I want to do a certain thing in the world, and I am going to do it with unwavering concentration. I am concerning myself with only one essential thing: to set man free. I desire to free him from all cages, from all fears, and not to found religions, new sects, nor to establish new theories and new philosophies.

Writing is good, thinking is better. Cleverness is good, patience is better.

You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn’t wear a veil. You know, guys like that ain’t got no manhood left anyway.

Any man can make mistakes, but only an idiot persists in his error.

I don’t believe we are supposed to go through life defeated and not having enough money to pay our bills or send our kids to college.

Science is what you know, philosophy is what you don’t know.

The way to gain a good reputation is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear.

Whatever talents I possess may suddenly diminish or suddenly increase. I can with ease become an ordinary fool. I may be one now. But it doesn’t do to upset one’s own vanity.

The best way to enhance freedom in other lands is to demonstrate here that our democratic system is worthy of emulation.

For most of us, wisdom is acquired in the thicket of experience and usually meets us somewhere along the way if we live long enough. But sooner is better than later.

Think twice before you speak, because your words and influence will plant the seed of either success or failure in the mind of another.

I maintain that Truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect.

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 couldn’t go to college, so I went to the library three days a week for 10 years.

Freedom in general may be defined as the absence of obstacles to the realization of desires.

The way of fortune is like the milkyway in the sky; which is a number of small stars, not seen asunder, but giving light together: so it is a number of little and scarce discerned virtues, or rather faculties and customs, that make men fortunate.

I would just like to say something, ladies and gentlemen. Something that I think is very important. It is that, you, we – we own this country. We – we own it. It is not you owning it, and not politicians owning it. Politicians are employees of ours.

Those who hope for no other life are dead even for this.

People can try to reinvent themselves. I don’t think you can really change who you are, though, because who you are is pretty much where you came from and what you’ve done up to now.

A truly good book teaches me better than to read it. I must soon lay it down, and commence living on its hint. What I began by reading, I must finish by acting.

There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat. And we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures.

The experience of life consists of the experience which the spirit has of itself in matter and as matter, in mind and as mind, in emotion, as emotion, etc.

I think the brain is essentially a computer and consciousness is like a computer program. It will cease to run when the computer is turned off. Theoretically, it could be re-created on a neural network, but that would be very difficult, as it would require all one’s memories.

Some people carry their heart in their head and some carry their head in their heart. The trick is to keep them apart yet working together.

In the divine milieu, all the elements of the universe touch each other by that which is most inward and ultimate in them. There they concentrate, little by little, all that is purest and most attractive in them without loss and without danger of subsequent corruption.

We all know we have a finite period of time. I just feel if I’m going to be alive, I want to be challenged – to be as immortal as possible. The path to that isn’t an easy way, but it’s a rewarding way.

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.‘

I find with most of my readers are kind of like me, sort of people who were a little bit naive in life and then learned the hard way that this is what’s going on, the political games and most of my readers write to me telling me that the book helped them open their eyes to what other people are doing to them.

I would rather make my name than inherit it.

I’ve used my femininity and my sexuality as a weapon and a tool… but that’s just natural.

There’s room for role models who make mistakes.

As I get older, I tend to put more into family than I used to.

Sometimes you must suffer through something to defeat your fear of it.

Egoism is the very essence of a noble soul.

Some days I totally appreciate everything that’s happening to me, and some days I feel everyone’s waiting for me to mess up.

I want to work; then, as my kids get older, I want to have adventures. I want to visit all their countries: learn and live inside all their cultures.

A man who suffers before it is necessary, suffers more than is necessary.

We do not know what we want and yet we are responsible for what we are – that is the fact.

What the devil is the point of surviving, going on living, when it’s a drag? But you see, that’s what people do.

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

I’m confident in who I am. I’ve come to a place in my life where I’ve accepted things that are me, as opposed to feeling pressure to explain myself to people around me. That’s just the way I’ve always tried to be. It didn’t change when I became a star.

Indeed, it is as important to learn how to receive a blessing as it is to be willing to give one.

Don’t ever criticize yourself. Don’t go around all day long thinking, ‚I’m unattractive, I’m slow, I’m not as smart as my brother.‘ God wasn’t having a bad day when he made you… If you don’t love yourself in the right way, you can’t love your neighbour. You can’t be as good as you are supposed to be.

True liberal government is founded on the emancipation of men.

There is nothing wrong with America that faith, love of freedom, intelligence, and energy of her citizens cannot cure.

Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

Only those are fit to live who are not afraid to die.

Heaven is dumb, echoing only the dumb.

Sin cannot be conceived in a natural state, but only in a civil state, where it is decreed by common consent what is good or bad.

Freedom makes a huge requirement of every human being. With freedom comes responsibility. For the person who is unwilling to grow up, the person who does not want to carry his own weight, this is a frightening prospect.

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.

I had a lovers quarrel with the world.

Glam really did plant seeds for a new identity. I think a lot of kids needed that – that sense of reinvention. Kids learned that however crazy you may think it is, there is a place for what you want to do and who you want to be.

And yet it moves.

We are never deceived; we deceive ourselves.

I don’t have all the answers.

I believe that if you show people the problems and you show them the solutions they will be moved to act.

I’m aware that, whatever the circumstances, there will always be speculation about me.

Mystical explanations are thought to be deep; the truth is that they are not even shallow.

I cry so much less than I used to. I used to be one of the most teary people.

If you were the President of the United States or the Queen of England – you couldn’t have a person who would be more protective than my mother was for me. Which meant really that I could dare to do all sorts of things.