I believe in believing. My coach John Kavanagh is a big atheist, and he is always trying to persuade people to his way of thinking, and I think, ‚What a waste of energy.‘ If people want to believe in this god or that god, that’s fine by me; believe away. But I think we can be our own gods. I believe in myself.

If selfishness is the key to being miserable, then selflessness must be the key to being happy!

If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.

I think being an atheist is something you are, not something you do.

I can imagine it’s hard to make a relationship last. I wouldn’t know.

If you study the writings of the mystics, you will always find things in them that appear to be paradoxes, as in Zen, particularly.

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 philosophy is it’s none of my business what people say of me and think of me. I am what I am, and I do what I do. I expect nothing and accept everything. And it makes life so much easier.

I have to keep improving myself and challenging myself.

Observe all men, thyself most.

I don’t see myself as a philosopher. That’s awfully boring.

One of the lessons that I grew up with was to always stay true to yourself and never let what somebody else says distract you from your goals. And so when I hear about negative and false attacks, I really don’t invest any energy in them, because I know who I am.

If it is surely the means to the highest end we know, can any work be humble or disgusting? Will it not rather be elevating as a ladder, the means by which we are translated?

I find with most of my readers are kind of like me, sort of people who were a little bit naive in life and then learned the hard way that this is what’s going on, the political games and most of my readers write to me telling me that the book helped them open their eyes to what other people are doing to them.

If you want to succeed you should strike out on new paths, rather than travel the worn paths of accepted success.

Although I’m only fourteen, I know quite well what I want. I know who is right and who is wrong. I have my opinions, my own ideas and principles, and although it may sound pretty mad from an adolescent, I feel more of a person than a child. I feel quite independent of anyone.

Once I realized that right thinking is vital to victorious living, I got more serious about thinking about what I was thinking about, and choosing my thoughts carefully.

The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.

I have been chosen by God Almighty to be one of his messengers.

I like to take every day just searching my own heart, making sure that I’m on course, and I’m doing what God wants me to do. I’m real good with not looking to the critics and looking straight ahead.

Whenever I climb I am followed by a dog called ‚Ego‘.

My work is the only ground I’ve ever had to stand on. To put it bluntly, I seem to have a whole superstructure with no foundation, but I’m working on the foundation.

I think it’s my responsibility, as a person of influence… to sometimes try to do what I can.

There is but one cause of human failure. And that is man’s lack of faith in his true Self.

Don’t part with your illusions. When they are gone, you may still exist, but you have ceased to live.

Living at risk is jumping off the cliff and building your wings on the way down.

Wisdom allows nothing to be good that will not be so forever; no man to be happy but he that needs no other happiness than what he has within himself; no man to be great or powerful that is not master of himself.

He knows my limitations and where I’m a good wife and a good mom.

Too many Christians live their lives like slaves – to the devil – because they believe his lies more than they trust God.

True virtue is life under the direction of reason.

Successful people are always looking for opportunities to help others. Unsuccessful people are always asking, ‚What’s in it for me?‘

If you’re serious, you really understand that it’s important that you laugh as much as possible and admit that you’re the funniest person you ever met. You have to laugh. Admit that you’re funny. Otherwise, you die in solemnity.

I have survivor’s curiosity, I guess.

I’m not afraid to look like an idiot.

I have nothing to ask but that you would remove to the other side, that you may not, by intercepting the sunshine, take from me what you cannot give.

So many people are looking at what’s wrong, and I try to encourage them to look at what’s right in their life. A lot of people have it a lot worse than you do.

It is in self-limitation that a master first shows himself.

It’s one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself, to forgive. Forgive everybody.

Who shall decide when doctors disagree, And soundest casuists doubt, like you and me?

I’m afraid that everything will get homogenized and be the same.

All things truly wicked start from innocence.

Why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me.

It’s not a faith in technology. It’s faith in people.

Why should it be essential to love rarely in order to love much?

The battle is all over except the ‚shouting‘ when one knows what is wanted and has made up his mind to get it, whatever the price may be.

There is nothing in this world that can compare with the Christian fellowship; nothing that can satisfy but Christ.

I know that I’ve been guided by God. I am obedient.

At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worst.

There are going to be things I’m not going to be great at, times when I make mistakes, 100%.

Philosophy begins in wonder.

The Sisters of Notre Dame at St. Aloysius Grade School influenced my life tremendously. This was due to the fact that they encouraged you always to make sure that God is the focus of your life, and they didn’t allow you to do anything except to the very best of your ability.

Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man.

Chaos often breeds life, when order breeds habit.

It’s the philosophies of being an athlete that carry me today.

Marriage is a school itself. Also, having children. Becoming a father changed my whole life. It taught me as if by revelation.

I am certain no one sets out to be cruel, but our treatment of the elderly ill seems to have no philosophy to it. As a society, we should establish whether we have a policy of life at any cost.

Good men by nature, wish to know. I know that many will call this useless work… men who desire nothing but material riches and are absolutely devoid of that of wisdom, which is the food and only true riches of the mind.

When you seek the presence of your creative Spirit and are filled with passion about virtually everything you undertake, you’ll successfully remove the roadblocks from your life and enjoy the active presence of Spirit.

O wretched man, wretched not just because of what you are, but also because you do not know how wretched you are!

The best part about being in your thirties is you know what works for you.

I have held many things in my hands, and I have lost them all; but whatever I have placed in God’s hands, that I still possess.