I liked school, but I used to dread those moments when the teacher would call me up to give an oral report. I forced myself to deal with it and not dwell on the class in front of me – to keep a straight face, give the report and concentrate on getting it right. That’s normally how I perform. That’s how I am.

For a highly motivated learner, it’s not like knowledge is secret and somehow the Internet made it not secret. It just made knowledge easy to find. If you’re a motivated enough learner, books are pretty good.

Success is not to be pursued; it is to be attracted by the person you become.

We are always getting ready to live but never living.

Life is thickly sown with thorns, and I know no other remedy than to pass quickly through them. The longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater is their power to harm us.

The only way to get love is to be lovable. It’s very irritating if you have a lot of money. You’d like to think you could write a check: ‚I’ll buy a million dollars‘ worth of love.‘ But it doesn’t work that way. The more you give love away, the more you get.

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

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 did stand-up for my grandparents every day when I was, like, eight.

A person standing in front of an audience without enthusiasm for his subject and his actions is disconnected from his spirit.

God gave you a brain. Do the best you can with it. And you don’t have to be Einstein, but Einstein was mentally tough. He believed what he believed. And he worked out things. And he argued with people who disagreed with him. But I’m sure he didn’t call everybody jerks.

We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.

When you are content to be simply yourself and don’t compare or compete, everybody will respect you.

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.

How very little can be done under the spirit of fear.

A man is what he thinks about all day long.

Pretension is a poor joke that you play on yourself. Snap out of it. Recognise your strengths, work on your weaknesses. Real achievement is liking what you see in the mirror every morning.

Shun no toil to make yourself remarkable by some talent or other; yet do not devote yourself to one branch exclusively. Strive to get clear notions about all. Give up no science entirely; for science is but one.

The relationship to one’s fellow man is the relationship of prayer, the relationship to oneself is the relationship of striving; it is from prayer that one draws the strength for one’s striving.

Honestly, I always believed in myself. For real, for real.

What the country needs is dirtier fingernails and cleaner minds.

I made my fair share of mistakes.

I’ll promise to go easier on drinking and to get to bed earlier, but not for you, fifty thousand dollars, or two-hundred and fifty thousand dollars will I give up women. They’re too much fun.

A self-taught man usually has a poor teacher and a worse student.

A master performer like Bill Clinton never lost sight of the fact that as president he had to project confidence and power, but if he was speaking to a group of autoworkers he would adjust his accent and his words to fit the audience, and do the same for a group of executives.

Little things affect little minds.

I always believe that there should come a time when your energy, speed, stamina should combine well with your brains.

If small things have the power to disturb you, then who you think you are is exactly that: small.

I’m never going to be fast, and nobody will ever mistake me for being fast.

I try to teach my heart not to want things it can’t have.

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

It’s very intense to be in front of a live audience. It’s just an amazing experience. It’s dangerous. Everything out there is heightened. The bad stuff is extra-worse. The silences are extra-silent. The good stuff is amazing. It’s electric when you walk out there. For 90 minutes, you’re on this other planet.

When you are offended at any man’s fault, turn to yourself and study your own failings. Then you will forget your anger.

I’m a writer, not a professional runner. It’s fun and it helps me write. I need powerful concentration.

I need to keep working on myself for a while.

Do not think of your faults, still less of other’s faults; look for what is good and strong, and try to imitate it. Your faults will drop off, like dead leaves, when their time comes.

Character isn’t something you were born with and can’t change, like your fingerprints. It’s something you weren’t born with and must take responsibility for forming.

I follow three rules: Do the right thing, do the best you can, and always show people you care.

The only way you gain mental toughness is to do things you’re not happy doing. If you continue doing things that you’re satisfied and make you happy, you’re not getting stronger. You’re staying where you’re at. Either you’re getting better, or you’re getting worse. You’re not staying the same.

No matter how much you rehearse on that stage, once you add 30,000 screaming people with flashing cameras into the equation, it’s pretty intense.

I never – you know also one of the things that would save me for a man my age, it was not that easy to lose that much weight and fall down and look like something draped.

I try to be the same person I was yesterday.

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

No work or love will flourish out of guilt, fear, or hollowness of heart, just as no valid plans for the future can be made by those who have no capacity for living now.

Your timeless self does not age and has no fear of the future. Contemplate your physical self and all its possessions, and practice laughing peacefully at it all.

A scholar who cherishes the love of comfort is not fit to be deemed a scholar.

Anticipate the difficult by managing the easy.

Mastering others is strength. Mastering yourself is true power.

The superior man is distressed by the limitations of his ability; he is not distressed by the fact that men do not recognize the ability that he has.

My dad was into the 1950s doo-wop era. If you look at those groups, or at James Brown, Jackie Wilson and the Temptations in the 1960s, you’ll see you had to be sharp onstage.

Our errors are surely not such awfully solemn things. In a world where we are so certain to incur them in spite of all our caution, a certain lightness of heart seems healthier than this excessive nervousness on their behalf.

Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content.

The only shame is to have none.

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

Wherever you are, be there totally. If you find your here and now intolerable and it makes you unhappy, you have three options: remove yourself from the situation, change it, or accept it totally. If you want to take responsibility for your life, you must choose one of those three options, and you must choose now. Then accept the consequences.

Character develops itself in the stream of life.

Beware of no man more than of yourself; we carry our worst enemies within us.

Boot camp sucks – SEAL training sucks – but you know what? That’s what makes you good.

There is a need for aloneness, which I don’t think most people realise for an actor. It’s almost having certain kinds of secrets for yourself that you’ll let the whole world in on only for a moment, when you’re acting. But everybody is always tugging at you. They’d all like sort of a chunk of you.

We have to wake up. We have to refuse to be a clone.

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