I never saw myself as a folk singer.

Prospering just doesn’t have to do with money.

Back in the day, what motivated me was overcoming myself. Now I believe in being a leader. I’ve done it all – I’m good. Now, it’s about setting an example for others to follow. I can’t just talk it – I have to live it.

If I am walking with two other men, each of them will serve as my teacher. I will pick out the good points of the one and imitate them, and the bad points of the other and correct them in myself.

It’s none of their business that you have to learn how to write. Let them think you were born that way.

If someone you know makes a bad decision or uses bad judgment, it doesn’t mean you have to allow that to alter your attitude. Why should you allow anyone else’s bad decisions to send you into a tailspin of misery?

We boil at different degrees.

No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path.

Healthy discontent is the prelude to progress.

You can bear your own faults, and why not a fault in your wife?

The greatest gift is a portion of thyself.

He who knows himself is enlightened.

To deal with individual human needs at the everyday level can be noble sometimes.

Real life is the life that’s in you, not your circumstances, like where you live or what job you have or who you’re in relationship with.

Difficulties are things that show a person what they are.

I worked with someone who told me they’d never like me. But for some reason, I just felt like I needed her approval. So I started changing myself to please her. It made me stop being social and friendly. I was so unhappy.

Our ambition should be to rule ourselves, the true kingdom for each one of us; and true progress is to know more, and be more, and to do more.

The hell to be endured hereafter, of which theology tells, is no worse than the hell we make for ourselves in this world by habitually fashioned our characters in the wrong way.

I know that I’m not the easiest person to live with. The challenge I put on myself is so great that the person I live with feels himself challenged. I bring a lot to bear, and I don’t know how not to.

Something I’ve realized lately, to my shock, is that I am an optimist, in that I think humans are almost infinitely capable of self-change and self-modification, and that we really can build the future that we want if we’re smart about it.

If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else.

I always believed that when you follow your heart or your gut, when you really follow the things that feel great to you, you can never lose, because settling is the worst feeling in the world.

Find out who you are. And do it on purpose.

When I was married, I definitely went through a lying period.

I’m reflective only in the sense that I learn to move forward. I reflect with a purpose.

People should pursue what they’re passionate about. That will make them happier than pretty much anything else.

Fear? If I have gained anything by damning myself, it is that I no longer have anything to fear.

The beginning of compunction is the beginning of a new life.

Don’t grow accustomed to living with less, doing less, and being less to the point that you eventually sit back and accept it.

I intend to inspire people with my story: motivate young people that grew up like myself, or even not like myself. Just, you know, go through the human experience.

You can’t have it all all at once. Over my lifespan, I think I have had it all, but in given periods in time, things were rough. And if you have a caring life partner, you help the other person when that person needs it.

The more one does and sees and feels, the more one is able to do, and the more genuine may be one’s appreciation of fundamental things like home, and love, and understanding companionship.

The spirit becomes free only when it ceases to be a support.

Every time you think the problem is ‚out there,‘ that very thought is the problem.

People don’t usually compliment your character.

There are phases in life which surface at times, and it makes you understand that despite you working hard, everything what you are doing is probably not enough. That’s when you need to look around, and beyond.

The fact is that since you’re a divine creation who originated in the world of Spirit, you have exactly the right amount of smarts to accomplish all that you need and want to do while you’re here on earth. It’s all perfect… and so are you!

You get one life. I’m going to embrace mine.

You have to be willing to go to war with yourself and create a whole new identity.

It’s always appealing to play a character that has to overcome himself as well as an obstacle. It makes the drama so much deeper.

That’s something I think is growing on me as I get older: happy endings.

One can be instructed in society, one is inspired only in solitude.

I want to solidify as an artist and show that as I grow as a person and make mistakes and learn from them, I’m going to grow artistically.

I had the classic 40 meltdown. I did. It’s embarrassing. It was pretty funny. But then I recovered. To me, it was like a second adolescence. Hormonally, my body was changing, my mind was changing, and so my relationship to myself and the world around me came to this assault of finiteness.

Every single one of us has a few months here or there that feel like dark months.

Experience is not what happens to you; it’s what you do with what happens to you.

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.

Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk with love and reverence.

I will praise any man that will praise me.

Friendship is always a sweet responsibility, never an opportunity.

I respect myself and insist upon it from everybody. And because I do it, I then respect everybody, too.

Egos are never nice. I have been a victim of it a lot of times in my career. Whenever I have used it, I have failed.

If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn’t part of ourselves doesn’t disturb us.

We are wiser than we know.

He who has so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition will waste his life in fruitless efforts.

Always do whatever’s next.

I never looked at my mantel and envisioned an MVP trophy sitting there. This is pretty crazy.

If you haven’t forgiven yourself something, how can you forgive others.

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

Live your life while you have it. Life is a splendid gift. There is nothing small in it. Far the greatest things grow by God’s law out of the smallest. But to live your life, you must discipline it.

When your higher self is present, it always promotes peace.