If you are living out of a sense of obligation you are slave.

All I’m for is the liberty of the individual.

I am in my own head most of the time.

Send forth the child and childish man together, and blush for the pride that libels our own old happy state, and gives its title to an ugly and distorted image.

The person you consider ignorant and insignificant is the one who came from God, that he might learn bliss from grief and knowledge from gloom.

One’s philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes… and the choices we make are ultimately our responsibility.

It’s none of their business that you have to learn how to write. Let them think you were born that way.

Peace is one of the most precious gifts God has promised His children. I know, because for many years my life was not peaceful, and I was miserable.

People intoxicate themselves with work so they won’t see how they really are.

A well adjusted person is one who makes the same mistake twice without getting nervous.

There are only two kinds of men: the righteous who think they are sinners and the sinners who think they are righteous.

It’s the journey of self, I guess. You start with this kind of loner, outside guy, which a lot of people can relate to, and he goes out into the world.

I have learned to know God. I have recast my social belief… All my admirers are married; most of my friends are dead; and I stand with all the world before me, where to choose a path to make in it.

Of course, when I say that human nature is gentleness, it is not 100 percent so. Every human being has that nature, but there are many people acting against their nature, being false.

When you are discontent, you always want more, more, more. Your desire can never be satisfied. But when you practice contentment, you can say to yourself, ‚Oh yes – I already have everything that I really need.‘

We all have two lives: an inner life and an outer life. Your inner life is your soul life, which includes your mind, will and emotions. Your outer life is your physical life. And while God cares about every detail of your life, He is more concerned with your inner life than your outer life.

There are no second acts in American lives.

Living at risk is jumping off the cliff and building your wings on the way down.

Every time you think the problem is ‚out there,‘ that very thought is the problem.

The man never feels the want of what it never occurs to him to ask for.

Things do not always happen the way I would like them to happen, and I had better get used to that.

People are more aware now of cities and of different ways of life. I suppose the writing I do is a bit in the past, and I’m not sure it’s the kind of writing I would do if I were starting now.

I am not a particularly thick-skinned person.

The thing I always say to people is this: ‚If you avoid failure, you also avoid success.‘

Maturity is a bitter disappointment for which no remedy exists, unless laughter could be said to remedy anything.

Why does your mind conform? Have you ever asked? Are you aware that you are conforming to a pattern? It doesn’t matter what that pattern is, whether you have established a pattern for yourself or it has been established for you.

We should not look back unless it is to derive useful lessons from past errors, and for the purpose of profiting by dearly bought experience.

The hardest thing for – not only an artist but for anybody to do is look themselves in the mirror and acknowledge, you know, their own flaws and fears and imperfections and put them out there in the open for people to relate to it.

I don’t think I’m bad for people. If I did think I was bad for people, I would go back to driving a truck, and I really mean this.

It’s not the daily increase but daily decrease. Hack away at the unessential.

He who knows that enough is enough will always have enough.

A new breeze is blowing, and a world refreshed by freedom seems reborn; for in man’s heart, if not in fact, the day of the dictator is over. The totalitarian era is passing, its old ideas blown away like leaves from an ancient, lifeless tree.

If you know me, and you call me Stefani, you don’t really know me at all.

I have seen many storms in my life. Most storms have caught me by surprise, so I had to learn very quickly to look further and understand that I am not capable of controlling the weather, to exercise the art of patience and to respect the fury of nature.

I think the worst part about a breakup sometimes, if one could choose a worst part, would possibly be if you get out of a relationship, and you don’t recognize yourself because you changed a lot about you.

College isn’t in everyone’s hearts. I am living proof, though, that school doesn’t mess up your plans. It gives you more experiences to write about.

I try to be the same person I was yesterday.

Everything you are against weakens you. Everything you are for empowers you.

He who is not everyday conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life.

I’m not going to change the way I look or the way I feel to conform to anything. I’ve always been a freak. So I’ve been a freak all my life and I have to live with that, you know. I’m one of those people.

I’m not looking to freak people out – eating rodents or bugs. I don’t do that anymore.

I wish they would only take me as I am.

Being a full human being is difficult, frightening, and problematical.

We think too much and feel too little.

Learn to say ‚no‘ to the good so you can say ‚yes‘ to the best.

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.

We must, all of us, learn actually not to have enemies, but only confused adversaries who are ourselves in disguise.

You need to understand what works best for your own body.

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

The truth doesn’t hurt unless it ought to.

Few men would dare to read their own autobiography if all their deeds were recorded in it; few can look back upon their entire career without a blush.

An Englishman thinks he is moral when he is only uncomfortable.

I said I was ‚The Greatest,‘ I never said I was the smartest!

If you plan on being anything less than you are capable of being, you will probably be unhappy all the days of your life.

We should every night call ourselves to an account: what infirmity have I mastered today? what passions opposed? what temptation resisted? what virtue acquired? Our vices will abate of themselves if they be brought every day to the shrift.

We begin to see, therefore, the importance of selecting our environment with the greatest of care, because environment is the mental feeding ground out of which the food that goes into our minds is extracted.

Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without.

When I came into this industry, I was never afraid to be myself.

If you don’t know your full-throttle history, the whole story of how you came to where you are, it’s kind of hard to put things together.

I went through a period when I felt my film characters were having more fun than I was. It might partly explain why I ended up tattooed or doing certain extreme things in my life.

Shall I not have intelligence with the earth? Am I not partly leaves and vegetable mould myself.