In order to be irreplaceable one must always be different.

I vividly remember a conversation I had many years ago in 1974, which marked a turning point in my leadership journey. I was sitting at a Holiday Inn with my friend, Kurt Campmeyer, when he asked me if I had a personal growth plan. I didn’t. In fact, I didn’t even know you were supposed to have one.

If you begin to understand what you are without trying to change it, then what you are undergoes a transformation.

Plenty of people wish to become devout, but no one wishes to be humble.

I claim to be a simple individual liable to err like any other fellow mortal. I own, however, that I have humility enough to confess my errors and to retrace my steps.

We allow our ignorance to prevail upon us and make us think we can survive alone, alone in patches, alone in groups, alone in races, even alone in genders.

I think I lived those years very impersonally. It was almost as though I had erected someone outside myself who was the president’s wife. I was lost somewhere deep down inside myself. That is the way I felt and worked until I left the White House.

If someone you know makes a bad decision or uses bad judgment, it doesn’t mean you have to allow that to alter your attitude. Why should you allow anyone else’s bad decisions to send you into a tailspin of misery?

If every choice you make comes from an honest place, you’re solid, and nothing anybody can say about you can rock you or change your opinion.

You must be the change you wish to see in the world.

I resigned from the Marine Corps and flying in 1974, even though I loved them both. I quit because I no longer wanted to fight for peace. Instead, I believe we can build a more sustainable peace by working for prosperity.

It is a rare mind indeed that can render the hitherto non-existent blindingly obvious. The cry ‚I could have thought of that‘ is a very popular and misleading one, for the fact is that they didn’t, and a very significant and revealing fact it is too.

Many people, especially young people, would like to be more independent and on their own. But it is very difficult and they suffer from feelings of isolation. I think that is one reason why young readers support my work.

You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose. You’re on your own, and you know what you know. And you are the guy who’ll decide where to go.

I’ve been reckless, but I’m not a rebel without a cause.

Around every corner, always protect the engine that powers you.

I think I could go away tomorrow. I’ve already accomplished something. It’s such a selfish business that sometimes I get sick of myself.

You don’t have to give way to careless speech or complaining. You don’t have to let your feelings get in the way of what God wants to do in your life.

Even with all the advantages of retrospect, and a lot of witnesses dead and gone, you can’t make your life look as if you intended it or you were consistent. All you can show is how you dealt with various hands.

My father, who was jailed for stealing on more than one occasion, just abandoned his fatherly responsibilities and disappeared. I grew up working from the time I was nine years of age. Money was a big issue everywhere I lived.

The question of sexual dominance can exist only in the nightmare of that soul which has armed itself, totally, against the possibility of the changing motion of conquest and surrender, which is love.

Billy Graham is one of my great lifetime heroes. I think he epitomizes the essence of what a Christian leader should be. I have participated in some of his crusades a couple of times in Atlanta. I’ve seen the profound impact he’s had on me personally, and on other people who were not Christians and accepted Christ as Savior.

Everything you need you already have. You are complete right now, you are a whole, total person, not an apprentice person on the way to someplace else. Your completeness must be understood by you and experienced in your thoughts as your own personal reality.

To accuse others for one’s own misfortunes is a sign of want of education. To accuse oneself shows that one’s education has begun. To accuse neither oneself nor others shows that one’s education is complete.

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.

Look within. Within is the fountain of good, and it will ever bubble up, if thou wilt ever dig.

I never deny. I never contradict. I sometimes forget.

The only tyrant I accept in this world is the still voice within.

People who don’t know the true character of God – who don’t believe He is merciful, gracious and slow to anger – can never have a close, personal, intimate relationship with Him.

For me, the world that I inhabit in reality is probably a very different world than the one people expect that I would be in.

It’s very unnatural to be someone for so many people. But of course it’s very nice.

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.

You’re going to go through tough times – that’s life. But I say, ‚Nothing happens to you, it happens for you.‘ See the positive in negative events.

People disparage knowing and the intellectual life, and urge doing. I am content with knowing, if only I could know.

Success is not to be pursued; it is to be attracted by the person you become.

What you are comes to you.

To be ashamed of one’s immorality: that is a step on the staircase at whose end one is also ashamed of one’s morality.

I want to solidify as an artist and show that as I grow as a person and make mistakes and learn from them, I’m going to grow artistically.

At 30 a man should know himself like the palm of his hand, know the exact number of his defects and qualities, know how far he can go, foretell his failures – be what he is. And, above all, accept these things.

Once I realized that right thinking is vital to victorious living, I got more serious about thinking about what I was thinking about, and choosing my thoughts carefully.

There is nothing happens to any person but what was in his power to go through with.

The highest reward that God gives us for good work is the ability to do better work.

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

The fact is that since you’re a divine creation who originated in the world of Spirit, you have exactly the right amount of smarts to accomplish all that you need and want to do while you’re here on earth. It’s all perfect… and so are you!

Don’t compare yourself with other people; compare yourself with who you were yesterday.

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

I am my own sanctuary and I can be reborn as many times as I choose throughout my life.

People may think I’m trying something new by telling stories, but they’re just jokes connected to give the illusion of stories. But really, I just continue using my imagination and creating. That’s what I do.

The important work of moving the world forward does not wait to be done by perfect men.

I don’t have a type. I don’t have a specific kind of human being. It’s just kind of an X-factor of sorts. Everybody I’ve ever dated has been a case-by-case situation.

Mothers and daughters generally have fairly complex relationships, and ours was made much more so by Mother’s illness. She had Parkinson’s disease, which was not diagnosed for a long time… All that made me very self-protective, because for one thing, I didn’t want to get trapped.

Man’s task is to become conscious of the contents that press upward from the unconscious.

Nothing is more intolerable than to have to admit to yourself your own errors.

I’m only as good as my last word, my last hook, my last bridge.

When you put down the good things you ought to have done, and leave out the bad ones you did do well, that’s Memoirs.

Me not finishing school – in my head, I still have this insecurity when I’m talking to someone educated.

You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.

Our deeds determine us, as much as we determine our deeds.

If I make a fool of myself, who cares? I’m not frightened by anyone’s perception of me.

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

I remember, when I was a young guy in the SEAL teams, I was very afraid of making mistakes and looking stupid or doing dumb things and getting a bad reputation.