I have always had this view about the modern education system: we pay attention to brain development, but the development of warmheartedness we take for granted.

You’re always learning. The problem is, sometimes you stop and think you understand the world. This is not correct. The world is always moving. You never reach the point you can stop making an effort.

All cruelty springs from weakness.

It is after all the greatest art to limit and isolate oneself.

I’m ugly.

I suppose my best attribute, if you want to call it that, is sincerity. I can sell sincerity because that’s the way I am.

An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.

No one has a right to consume happiness without producing it.

The simple act of paying attention can take you a long way.

Everybody has a creative potential and from the moment you can express this creative potential, you can start changing the world.

I’ve actually not read any books on time management.

I’m 31 now. I think I’m beginning to understand what life is, what romance is, and what a relationship means.

Mastering others is strength. Mastering yourself is true power.

I spent three days a week for 10 years educating myself in the public library, and it’s better than college. People should educate themselves – you can get a complete education for no money. At the end of 10 years, I had read every book in the library and I’d written a thousand stories.

They know enough who know how to learn.

Even when you’re 50, you can make the effort to improve your standards.

Self-control means wanting to be effective at some random point in the infinite radiations of my spiritual existence.

In the long run, we shape our lives, and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility.

The first story I finished was when I was six years old.

I am a good listener. I think that came from my schooling.

From my childhood I had been intended for the clergy. This prospect hung like a dark cloud on my mind.

Be careless in your dress if you must, but keep a tidy soul.

I think a role model is a mentor – someone you see on a daily basis, and you learn from them.

It’s like a muscle – if you stop going to the gym or stop running, you get weak. The military teaches you these great values, but we don’t keep up the discipline on our own, and we lose it. So wherever you go, keep that discipline up.

Tomorrow, every Fault is to be amended; but that Tomorrow never comes.

I knew I wasn’t going to be a rocket scientist – let’s not be fools – but I wasn’t going to be a bum.

This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.

You may be always victorious if you will never enter into any contest where the issue does not wholly depend upon yourself.

It is important for you to know who you are and who you may become. It is more important than what you do, even as vital as your work is and will be.

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.

It is folly for a man to pray to the gods for that which he has the power to obtain by himself.

An idealist is a person who helps other people to be prosperous.

Getting stress out of your life takes more than prayer alone. You must take action to make changes and stop doing whatever is causing the stress. You can learn to calm down in the way you handle things.

Between stimulus and response, there is a space where we choose our response.

It takes tremendous discipline to control the influence, the power you have over other people’s lives.

Everybody has goals, aspirations or whatever, and everybody has been at a point in their life where nobody believed in them.

If you want a quality, act as if you already had it.

The biggest guru-mantra is: never share your secrets with anybody. It will destroy you.

Life is partly what we make it, and partly what it is made by the friends we choose.

Increase of material comforts, it may be generally laid down, does not in any way whatsoever conduce to moral growth.

If you want to be successful, it’s just this simple. Know what you are doing. Love what you are doing. And believe in what you are doing.

Modesty is not only an ornament, but also a guard to virtue.

Consider a tree for a moment. As beautiful as trees are to look at, we don’t see what goes on underground – as they grow roots. Trees must develop deep roots in order to grow strong and produce their beauty. But we don’t see the roots. We just see and enjoy the beauty. In much the same way, what goes on inside of us is like the roots of a tree.

Respect your efforts, respect yourself. Self-respect leads to self-discipline. When you have both firmly under your belt, that’s real power.

It’s honestly true that money means nothing to me.

I already am a product.

I don’t look at my old work. I mean, they made nice books; the books were made without me, the one from last year and the one from this year. I – personally, I’m not interested in my own past. I’m only interested in today – perhaps tomorrow.

I feel you’re in charge of your own situation.

Man is not the sum of what he has already, but rather the sum of what he does not yet have, of what he could have.

Reading is a basic tool in the living of a good life.

We should seek the greatest value of our action.

What’s dangerous is not to evolve.

I learned a long time ago how to be coachable.

Anything you’re good at contributes to happiness.

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

I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies; for the hardest victory is over self.

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

If you’re put on a pedestal, you’re supposed to behave yourself like a pedestal type of person. Pedestals actually have a limited circumference. Not much room to move around.

Perfectionism is not the same thing as striving to be our best. Perfectionism is not about healthy achievement and growth; it’s a shield.

The best way to sell yourself to others is first to sell the others to yourself.

Our whole life is set up in the path of least resistance. We don’t want to suffer. We don’t want to feel discomfort. So the whole time, we’re living our lives in a very comfortable area. There’s no growth in that.