If we are to be happy, we must first react against our tendency to follow the line of least resistance, a tendency that causes us either to remain as we are, or to look primarily to activities external to ourselves for what will provide new impetus to our lives.

Thought must be divided against itself before it can come to any knowledge of itself.

Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.

Nine-tenths of wisdom is being wise in time.

I didn’t know how to deal with success. If there was a Rock Star 101, I would have liked to take it. It might have helped me.

We may define therapy as a search for value.

I was bullied as a boy – lots of kids are, but hopefully most of us get on with our lives and grow up.

You either make dust or eat dust.

Behavior is the mirror in which everyone shows their image.

The human body has two ends on it: one to create with and one to sit on. Sometimes people get their ends reversed. When this happens they need a kick in the seat of the pants.

The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.

No one has a greater asset for his business than a man’s pride in his work.

We must be our own before we can be another’s.

I heard a definition once: Happiness is health and a short memory! I wish I’d invented it, because it is very true.

The wisest hustler can suddenly fall for the worst tramp and lose all of his money on her. The hustler is aware of his own weaknesses and openings to con. This awareness is his edge.

I am what time, circumstance, history, have made of me, certainly, but I am also, much more than that. So are we all.

Man is fond of counting his troubles, but he does not count his joys. If he counted them up as he ought to, he would see that every lot has enough happiness provided for it.

Power over others is weakness disguised as strength.

All of our problems start in our minds.

My whole life is a theater piece.

No man is hurt but by himself.

Adversity is sometimes hard upon a man; but for one man who can stand prosperity, there are a hundred that will stand adversity.

People are looking for something a little more stable; people are feeling like they need to get closer to God.

Everybody has a purpose.

No one gossips about other people’s secret virtues.

My success isn’t a result of arrogance – it’s a result of belief.

I always say this about my music, and music in general: Music is like a time capsule. Each album reflects what I’m going through or what’s going on in my life at that moment.

I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself, I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself now and then in finding a smoother pebble or prettier shell than ordinary, while the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.

There is no security on this earth; there is only opportunity.

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.

If there is anything that a man can do well, I say let him do it. Give him a chance.

If you are not willing to risk the unusual, you will have to settle for the ordinary.

Bottom line is, I didn’t return to Apple to make a fortune. I’ve been very lucky in my life and already have one. When I was 25, my net worth was $100 million or so. I decided then that I wasn’t going to let it ruin my life. There’s no way you could ever spend it all, and I don’t view wealth as something that validates my intelligence.

We have two ears and one tongue so that we would listen more and talk less.

We boil at different degrees.

If someone has a really great boyfriend or career, I think, it’s cool that happens.

No man can succeed in a line of endeavor which he does not like.

If we don’t plant the right things, we will reap the wrong things. It goes without saying. And you don’t have to be, you know, a brilliant biochemist and you don’t have to have an IQ of 150. Just common sense tells you to be kind, ninny, fool. Be kind.

Poetry comes from the highest happiness or the deepest sorrow.

It is better to be the hammer than the anvil.

The earth laughs in flowers.

Love. Fall in love and stay in love. Write only what you love, and love what you write. The key word is love. You have to get up in the morning and write something you love, something to live for.

A person places themselves on a level with the ones they praise.

If your treat an individual… as if he were what he ought to be and could be, he will become what he ought to be and could be.

The unyielding resistance of the Cuban patriots is symbolized by our 5 Heroes. They shall never back down! They shall never surrender!

Sometimes the hardest thing to do is to trust your team. It’s a lesson I’ve had to relearn quite a few times.

If a small-town boy like me who bagged groceries was able to make his dreams come true, you can too.

I believe that one key to success is to accept truth, no matter how it’s spoken.

If you would take, you must first give, this is the beginning of intelligence.

I can be jubilant one moment and pensive the next, and a cloud could go by and make that happen.

Part of me suspects that I’m a loser, and the other part of me thinks I’m God Almighty.

This ain’t fun. But you watch me, I’ll get it done.

There are no constraints on the human mind, no walls around the human spirit, no barriers to our progress except those we ourselves erect.

A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.

The best way out is always through.

The left paw has done me well over the years. I’m not a scientist, I’m a martial artist.

I have a great respect for incremental improvement, and I’ve done that sort of thing in my life, but I’ve always been attracted to the more revolutionary changes. I don’t know why. Because they’re harder. They’re much more stressful emotionally. And you usually go through a period where everybody tells you that you’ve completely failed.

It’s getting harder to make decisions to just want to do something to work… I’m trying to find things that are extremely challenging or mean something to me deeply.

My enthusiasm seems to cause my world to endlessly offer me cooperative, co-creating experiences. I’m willing and I’m eager, and not just about my writing – I feel the same way about staying in shape, enjoying my family, giving a lecture, or whatever it may be.

I change my mind a lot. I usually don’t agree with what I say very much. I’m an awful liar.

I have an expression I use as I’ve gone around the world through my career: ‚You never tell another man or woman what’s in their interest. They know their interest better than you know their interest.‘