In the course of my life, I have often had to eat my words, and I must confess that I have always found it a wholesome diet.

Nature that framed us of four elements, warring within our breasts for regiment, doth teach us all to have aspiring minds.

From my perspective, I absolutely believe in a greater spiritual power, far greater than I am, from which I have derived strength in moments of sadness or fear. That’s what I believe, and it was very, very strong in the forest.

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

When death, the great reconciler, has come, it is never our tenderness that we repent of, but our severity.

I owe my solitude to other people.

I am not very good with relationships. With anyone. I can’t be locked up with anyone for too long.

I always put myself out there. I’m not afraid to commit to something.

I’m perpetually lonely.

I don’t think I will ever be content. I am somebody who is always hungry.

Few women, I fear, have had such reason as I have to think the long sad years of youth were worth living for the sake of middle age.

We learned about gratitude and humility – that so many people had a hand in our success, from the teachers who inspired us to the janitors who kept our school clean… and we were taught to value everyone’s contribution and treat everyone with respect.

Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow ripening fruit.

I am so clever that sometimes I don’t understand a single word of what I am saying.

You must do the things you think you cannot do.

I understand aggressiveness in only one way: being prepared to hurt yourself, not someone else.

We cannot learn men from books.

If you must hold yourself up to your children as an object lesson, hold yourself up as a warning and not as an example.

If I feel good about my parenting, I have no interest in judging other people’s choices. If I feel good about my body, I don’t go around making fun of other people’s weight or appearance. We’re hard on each other because we’re using each other as a launching pad out of our own perceived deficiency.

As I grow up, the lessons I learn in love and relationships and how we treat each other are hopefully maturing – hopefully.

I live in that solitude which is painful in youth, but delicious in the years of maturity.

I think my worst problem is actually living in the moment and understanding everything that’s going on. I feel like I’m in my own bubble.

I know I do not exaggerate, unconsciously and unintentionally, the scantiness of my resources and the difficulty of my life… I know that, but for the mercy of God, I might easily have been, for any care that was taken of me, a little robber or a vagabond.

Never do things others can do and will do if there are things others cannot do or will not do.

When I understand myself, I understand you, and out of that understanding comes love.

I believe God wants you to have money to pay your bills, send your kids to college and do charity work and build orphanages. There’s the teaching that we’re supposed to be poor to show that we’re humble. I don’t buy that. I think we’re supposed to be leaders. We’re supposed to excel.

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.

Man needs his difficulties because they are necessary to enjoy success.

Do not be in a hurry to succeed. What would you have to live for afterwards? Better make the horizon your goal; it will always be ahead of you.

You should never give up your inner self.

If one has the answers to all the questions – that is the proof that God is not with him. It means that he is a false prophet using religion for himself. The great leaders of the people of God, like Moses, have always left room for doubt. You must leave room for the Lord, not for our certainties; we must be humble.

I have a personal ambition to live my life honestly and honor the true love that I’ve had and also the people I’ve had around me.

The work an unknown good man has done is like a vein of water flowing hidden underground, secretly making the ground green.

Men take only their needs into consideration – never their abilities.

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.

Be smarter than other people, just don’t tell them so.

The man with insight enough to admit his limitations comes nearest to perfection.

When I was old enough to change my name, I changed it to Mr. T so that the first word out of someone’s mouth was ‚Mister,‘ a sign of respect.

A gem cannot be polished without friction, nor a man perfected without trials.

Realize deeply that the present moment is all you ever have. Make the Now the primary focus of your life.

The more I see the less I know for sure.

I have never regarded myself as a hero, but Tenzing undoubtedly was.

Sports are such a great teacher. I think of everything they’ve taught me: camaraderie, humility, how to resolve differences.

I thought it completely absurd to mention my name in the same breath as the presidency.

Nothing new here, except my marrying, which to me is a matter of profound wonder.

I am no longer sure of anything. If I satiate my desires, I sin but I deliver myself from them; if I refuse to satisfy them, they infect the whole soul.

You’re not going to say anything about me that I’m not going to say about myself. There’s so many things that I think about myself; if someone really wanted to get at me, they could say this and this and this. So I’m going to say it before they can. It’s the best policy for me.

No man is hurt but by himself.

As much as it might look like, to someone else, that I’m successful, I never feel like I’m anywhere. The further I go, I still feel equally further from my eventual goal. Because as I grow, I get more goals. I’m never content.

In this big ball of people, I’m just one grain of sand on this beach.

If you know me, and you call me Stefani, you don’t really know me at all.

I admire people who destroy themselves.

Achievement brings its own anticlimax.

The essential lesson I’ve learned in life is to just be yourself. Treasure the magnificent being that you are and recognize first and foremost you’re not here as a human being only. You’re a spiritual being having a human experience.

When I was young, an eccentric uncle decided to teach me how to lie. Not, he explained, because he wanted me to lie, but because he thought I should know how it’s done so I would recognise when I was being lied to.

When a man fell into his anecdotage it was a sign for him to retire from the world.

Fear? If I have gained anything by damning myself, it is that I no longer have anything to fear.

The greatest enemy of any one of our truths may be the rest of our truths.

The slave is doomed to worship time and fate and death, because they are greater than anything he finds in himself, and because all his thoughts are of things which they devour.

First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.

There are no second acts in American lives.