I’m not a marketing person. I don’t ask myself questions. I go by instinct.

If you don’t like what you’re doing, then don’t do it.

Perfectionists demand perfection from themselves first and foremost.

Oh, I can spot a phoney a mile away.

Wise kings generally have wise counselors; and he must be a wise man himself who is capable of distinguishing one.

Married or single, you sisters possess distinctive capabilities and special intuition you have received as gifts from God. We brethren cannot duplicate your unique influence.

Wise leaders generally have wise counselors because it takes a wise person themselves to distinguish them.

Risk comes from not knowing what you’re doing.

If boyhood and youth are but vanity, must it not be our ambition to become men?

Teamwork is so important that it is virtually impossible for you to reach the heights of your capabilities or make the money that you want without becoming very good at it.

A lot of times, people make other people responsible for their joy: ‚You’re not making me happy, you’re not doing this, you’re not doing that.‘

I’ve got a pen and I’ve got a phone – and I can use that pen to sign executive orders and take executive actions and administrative actions that move the ball forward.

The buck stops here!

Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain – and most fools do.

To be honest with you, when I got into this I never thought about reviews. I never thought about what people would say about me. I was just a young guy who was excited to become a comedian and an actor and I just wanted to get to do what I got to do.

I get naturally uncomfortable when I’m put under a magnifying glass.

I follow three rules: Do the right thing, do the best you can, and always show people you care.

Whoever despises himself nonetheless respects himself as one who despises.

Many a man thinks he is patient when, in reality, he is indifferent.

I have the habit of attention to such excess, that my senses get no rest – but suffer from a constant strain.

I’m an emotional person.

I’m inconsistent, even to myself.

Both old and young alike ought to seek wisdom: the former in order that, as age comes over him, he may be young in good things because of the grace of what has been, and the latter in order that, while he is young, he may at the same time be old, because he has no fear of the things which are to come.

I don’t think I’m tangible to myself.

We human beings are strange creatures and still reserve the right to think for ourselves.

If there is anything that we wish to change in the child, we should first examine it and see whether it is not something that could better be changed in ourselves.

The ideas gained by men before they are twenty-five are practically the only ideas they shall have in their lives.

I was a grade B housewife, maybe a B minus. But when I got time to write, I would be unable to finish a sentence. I had anxiety attacks. Partly it was a way of personifying the situation because I couldn’t breathe. I was surrounded by people and by duties. I was a housewife and the children’s mother, and I was judged on how I performed those roles.

You have learnt something. That always feels at first as if you had lost something.

His was a great sin who first invented consciousness. Let us lose it for a few hours.

If you know how to read, you have a complete education about life, then you know how to vote within a democracy. But if you don’t know how to read, you don’t know how to decide. That’s the great thing about our country – we’re a democracy of readers, and we should keep it that way.

You can’t be in politics unless you can walk in a room and know in a minute who’s for you and who’s against you.

We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out.

I know I want to always do the best I can.

Elegance is usually confused with superficiality, fashion, lack of depth. This is a serious mistake: human beings need to have elegance in their actions and in their posture because this word is synonymous with good taste, amiability, equilibrium and harmony.

The personal ego already has a strong element of dysfunction, but the collective ego is, frequently, even more dysfunctional, to the point of absolute insanity.

Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance.

No one has a right to consume happiness without producing it.

When you see something that is technically sweet, you go ahead and do it and you argue about what to do about it only after you have had your technical success. That is the way it was with the atomic bomb.

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.

I change during the course of a day. I wake and I’m one person, and when I go to sleep I know for certain I’m somebody else.

Man is made by his belief. As he believes, so he is.

People seldom do what they believe in. They do what is convenient, then repent.

You can either be a host to God, or a hostage to your ego. It’s your call.

Don’t ever forget two things I’m going to tell you. One, don’t believe everything that’s written about you. Two, don’t pick up too many checks.

Buy the ticket, take the ride.

Millions of people live their entire lives without finding themselves. But it is something I must do.

Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire, called conscience.

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

I was not a messiah, but an ordinary man who had become a leader because of extraordinary circumstances.

Belief is a wise wager. Granted that faith cannot be proved, what harm will come to you if you gamble on its truth and it proves false? If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation, that He exists.

Take time to deliberate, but when the time for action has arrived, stop thinking and go in.

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

If something can corrupt you, you’re corrupted already.

Respect your efforts, respect yourself. Self-respect leads to self-discipline. When you have both firmly under your belt, that’s real power.

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.

Seeing myself on the screen makes me cringe. I understand that I am that way – pouty.

I liked to write from the time I was about 12 or 13. I loved to read. And since I only spoke to my brother, I would write down my thoughts. And I think I wrote some of the worst poetry west of the Rockies. But by the time I was in my 20s, I found myself writing little essays and more poetry – writing at writing.

Listening to and understanding our inner sufferings will resolve most of the problems we encounter.

Ordinary readers, forgive my paradoxes: one must make them when one reflects; and whatever you may say, I prefer being a man with paradoxes than a man with prejudices.

The aim of a college education is to teach you to know a good man when you see one.