I’m not happy all the time, and I wouldn’t want to be because that would make me a shallow person. But I do try to find the good in everybody.

I look only to the good qualities of men. Not being faultless myself, I won’t presume to probe into the faults of others.

I’m afraid that people who know me as I usually am will discover I have another side, a better and finer side. I’m afraid they’ll mock me, think I’m ridiculous and sentimental and not take me seriously. I’m used to not being taken seriously, but only the ‚light-hearted‘ Anne is used to it and can put up with it; the ‚deeper‘ Anne is too weak.

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.

Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.

Speak ill of no man, but speak all the good you know of everybody.

If the people are happy, united, wealthy, and powerful, we presume the rest. We conclude that to be good from whence good is derived.

To reform a world, to reform a nation, no wise man will undertake; and all but foolish men know, that the only solid, though a far slower reformation, is what each begins and perfects on himself.

Every time I see documentaries or infomercials about little kids with cancer, I just freak out. It affects me on the highest emotional level… Anytime I think about it, it makes me sadder than anything I can think of.

The American people have not become heartless.

There are a lot of people who don’t know me and what I am all about.

But O, how bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man’s eyes.

I say, ‚Yeah, Taylor Swift.‘ I think she is a smart, beautiful girl. I think she’s making all the right moves. She’s got a good head on her shoulders. She’s surrounded with wonderful people. Her songs are great. She keeps herself anchored. She knows who she is, and she’s living and standing by that.

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

So there’s no guarantee if you like the music you will empathize with the culture and the people who made it. It doesn’t necessarily happen. I think it can, but it doesn’t necessarily happen. Which is kind of a shame.

He who is overly attached to his family members experiences fear and sorrow, for the root of all grief is attachment. Thus one should discard attachment to be happy.

I’m not intimidated by how people perceive me.

I’ve been searching for ways to heal myself, and I’ve found that kindness is the best way.

Whatever woman may cast her lot with mine, should any ever do so, it is my intention to do all in my power to make her happy and contented; and there is nothing I can imagine that would make me more unhappy than to fail in the effort.

Happy is he who still loves something he loved in the nursery: He has not been broken in two by time; he is not two men, but one, and he has saved not only his soul but his life.

When I am getting ready to reason with a man, I spend one-third of my time thinking about myself and what I am going to say and two-thirds about him and what he is going to say.

I don’t know what can be so dangerous about giving people hope. Causing people to have better relationships. I’m not leading them to some false God or something like that.

‚Suffering should not make us bitter people,‘ my mother once said, ‚it should make us better comforters.‘ Young people need to hear this from those who have walked before them, because someday they’ll be walking those same steps, but there may not be anyone following behind.

For most of us, wisdom is acquired in the thicket of experience and usually meets us somewhere along the way if we live long enough. But sooner is better than later.

The person we believe ourselves to be will always act in a manner consistent with our self-image.

People who truly understand what is meant by self-reliance know they must live their lives by ethics rather than rules.

I love money because I’ve earned it. I won sixty G’s with my first knockout – and the week before, I was collecting social welfare.

Instead, I have an abundance mentality: When people are genuinely happy at the successes of others, the pie gets larger.

I think that’s the single best piece of advice: constantly think about how you could be doing things better and questioning yourself.

We pity in others only the those evils which we ourselves have experienced.

What’s real freedom? Real freedom is being able to not have my way and still be just as happy as if I did.

For some reason I did something where I realized I could get a reaction. That was when I broke out of my shell at school, because I really didn’t have any friends or anything like that and I just kind of was going along, and then finally I did this zany thing, and all of a sudden I had tons of friends.

I learned, when I look in the mirror and tell my story, that I should be myself and not peep whatever everybody is doing.

Most people want to avoid pain, and discipline is usually painful.

He who has health, has hope; and he who has hope, has everything.

As a matter of self-preservation, a man needs good friends or ardent enemies, for the former instruct him and the latter take him to task.

For me, money is not my definition of success. Inspiring people is a definition of success.

I always believed that when you follow your heart or your gut, when you really follow the things that feel great to you, you can never lose, because settling is the worst feeling in the world.

I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance.

I’m not a natural joiner.

I was inspired to spend an entire year – my 65th year – reading, researching, and meditating on Lao-tzu’s messages, practicing them and ultimately writing down these insights as I felt Lao-tzu wanted us to know them.

My fate cannot be mastered; it can only be collaborated with and thereby, to some extent, directed. Nor am I the captain of my soul; I am only its noisiest passenger.

I want to be a man who is truthful and who won’t let pride get in the way of my ripping myself open to my partner and saying, ‚Here I am. This is me.‘ I feel there’s something powerful when a man reaches a point in his life when he can be completely vulnerable.

I’m not the sort of person who gives up on things. The first time we crossed the Atlantic in the balloon, it crashed, and we went on and did the Pacific. First time we crossed the Atlantic in a boat, it sank, and we went on and got the record. So, generally speaking, we will pick ourselves up, brush ourselves down, and carry on.

I made my fair share of mistakes.

I have good days and bad days.

Everything is an open book. I don’t speak on other people’s hardship, but if it happened in my life or something that has been an experience on my particular journey, I’m going to talk about it. That’s what my fan base appreciates the most. I’m universal. You can relate to the things I say or that I go through.

Habit is a second nature that destroys the first. But what is nature? Why is habit not natural? I am very much afraid that nature itself is only a first habit, just as habit is a second nature.

Always remember that others may hate you but those who hate you don’t win unless you hate them. And then you destroy yourself.

As long as you blame someone or something else – something outside you that’s bigger than you are – as the source of your problems, the problems won’t get solved.

The happiest part of a man’s life is what he passes lying awake in bed in the morning.

We are all sentenced to solitary confinement inside our own skins, for life.

Relationships are the hallmark of the mature person.

I don’t know what drives me to succeed.

As I get older, I tend to put more into family than I used to.

You just do what you can and you have as much fun as possible.

I already am a product.

Marriage is the most natural state of man, and… the state in which you will find solid happiness.

For the general public or psychos on Facebook, for everyone who’s made one negative comment about me, I’ve probably gotten 250-300 positive comments.

Let each know that for each the body, the mind and the soul have been freed to fulfill themselves.

Questioning my spiritual life has always been germane to what I was writing. Always. It’s because I’m not quite an atheist and it worries me. There’s that little bit that holds on: ‚Well, I’m almost an atheist. Give me a couple of months.‘