I like criticism. It makes you strong.

None of the records I make are ever a deliberate construction – they’re always an expression of who I am at the time and where I am in my life.

Courageous people do not fear forgiving, for the sake of peace.

I’ve learned that you shouldn’t go through life with a catcher’s mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw something back.

One must verify or expel his doubts, and convert them into the certainty of Yes or NO.

I don’t care if people I admire criticize me because their opinion is valuable to me.

When I was making the early stuff, I never expected it to be so big. I was in my own kind of bubble. I never wanted to tour; I just wanted to create music and make a diary I could put out into the world. And sometimes, I became the characters.

God has entrusted me with myself.

Spiritual people don’t float around all day on clouds of glory; they live in the real world and deal with real issues in real ways.

Do what you feel in your heart to be right- for you’ll be criticized anyway. You’ll be damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.

Many people identify their sense of self with the problems they have, or think they have.

Man can alter his life by altering his thinking.

Every one of my regrets has produced a song I’m proud of.

If a man does his best, what else is there?

I don’t tell people, ‚You’re okay the way that you are.‘ That’s not the right story. The right story is, ‚You’re way less than you could be.‘

Secretly we’re all a little more absurd than we make ourselves out to be.

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

I was brought up as an only child, and we were very close. But when I was 14, we got evicted. We came home to a padlock, and I looked up at my mom and she was crying, and there was nothing to do.

The essence of philosophy is that a man should so live that his happiness shall depend as little as possible on external things.

Every man is a consumer, and ought to be a producer. He is by constitution expensive, and needs to be rich.

Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes.

To add value to others, one must first value others.

I fear that too many have sadly surrendered their agency to the adversary and are saying by their conduct, ‚I care more about satisfying my own desires than I do about bearing the Savior’s power to bless others.‘

When we tackle obstacles, we find hidden reserves of courage and resilience we did not know we had. And it is only when we are faced with failure do we realise that these resources were always there within us. We only need to find them and move on with our lives.

America is just downright mean.

Only by joy and sorrow does a person know anything about themselves and their destiny. They learn what to do and what to avoid.

Success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom.

We must use time as a tool, not as a couch.

It’s like, remember who you always were, where you came from, who your parents were, how they raised you. Because that authentic self is going to follow you all through life, so make sure that it’s solid so it’s something that you can hold on and be proud of for the rest of your life.

You must do the things you think you cannot do.

The presence of passion within you is the greatest gift you can receive. Treat it as a miracle.

Forget the past.

Some virtues are only seen in affliction and others only in prosperity.

Before finding music, I didn’t have too many aspirations. I wanted to hang out, make a little money from whatever I had to do.

We do not yet possess ourselves, and we know at the same time that we are much more.

People want you to fail.

It’s normal for human beings to identify with their own separate self. The problem is that we get caught in that notion of ourself as a separate individual and caught in that individual self’s agenda.

Let’s be very clear: Strong men – men who are truly role models – don’t need to put down women to make themselves feel powerful. People who are truly strong lift others up. People who are truly powerful bring others together.

I think we need more idiot control.

The greatest of faults, I should say, is to be conscious of none.

How much easier it is to be critical than to be correct.

We should not look back unless it is to derive useful lessons from past errors, and for the purpose of profiting by dearly bought experience.

My friends, no matter how rough the road may be, we can and we will, never, never surrender to what is right.

I don’t think there’s anyone who would say they don’t want or need more of God’s power in their life.

History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.

Just remember, you can’t climb the ladder of success with your hands in your pockets.

The British soldier can stand up to anything except the British War Office.

Self-pity in its early stage is as snug as a feather mattress. Only when it hardens does it become uncomfortable.

Do you wish people to think well of you? Don’t speak well of yourself.

Men must know their limitations.

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.

Only by contending with challenges that seem to be beyond your strength to handle at the moment you can grow more surely toward the stars.

I just didn’t want to get out there anymore; I didn’t want to get back into what I call ‚the swamp.‘ And the other reason why is I don’t think it’s good for the presidency for a former president to be opining about his successor. President Obama’s got plenty of critics – and I’m just not gonna be one.

In oneself lies the whole world and if you know how to look and learn, the door is there and the key is in your hand. Nobody on earth can give you either the key or the door to open, except yourself.

I believe that God has put gifts and talents and ability on the inside of every one of us. When you develop that and you believe in yourself and you believe that you’re a person of influence and a person of purpose, I believe you can rise up out of any situation.

You must never be satisfied with losing. You must get angry, terribly angry, about losing. But the mark of the good loser is that he takes his anger out on himself and not his victorious opponents or on his teammates.

I’ve learned a lot since I was a new mother. My approach to struggle and shame now is to talk to yourself like you’d talk to someone you love and reach out to tell your story.

Even when we have physical hardships, we can be very happy.

I use a stream-of-consciousness approach; if you don’t censor yourself, you end up with what you’re most concerned about, but you haven’t filtered it through your conscious mind. Then you craft it.

Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.

We should take care not to make the intellect our goal; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality.