I had no talent for science. What was infinitely worse: all my fraternity brothers were engineers.

I’m not a marketing person. I don’t ask myself questions. I go by instinct.

I’ve always been very one-sided about science, and when I was younger, I concentrated almost all my effort on it.

We are second-hand people. We have lived on what we have been told, either guided by our inclinations, our tendencies, or compelled to accept by circumstances and environment. We are the result of all kinds of influences, and there is nothing new in us, nothing that we have discovered for ourselves: nothing original, pristine, clear.

Thoughts are fine when you don’t confuse them with who you are, and then thoughts are not a problem. Thinking is a wonderful tool to create things in this world. It only becomes problematic and a source of suffering when you confuse thinking with who you are.

Every human has four endowments – self awareness, conscience, independent will and creative imagination. These give us the ultimate human freedom… The power to choose, to respond, to change.

Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong.

I feel like you get more bees with honey. But that doesn’t mean I don’t get frustrated in my life. My way of dealing with frustration is to shut down and to think and speak logically.

One can not reflect in streaming water. Only those who know internal peace can give it to others.

Science and mindfulness complement each other in helping people to eat well and maintain their health and well-being.

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.

Experience does not err. Only your judgments err by expecting from her what is not in her power.

Shall I not have intelligence with the earth? Am I not partly leaves and vegetable mould myself.

I don’t consider myself an intellectual. And this is not one of my aims. But I admire intellectual people.

I never wanted to be a scientist per se. I wanted to be a naturalist.

Science is a tool, and we invent tools to do things we want. It’s a question of how those tools are used by people.

At 50, I began to know who I was. It was like waking up to myself.

Let us be absolutely clear about one thing: we must not confuse humility with false modesty or servility.

There’s a difference in thinking you are a champion and knowing that you are.

We all self-conscious. I’m just the first to admit it.

Observe all men, thyself most.

I don’t think a lot of people know personally who I am.

I have seen many storms in my life. Most storms have caught me by surprise, so I had to learn very quickly to look further and understand that I am not capable of controlling the weather, to exercise the art of patience and to respect the fury of nature.

Just because I managed to do a little something, I don’t want anyone back home to think I got the big head.

Science never makes things that do not have to do with what we feel, by which I mean what we want and what we fear.

The only real progress lies in learning to be wrong all alone.

Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.

If I went back to my 20-year-old self, what I would tell my 20-year-old self is, ‚You don’t know anything.‘ Because everyone, when they’re young, they think they know what’s going on in the world, and you don’t.

I don’t need to be vindicated, and I don’t want attention.

Science has explained nothing; the more we know the more fantastic the world becomes and the profounder the surrounding darkness.

Man’s enemies are not demons, but human beings like himself.

Avoid popularity if you would have peace.

I’ve learned people are watching, so don’t do nothing stupid.

I’m much more comfortable and confident running out on the field in front of 70,000 people instead of standing in front of a camera trying to say some lines. The people who do that as a profession are very talented because it’s certainly not easy.

When you are spiritually connected, you are not looking for occasions to be offended, and you are not judging and labeling others. You are in a state of grace in which you know you are connected to God and thus free from the effects of anyone or anything external to yourself.

Somehow, we have come to the erroneous belief that we are all but flesh, blood, and bones, and that’s all. So we direct our values to material things.

I’m actually a very honest person, and sometimes I end up like, ‚Man, I said too much.‘ It’s hard for me not to tell the truth when you ask me.

Only the shallow know themselves.

I was always taught not to answer no questions. I’m not really good at answering them because I get agitated so fast.

Your net worth to the world is usually determined by what remains after your bad habits are subtracted from your good ones.

People who are unable to motivate themselves must be content with mediocrity, no matter how impressive their other talents.

I think that God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated his ability.

Talking much about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself.

I don’t look at myself as a commodity, but I’m sure a lot of people have.

Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance.

Sometimes I catch myself stooping, and whenever I am like that, I am sure something is not quite right.

In dwelling, live close to the ground. In thinking, keep to the simple. In conflict, be fair and generous. In governing, don’t try to control. In work, do what you enjoy. In family life, be completely present.

I’m not confused. I’m just well mixed.

What a waste it is to lose one’s mind. Or not to have a mind is being very wasteful. How true that is.

Hip-hop saved my life, man. It’s the only thing I’ve ever been even decent at. I don’t know how to do anything else.

We are never deceived; we deceive ourselves.

Breathe in deeply to bring your mind home to your body. Then look at, or think of, the person triggering this emotion: With mindfulness, you can see that she is unhappy, that she is suffering. You can see her wrong perceptions. You can see that she is not beautiful when she says things that are unkind.

Mastery passes often for egotism.

You can have no dominion greater or less than that over yourself.

The mouth obeys poorly when the heart murmurs.

Cut out all these exclamation points. An exclamation point is like laughing at your own joke.

Little things affect little minds.

I look only to the good qualities of men. Not being faultless myself, I won’t presume to probe into the faults of others.

Pride is an independent, me-oriented spirit. It makes people arrogant, rude and hard to get along with. When our heart is prideful, we don’t give God the credit and we mistreat people, looking down on them and thinking we deserve what we have.

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.

Many people would be surprised that, in fact, I’m quite shy.