person you consider ignorant and insignificant is the one who came from God, that he might learn bliss from grief and knowledge from gloom.

Forgiveness is not a feeling – it’s a decision we make because we want to do what’s right before God. It’s a quality decision that won’t be easy and it may take time to get through the process, depending on the severity of the offense.

I love money because I’ve earned it. I won sixty G’s with my first knockout – and the week before, I was collecting social welfare.

Nobody can hurt me without my permission.

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.

Most of my young years were spent under the boots of the military.

Although the circumstances of our lives may seem very disengaged, with me standing here as the First Lady of the United States of America and you just getting through school, I want you to know we have very much in common. For nothing in my life ever would have predicted that I would be standing here as the first African-American First Lady.

People should pursue what they’re passionate about. That will make them happier than pretty much anything else.

It’s certainly not wrong to want to be a better person. God gave us that desire.

I soothe my conscience now with the thought that it is better for hard words to be on paper than that Mummy should carry them in her heart.

Those who know me know I’m passionate about lists, and top of my list of priorities is my family. My wife Joan and I do not consider our legacy to our children to be wealth or fame but the opportunity to pursue happiness by following their own path.

The thing I always say to people is this: ‚If you avoid failure, you also avoid success.‘

I don’t think you get successful to brag and throw what you have in the world’s face. That’s all private.

Action may not bring happiness but there is no happiness without action.

I’m a genetic optimist.

If you’re not ready for everything, you’re not ready for anything.

The highest result of education is tolerance.

I was not an anthropology student prior to the war. I took it up as part of a personal readjustment following some bewildering experiences as an infantryman and later as a prisoner of war in Dresden, Germany. The science of the Study of Man has been extremely satisfactory from that personal standpoint.

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

Especially for those of us who lived in single cells, you had the time to sit down and think, and we discovered that sitting down just to think is one of the best ways of keeping yourself fresh and able, to be able to address the problems facing you, and you had the opportunity, also, of examining your past.

You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.

I’m almost like three people. There’s me the, Dolly, the person. There’s me, the star. And then there’s me, the manager.