I was always taught not to answer no questions. I’m not really good at answering them because I get agitated so fast.

An alcoholic is someone you don’t like who drinks as much as you do.

Example is leadership.

Life is not accumulation, it is about contribution.

You leave old habits behind by starting out with the thought, ‚I release the need for this in my life‘.

Only the really plain people know about love – the very fascinating ones try so hard to create an impression that they soon exhaust their talents.

A man should look for what is, and not for what he thinks should be.

The first duty of man is to conquer fear; he must get rid of it, he cannot act till then.

I have promised myself that I’m going to do everything I can for as long as I can.

It is best to love wisely, no doubt; but to love foolishly is better than not to be able to love at all.

If you’re embarrassed because you have some notion about how men are supposed to behave, and it doesn’t include weeping, then you have some personal work to do.

It is better to do one’s own duty, however defective it may be, than to follow the duty of another, however well one may perform it. He who does his duty as his own nature reveals it, never sins.

It is far better to be alone, than to be in bad company.

The Nation of Islam’s main focus was teaching black pride and self-awareness. Why should we keep trying to force ourselves into white restaurants and schools when white people didn’t want us? Why not clean up our own neighborhoods and schools instead of trying to move out of them and into white people’s neighborhoods?

As pessimistic as I am about the nature of human beings and our capacity for atrocity and malevolence and betrayal and laziness and inertia, and all those things, I think we can transcend all that and set things straight.

The proactive approach to a mistake is to acknowledge it instantly, correct and learn from it.

It’s a very strange thing being recognized or looked upon as someone special.

Intellectual passion drives out sensuality.

Don’t make me into this airy-fairy, moralist, idealist because I’m not.

Each of us has a vision of good and of evil. We have to encourage people to move towards what they think is good… Everyone has his own idea of good and evil and must choose to follow the good and fight evil as he conceives them. That would be enough to make the world a better place.

Some people have a hard time getting rid of stuff. If that’s you, pray for God to give you the courage to get rid of things you don’t really need or things He wants you to give away. This will help keep your surroundings organized and clutter-free.

No, I’m not a French designer either. I’m from nowhere. I’m a European, old European is all I am.

I had given up some youth for knowledge, but my gain was more valuable than the loss.

Between stimulus and response, there is a space where we choose our response.

The first quality that is needed is audacity.

People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar.

See, when you drive home today, you’ve got a big windshield on the front of your car. And you’ve got a little bitty rearview mirror. And the reason the windshield is so large and the rearview mirror is so small is because what’s happened in your past is not near as important as what’s in your future.

If you’ve got a talent, protect it.

Just try new things. Don’t be afraid. Step out of your comfort zones and soar, all right?

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

Perhaps it is better to be irresponsible and right, than to be responsible and wrong.

Real riches are the riches possessed inside.

Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.

Reform is not pleasant, but grievous; no person can reform themselves without suffering and hard work, how much less a nation.

You might not always get what you want, but you always get what you expect.

All the breaks you need in life wait within your imagination, Imagination is the workshop of your mind, capable of turning mind energy into accomplishment and wealth.

Never bend your head. Always hold it high. Look the world straight in the eye.

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.

To be wronged is nothing unless you continue to remember it.

You carry Mother Earth within you. She is not outside of you. Mother Earth is not just your environment.

I am a sinner. This is the most accurate definition. It is not a figure of speech, a literary genre. I am a sinner.

Knowing that you are going to die is, I suspect, the beginning of wisdom.

I always say, decisions I make, I live with them. There’s always ways you can correct them or ways you can do them better. At the end of the day, I live with them.

I just think it’s so important not to take yourself too seriously.

Only one who devotes himself to a cause with his whole strength and soul can be a true master. For this reason mastery demands all of a person.

I can’t pretend that I’m brave and that I can beat the whole world.

When a person cannot deceive himself the chances are against his being able to deceive other people.

On a given day, a given circumstance, you think you have a limit.

There is no need for temples, no need for complicated philosophies. My brain and my heart are my temples; my philosophy is kindness.

Courage – you develop courage by doing small things like just as if you wouldn’t want to pick up a 100-pound weight without preparing yourself.

Every man supposes himself not to be fully understood or appreciated.

The more nobly a man wills and acts, the more avid he becomes for great and sublime aims to pursue. He will no longer be content with family, country, and the remunerative aspect of his work. He will want wider organisations to create, new paths to blaze, causes to uphold, truths to discover, an ideal to cherish and defend.

I always try to do as much as I can do. I’m never a person that does not enough, because I’d regret not doing enough and think I probably could have done more. I probably go too far and have to reel myself back in, which works in some things, and other things it doesn’t work.

We dissect failure a lot more than we dissect success.

Truth cannot be brought down; rather, the individual must make the effort to ascend to it. You cannot bring the mountaintop to the valley. If you would attain to the mountaintop, you must pass through the valley, climb the steeps, unafraid of the dangerous precipices.

Believing in progress does not mean believing that any progress has yet been made.

I’m nobody, who are you?

Your most important work is always ahead of you, never behind you.

To create something you must be something.

I don’t want to spend the rest of my life giving speeches.

Resist the need to be ‚right‘ all the time or to always have the last word.