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

I think that there is never an indispensable leader, you know? I think that there is a time with dignity that one needs to leave.

Many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.

I think writing really helps you heal yourself. I think if you write long enough, you will be a healthy person. That is, if you write what you need to write, as opposed to what will make money, or what will make fame.

I’m always attracted to people who interest me. They’ve got to be people who are really true to themselves somehow, and who are always trying to do something that makes their life more interesting, or better, or something for somebody else. They’re interested in people.

I’m concerned that my technical skills have advanced to the point where I can get closer to what I’m aiming for, which is not such a good thing.

Everyone has been in love, at some point or another.

The more people I reach, the more people there are that have opinions about me. Not everyone loves me, but I have to be okay no matter what they think about me.

Play not with paradoxes. That caustic which you handle in order to scorch others may happen to sear your own fingers and make them dead to the quality of things.

Your life is like a play with several acts. Some of the characters who enter have short roles to play, others, much larger. Some are villains and others are good guys. But all of them are necessary; otherwise, they wouldn’t be in the play. Embrace them all, and move on to the next act.

I never expected to be anybody important.

Unbeing dead isn’t being alive.

Our ambition should be to rule ourselves, the true kingdom for each one of us; and true progress is to know more, and be more, and to do more.

You’ll never find a better sparring partner than adversity.

Such as we are made of, such we be.

If some years were added to my life, I would give fifty to the study of the Yi, and then I might come to be without great faults.

Frustration is a sign I am acting independently. The more you try your own way, the tighter the doors will stay closed.

I deeply regret any harm, or any perceived harm, that I may have done to anyone by any behaviour of mine.

I don’t see the point of doing an interview unless you’re going to share the things you learn in life and the mistakes you make. So to admit that I’m extremely human and have done some dark things I don’t think makes me unusual or unusually dark. I think it actually is the right thing to do, and I’d like to think it’s the nice thing to do.

If we live a self-directed, self-motivated, self-centered life, always needing to get our own way, then we’re going to be miserable. In fact, many times we believe it’s our problems that are making us unhappy when, in reality, it’s because we’re focused on ourselves!

Early on in my life, I had a broken soul. I was abused by my father, abandoned by my mother and ended up in a destructive first marriage. By the time I was 23, I was broken in my soul. I didn’t know how to think right. I felt wrong about everything. But God stepped into my life, and I came out on the other side and didn’t even smell like smoke.

The world we see that seems so insane is the result of a belief system that is not working. To perceive the world differently, we must be willing to change our belief system, let the past slip away, expand our sense of now, and dissolve the fear in our minds.

I don’t crave applause. I’m not one of those guys who comes alive on stage. I’m much more alive at home, I think.

In a universe that’s an intelligent system with a divine creative force supporting it, there simply can be no accidents. As tough as it is to acknowledge, you had to go through what you went through in order to get to where you are today, and the evidence is that you did.

I’ve never professed to be anything but an average student.

I always had faith in my creative capacity.

The young think that failure is the Siberian end of the line, banishment from all the living, and tend to do what I then did – which was to hide.

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

God didn’t make me to make movies, flex muscles, buy gold. What you love the most becomes your God… If I never make another dollar, my life is complete.

The roots of the problems we face in the world, in our national life, and in our family and personal lives are spiritual.

The key is to keep company only with people who uplift you, whose presence calls forth your best.

I lived a sloppy life. So I took very small increments in my life. I started making my bed. I started cleaning my room. There were dishes in the sink. It started off with doing small house chores. I saw that the yard needed to be mowed. So instead of being told it needed to be mowed, I would mow it.

You can bear your own faults, and why not a fault in your wife?

That is my wish, hope, instruction for all of you: Take your education seriously, okay? Always do that. Because I wouldn’t be here today if it weren’t for my education.

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

Any hand that I’ve shaken, any person that I met when I was Joe Blow, now that I’m this guy Kevin Hart, has come back. That’s why I treat everybody with respect. I’m always a nice pleasant guy to meet because when they come back to you, they remember.

Money does not change people, people change.

There is only one difference between a madman and me. The madman thinks he is sane. I know I am mad.

Let us be absolutely clear about one thing: we must not confuse humility with false modesty or servility.

The beginning of compunction is the beginning of a new life.

Coaching wouldn’t be for me. No, certainly not.

The people of Northern Ireland have sorted out my whole life.

What a liberation to realize that the ‚voice in my head‘ is not who I am. ‚Who am I, then?‘ The one who sees that.

Love is an interesting thing. Perhaps I’ve never been in love before – I don’t really know? I think I have. I guess it’s subjective in that way.

I’ve always wanted to live above my means because it inspired me to work harder.

Every human being is under construction from conception to death.

The time when most of you should withdraw into yourself is when you are forced to be in a crowd.

If you cannot understand that there is something in man which responds to the challenge of this mountain and goes out to meet it, that the struggle is the struggle of life itself upward and forever upward, then you won’t see why we go.

Custom reconciles us to everything.

The reason I became 297 pounds is because that was comfortable. What was very uncomfortable was running. What was very uncomfortable was being on a diet. What was very uncomfortable was trying to face things that I didn’t want to face. And I also realized, when I was really big, I had no growth. Why? Because I was living comfortable.

No man ever prayed heartily without learning something.

I can’t tell anybody else how to run their life or their business, but I really believe I’ve got a good bead on myself.

You are only afraid if you are not in harmony with yourself. People are afraid because they have never owned up to themselves.

Would that I were a dry well, and that the people tossed stones into me, for that would be easier than to be a spring of flowing water that the thirsty pass by, and from which they avoid drinking.

When people are lame, they love to blame.

As for my own views, they’ve of course evolved over the years. This conception of ‚renouncing beliefs‘ is very odd, as if we’re in some kind of religious cult. I ‚renounce beliefs‘ practically every time I think about the topics or find out what someone else is thinking.

Everything negative – pressure, challenges – is all an opportunity for me to rise.

My crown is called content, a crown that seldom kings enjoy.

What you have outside you counts less than what you have inside you.

I’ve… been accused of being involved with every man I’m ever seen with or worked with. Maybe I have, maybe I ain’t. I never tell if I have.

Seriousness is the only refuge of the shallow.