I think everybody’s trying to get to a place in themselves where they conquer what they was afraid of; they achieve some of their life goals, kept their word about what they were trying to do.

My goal was never to be the loudest or the craziest. It was to be the most entertaining.

Do whatever you will, but first be such as are able to will.

No matter what your mission is, have some notion in your head. Forget the model, whether it’s government or nonprofit or profit. Ask yourself the more important question: Is my mission improving the world? Are you sure about it? Seek to disconfirm that all the time. And if you can, change your mission.

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

Do what nobody else can do for you. Omit to do anything else.

People grow through experience if they meet life honestly and courageously. This is how character is built.

There are a lot of ‚chicken Christians.‘ Chickens are generally afraid of life, and they seldom fly or reach their potential in life. And when a storm comes, all they seem to do is flap around the chicken yard, stirring up dirt and running to the chicken house.

You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‚I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.‘

We need to internalize this idea of excellence. Not many folks spend a lot of time trying to be excellent.

I have a memory, and I can just eliminate mistakes when they come up because I’ve already made them.

I am who I am and I say what I think. I’m not putting a face on for the record.

I do not abuse players. I talk to myself; I abuse myself. It’s my way of letting off steam. I do it after every century; I do not do it always. I keep telling myself: ‚Improve, improve from the previous match, the previous shot. You can do it.‘

My favorite thing in life is writing about life, specifically the parts of life concerning love. Because, as far as I’m concerned, love is absolutely everything.

They would not find me changed from him they knew – only more sure of all I thought was true.

Remind yourself that the greatest technique for bringing peace into your life is to always choose being kind when you have a choice between being right or being kind.

Running taught me valuable lessons. In cross-country competition, training counted more than intrinsic ability, and I could compensate for a lack of natural aptitude with diligence and discipline. I applied this in everything I did.

If you want small changes in your life, work on your attitude. But if you want big and primary changes, work on your paradigm.

I’ve always had a problem with the average macho man – they’ve always been a threat to me.

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

I’ve 20,000 hours of clinical practice; you’re not naive after the first few thousand. I’ve helped people deal with things that most people can’t imagine.

When people get taken over by the ego to such an extent, there is nothing else in their mind except the ego. They can no longer feel or sense their humanity – what they share with other human beings, or even with other life forms on the planet. They are so identified with concepts in their minds that other human beings become concepts as well.

When you realize who you live for, and who’s important to please, a lot of people will actually start living. I am never going to get caught up in that. I’m gonna look back on my life and say that I enjoyed it – and I lived it for me.

Impart as much as you can of your spiritual being to those who are on the road with you, and accept as something precious what comes back to you from them.

You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose. You’re on your own, and you know what you know. And you are the guy who’ll decide where to go.

The more people I reach, the more people there are that have opinions about me. Not everyone loves me, but I have to be okay no matter what they think about me.

As far as men go, it is not what they are that interests me, but what they can become.

I am not a particularly thick-skinned person.

As we advance in life it becomes more and more difficult, but in fighting the difficulties the inmost strength of the heart is developed.

The person who has lived the most is not the one with the most years but the one with the richest experiences.

You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.

Nobody can bring you peace but yourself.

Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It’s perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we’ve learned something from yesterday.

I’ve made my share of mistakes along the way, but if I have changed even one life for the better, I haven’t lived in vain.

Everyone goes through adversity in life, but what matters is how you learn from it.

I break ground. I trailblaze.

I have brought myself, by long meditation, to the conviction that a human being with a settled purpose must accomplish it, and that nothing can resist a will which will stake even existence upon its fulfillment.

If you want to succeed you should strike out on new paths, rather than travel the worn paths of accepted success.

I will not be concerned at other men’s not knowing me; I will be concerned at my own want of ability.

I lived a sloppy life. So I took very small increments in my life. I started making my bed. I started cleaning my room. There were dishes in the sink. It started off with doing small house chores. I saw that the yard needed to be mowed. So instead of being told it needed to be mowed, I would mow it.

If you get your ego in your way, you will only look to other people and circumstances to blame.

I grew up with the sea, and poverty for me was sumptuous; then I lost the sea and found all luxuries gray and poverty unbearable.

I think I could go away tomorrow. I’ve already accomplished something. It’s such a selfish business that sometimes I get sick of myself.

Libraries raised me.

We may never be strong enough to be entirely nonviolent in thought, word and deed. But we must keep nonviolence as our goal and make strong progress towards it.

I think the best thing I ever did with my life was stand up and say I’ve got Alzheimer’s.

He knows my limitations and where I’m a good wife and a good mom.

Only stupid people are changed by success.

My moms always told me, ‚How long you gonna play the victim?‘ I can say I’m mad and I hate everything, but nothing really changes until I change myself.

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.

‚Worry‘ is a word that I don’t allow myself to use.

In every real man a child is hidden that wants to play.

In my next incarnation, I want to be a writer.

The world is put back by the death of every one who has to sacrifice the development of his or her peculiar gifts to conventionality.

The competitor to be feared is one who never bothers about you at all, but goes on making his own business better all the time.

I always knew from that moment, from the time I found myself at home in that little segregated library in the South, all the way up until I walked up the steps of the New York City library, I always felt, in any town, if I can get to a library, I’ll be OK. It really helped me as a child, and that never left me.

Everyone has been in love, at some point or another.

I’m not going to change the world. You’re not going to change the world. But we can help – we can all help.

Many a man’s strength is in opposition, and when he faileth, he grows out of use.

I always had music growing up, but music was also like a journal. It was like my personal diary or personal journal. A lot of the things I couldn’t express to an individual, I would express them in my music.

Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darknesses of other people.