In a magazine, one can get – from cover to cover – 15 to 20 different ideas about life and how to live it.

Actions are the seed of fate deeds grow into destiny.

Life is one grand, sweet song, so start the music.

It is not love that should be depicted as blind, but self-love.

He that will enjoy the brightness of sunshine, must quit the coolness of the shade.

And thou wilt give thyself relief, if thou doest every act of thy life as if it were the last.

O wretched man, wretched not just because of what you are, but also because you do not know how wretched you are!

The major value in life is not what you get. The major value in life is what you become.

The only way to take sorrow out of death is to take love out of life.

I would rather be able to appreciate things I can not have than to have things I am not able to appreciate.

Life is a journey. When we stop, things don’t go right.

Life is so, so short. Bible says it’s like a vapor.

Passions are vices or virtues to their highest powers.

Once I’ve written something it does tend to run away from me. I don’t seem to have any part of it – it’s no longer my piece of writing.

While musical experts of the world focus on what choir members can do, I would like to focus on what choir members can be.

When you are learning about a martial art, it is about respect.

We do not know what love is. We know the symptoms of it, the pleasure, the pain, the fear, the anxiety and so on. We try to solve the symptoms, which becomes a wandering in darkness. We spend our days and nights in this, and it is soon over in death.

If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts, but if he will content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.

I love wisdom. And you can never be great at anything unless you love it. Not be in love with it, but love the thing, admire the thing. And it seems that if you love the thing, and you don’t just want to possess it, it will find you.

Charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul.

Only by contending with challenges that seem to be beyond your strength to handle at the moment you can grow more surely toward the stars.

Everybody wants to be somebody; nobody wants to grow.

The ideas I stand for are not mine. I borrowed them from Socrates. I swiped them from Chesterfield. I stole them from Jesus. And I put them in a book. If you don’t like their rules, whose would you use?

I think it’s very important to have a feedback loop, where you’re constantly thinking about what you’ve done and how you could be doing it better. I think that’s the single best piece of advice: constantly think about how you could be doing things better and questioning yourself.

When Hillary was First Lady, we went to the Beijing Women’s Conference. She courageously stood up and spoke out on behalf of human rights and women’s rights, inspiring millions to fight for a better future.

The fatal metaphor of progress, which means leaving things behind us, has utterly obscured the real idea of growth, which means leaving things inside us.

When it’s your time, it is your time.

If you want to give up the admiration of thousands of men for the distain of one, go ahead, get married.

I have learned that only two things are necessary to keep one’s wife happy. First, let her think she’s having her own way. And second, let her have it.

I do not pretend to start with precise questions. I do not think you can start with anything precise. You have to achieve such precision as you can, as you go along.

Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot that it do singe yourself.

I never see what has been done; I only see what remains to be done.

Everything that is done in the world is done by hope.

By imposing too great a responsibility, or rather, all responsibility, on yourself, you crush yourself.

When ideas fail, words come in very handy.

The important thing is that men should have a purpose in life. It should be something useful, something good.

Time stays long enough for anyone who will use it.

Man has two great spiritual needs. One is for forgiveness. The other is for goodness.

Every artist preserves deep within him a single source from which, throughout his lifetime, he draws what he is, and what he says. When the source dries up, the work withers and crumbles.

I love sleep. My life has the tendency to fall apart when I’m awake, you know?

It is easy to get everything you want, provided you first learn to do without the things you cannot get.

Experience without theory is blind, but theory without experience is mere intellectual play.

Having listened to great songwriters like James Taylor and Carole King, I felt there was nothing new that was coming out that really represented me and the way I felt. So I started writing my own stuff.

A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is brave five minutes longer.

The only way you gain mental toughness is to do things you’re not happy doing. If you continue doing things that you’re satisfied and make you happy, you’re not getting stronger. You’re staying where you’re at. Either you’re getting better, or you’re getting worse. You’re not staying the same.

We forge the chains we wear in life.

For me, I used to be shy towards journalism because it wasn’t poetry. And then I realized that the events that I covered in essays that became journalism were actually great because they inspired me, and they became my muse.

I don’t see the wisdom in modern politicians that I once saw in men like Dean Acheson, David Bruce, or George Marshall. In my day, the northeastern establishment dominated foreign policy formulation, but the composition and distribution of our population is very different today.

Life becomes harder for us when we live for others, but it also becomes richer and happier.

There is no sin except stupidity.

A truer image of the world, I think, is obtained by picturing things as entering into the stream of time from an eternal world outside, than from a view which regards time as the devouring tyrant of all that is.

Very often, say what you will, a knave is only a fool.

As unique as we all are, an awful lot of us want the same things. We want to shake up our current less-than-fulfilling lives. We want to be happier, more loving, forgiving and connected with the people around us.

It is natural to die as to be born.

The public is the only critic whose opinion is worth anything at all.

Getting stress out of your life takes more than prayer alone. You must take action to make changes and stop doing whatever is causing the stress. You can learn to calm down in the way you handle things.

Whether or not I like a piece of data has very little bearing on whether or not I am likely to accept it.

However happy people say they are, nobody is satisfied: we always have to be with the prettiest woman, buy a bigger house, change cars, desire what we do not have.

Riches are a good hand maiden, but a poor mistress.

Morality is not the doctrine of how we may make ourselves happy, but how we may make ourselves worthy of happiness.

In my later years, I have looked in the mirror each day and found a happy person staring back. Occasionally I wonder why I can be so happy. The answer is that every day of my life I’ve worked only for myself and for the joy that comes from writing and creating. The image in my mirror is not optimistic, but the result of optimal behavior.