If anything is good for pounding humility into you permanently, it’s the restaurant business.

The block of granite which was an obstacle in the pathway of the weak, became a stepping-stone in the pathway of the strong.

There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered.

Deficiency motivation doesn’t work. It will lead to a life-long pursuit of try to fix me. Learn to appreciate what you have and where and who you are.

Vanity can create a very cruel space for you if you don’t know how to manage it.

Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.

I invented my life by taking for granted that everything I did not like would have an opposite, which I would like.

Strength and growth come only through continuous effort and struggle.

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

When I was a youngster I lived with different families. I nearly always felt closer to the man of the house. Maybe because I always dreamed of having a father of my own.

He ate and drank the precious Words, his Spirit grew robust; He knew no more that he was poor, nor that his frame was Dust.

It’s stasis that kills you off in the end, not ambition.

I am very fond of truth, but not at all of martyrdom.

Does anybody really think that they didn’t get what they had because they didn’t have the talent or the strength or the endurance or the commitment?

Never complain. Never explain.

One thing Britons have always been celebrated for, and that is being able to stick it out in a tight place.

‚Trilogy‘ was more of a claustrophobic body of work. Before it was released, I hadn’t left my city for 21 years, and I had never been on a plane, not once. I spent my entire life on one setting; that’s probably why pieces of the album feel like one long track, because that’s what my life felt like. It felt like one long song.

The unsuccessful person is burdened by learning, and prefers to walk down familiar paths. Their distaste for learning stunts their growth and limits their influence.

Virtue she finds too painful an endeavour, content to dwell in decencies for ever.

It is the peculiar quality of a fool to perceive the faults of others and to forget his own.

My own dreams fortunately came true in this great state. I became Mr. Universe; I became a successful businessman. And even though some people say I still speak with a slight accent, I have reached the top of the acting profession.

The reason that I’m here at all is because of my relationship with my family and their encouragement of me to be a musician and to work hard. As long as I stay there in that space, I can do anything. That’s my truth.

As soon as I accomplish one goal, I replace it with another one. I try not to get too far ahead of myself. I just say to myself, ‚All right, well, I’d like to headline a tour,‘ and then when I get there, we’ll see what my next goal is.

For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged, by better information or fuller consideration, to change opinions, even on important subjects, which I once thought right but found to be otherwise.

You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.

Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you.

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.

I grew up in an environment where being polite was taken as a weakness. So I just fought everybody.

Life is hard. After all, it kills you.

Whenever things go a bit sour in a job I’m doing, I always tell myself, ‚You can do better than this.‘

In the beginning, I was very insecure. I hated how I looked in pictures.

Beware of the man who does not return your blow: he neither forgives you nor allows you to forgive yourself.

Maxim for life: You get treated in life the way you teach people to treat you.

Why is it so hard for people to believe that white people are poor?! I wouldn’t say I lived in a ghetto; I’d say I lived in the ‚hood. The same friends I had back then are the same people on tour with me now.

I don’t really know that much about love, it turns out.

Hope is favorable and confident expectation; it’s an expectant attitude that something good is going to happen and things will work out, no matter what situation we’re facing.

I am absolutely my own biggest critic.

I think I mainly climb mountains because I get a great deal of enjoyment out of it. I never attempt to analyze these things too thoroughly, but I think that all mountaineers do get a great deal of satisfaction out of overcoming some challenge which they think is very difficult for them, or which perhaps may be a little dangerous.

You have to put in many, many, many tiny efforts that nobody sees or appreciates before you achieve anything worthwhile.

We could never learn to be brave and patient, if there were only joy in the world.

The way is long if one follows precepts, but short… if one follows patterns.

We must use time as a tool, not as a couch.

We need to recognize that the situation in Ferguson speaks to broader challenges that we still face as a nation. The fact is, in too many parts of this country, a deep distrust exists between law enforcement and communities of color. Some of this is the result of the legacy of racial discrimination in this country.

If you can do a half-assed job of anything, you’re a one-eyed man in a kingdom of the blind.

To survive it is often necessary to fight and to fight you have to dirty yourself.

Trust yourself. Create the kind of self that you will be happy to live with all your life. Make the most of yourself by fanning the tiny, inner sparks of possibility into flames of achievement.

A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike. And all plans, safeguards, policing, and coercion are fruitless. We find that after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us.

Life’s too short to hang out with people who aren’t resourceful.

No great man ever complains of want of opportunity.

We learn martial arts as helping weakness. You never fight for people to get hurt. You’re always helping people.

I try to be the same person I was yesterday.

Those who are believed to be most abject and humble are usually most ambitious and envious.

Confidence is always a good thing to have going into the weekend. Especially where it’s quite difficult to put the lap together.

I guess there is nothing that will get your mind off everything like golf. I have never been depressed enough to take up the game, but they say you get so sore at yourself you forget to hate your enemies.

I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday.

Just as we develop our physical muscles through overcoming opposition – such as lifting weights – we develop our character muscles by overcoming challenges and adversity.

When you are in any contest, you should work as if there were – to the very last minute – a chance to lose it. This is battle, this is politics, this is anything.

When I do something, I do it full steam ahead.

We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think. When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves.

It’s not easy being young. It’s hard to know what to do.

Freedom is what everyone wants – to be able to act and live with freedom. But the only way to get to a place of freedom is through discipline.