I believe that anyone can conquer fear by doing the things he fears to do, provided he keeps doing them until he gets a record of successful experience behind him.

Get up tomorrow early in the morning, and earlier than you did today, and do the best that you can. Always stay near me, for tomorrow I will have much to do and more than I ever had, and tomorrow blood will leave my body above the breast.

While musical experts of the world focus on what choir members can do, I would like to focus on what choir members can be.

Human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind.

The confessional is not a torture chamber, but the place in which the Lord’s mercy motivates us to do better.

Every day we have plenty of opportunities to get angry, stressed or offended. But what you’re doing when you indulge these negative emotions is giving something outside yourself power over your happiness. You can choose to not let little things upset you.

He who knows himself is enlightened.

We need to internalize this idea of excellence. Not many folks spend a lot of time trying to be excellent.

When I was about thirteen, the library was going to get ‚Calculus for the Practical Man.‘ By this time I knew, from reading the encyclopedia, that calculus was an important and interesting subject, and I ought to learn it.

Just as your car runs more smoothly and requires less energy to go faster and farther when the wheels are in perfect alignment, you perform better when your thoughts, feelings, emotions, goals, and values are in balance.

I want to do a certain thing in the world, and I am going to do it with unwavering concentration. I am concerning myself with only one essential thing: to set man free. I desire to free him from all cages, from all fears, and not to found religions, new sects, nor to establish new theories and new philosophies.

Because my dad abused me, I was determined to never let a man tell me what to do. God clearly showed me that I needed to be a submissive wife if I wanted to be effective in ministry. The truth is, if we don’t learn to submit to authority, we won’t ever learn to submit to God.

I learned that very often the most intolerant and narrow-minded people are the ones who congratulate themselves on their tolerance and open-mindedness.

A man is not finished when he is defeated. He is finished when he quits.

Follow your honest convictions and be strong.

We spend our lives, all of us, waiting for the great day, the great battle, or the deed of power. But that external consummation is not given to many: nor is it necessary. So long as our being is tensed, directed with passion, towards that which is the spirit of all things, then that spirit will emerge from our own hidden, nameless effort.

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

The best advice comes from people who don’t give advice.

Don’t ever criticize yourself. Don’t go around all day long thinking, ‚I’m unattractive, I’m slow, I’m not as smart as my brother.‘ God wasn’t having a bad day when he made you… If you don’t love yourself in the right way, you can’t love your neighbour. You can’t be as good as you are supposed to be.

Oh, God, I struggle with low self-esteem all the time! I think everyone does. I have so much wrong with me, it’s unbelievable!

The people in my songs are all me.

It is really very important while you are young to live in an environment in which there is no fear. Most of us, as we grow older, become frightened; we are afraid of living, afraid of losing a job, afraid of tradition, afraid of what the neighbours, or what the wife or husband would say, afraid of death.

My life is my argument.

We have to confront ourselves. Do we like what we see in the mirror? And, according to our light, according to our understanding, according to our courage, we will have to say yea or nay – and rise!

You don’t look out there for God, something in the sky, you look in you.

I always try to be myself. Ever since I was an introverted kid, I’d get on stage and be able to break out of my shell.

I used to pray that God would make me a great athlete, and He never did.

The challenge is to stay cool enough to handle the pressure in the moment so that you can succeed in the future.

What I have in common with the character in ‚Truman‘ is this incredible need to please people. I feel like I want to take care of everyone and I also feel this terrible guilt if I am unable to. And I have felt this way ever since all this success started.

Individuals need to be willing to face truth about their attitudes, behaviors, even what we want out of life.

Prison was the best thing that ever happened to me.

Develop an attitude of gratitude, and give thanks for everything that happens to you, knowing that every step forward is a step toward achieving something bigger and better than your current situation.

I think as long as I do a good job and put in all my effort to proving that I’m worth it, then everything should be fine.

Difficulties are things that show a person what they are.

Be as you wish to seem.

I love getting out of my comfort zone.

Success makes so many people hate you. I wish it wasn’t that way. It would be wonderful to enjoy success without seeing envy in the eyes of those around you.

You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe deserve your love and affection.

To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but at what he aspires to.

I don’t think I’m such an amazing person who needs to be written about.

Asking is the beginning of receiving. Make sure you don’t go to the ocean with a teaspoon. At least take a bucket so the kids won’t laugh at you.

I just do the best I can and write something interesting, to tell stories in an interesting way and move forward from there.

Life is about growing and improving and getting better.

He who controls others may be powerful, but he who has mastered himself is mightier still.

If anything is good for pounding humility into you permanently, it’s the restaurant business.

My overall look on things is a lot more mature than it used to be.

Complaining is dangerous business. It can damage or even destroy your relationship with God, your relationships with other people, and even with your relationship with yourself.

I think it’s healthy for a person to be nervous. It means you care – that you work hard and want to give a great performance. You just have to channel that nervous energy into the show.

It’s not the load that breaks you down, it’s the way you carry it.

I don’t have all the answers.

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

A lot of the problems I had with fame I was bringing on myself. A lot of self-loathing, a lot of woe-is-me. Now I’m learning to see the positive side of things, instead of, like, ‚I can’t go to Kmart. I can’t take my kids to the haunted house.‘

The things that transfixed you as a child, that you found most exciting was not a passing fancy, but a message about what you’re supposed to do.

I’m not a person who defends myself very often. I kind of let my actions speak for me.

I grow daily to honour facts more and more, and theory less and less. A fact, it seems to me, is a great thing; a sentence printed, if not by God, then at least by the Devil.

I think that I am better than the people who are trying to reform me.

If we keep doing what we’re doing, we’re going to keep getting what we’re getting.

Success does not consist in never making mistakes but in never making the same one a second time.

I have a personal ambition to live my life honestly and honor the true love that I’ve had and also the people I’ve had around me.

Doubt, of whatever kind, can be ended by action alone.

I’m trying to keep a level head. You have to be careful out in the world. It’s so easy to get turned.