It isn’t what you have, or who you are, or where you are, or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about.

A child thinks 20 shillings and 20 years can scarce ever be spent.

Of course, when I say that human nature is gentleness, it is not 100 percent so. Every human being has that nature, but there are many people acting against their nature, being false.

The mind of a 19-year-old is very different from the mind of a 26-year-old. You grow. You get into better relationships. You experience more, meet more people, better people. But when you’re in a dark hole at an earlier point in your life – you write about the mindset you’re in at that moment.

Life is a gamble. You can get hurt, but people die in plane crashes, lose their arms and legs in car accidents; people die every day. Same with fighters: some die, some get hurt, some go on. You just don’t let yourself believe it will happen to you.

I have this really high priority on happiness and finding something to be happy about.

Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves.

Is it ignorance or apathy? Hey, I don’t know and I don’t care.

Why should we think upon things that are lovely? Because thinking determines life. It is a common habit to blame life upon the environment. Environment modifies life but does not govern life. The soul is stronger than its surroundings.

A lot of people have it a lot worse than you do.

There is a road from the eye to heart that does not go through the intellect.

Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier.

Successful people make money. It’s not that people who make money become successful, but that successful people attract money. They bring success to what they do.

The question of whether or not there is a God or truth or reality or whatever you like to call it, can never be answered by books, by priests, philosopher’s or saviours. Nobody and nothing can answer the question but you yourself, and that is why you must know yourself – Immaturity lies only in total ignorance of self.

There is no need for temples, no need for complicated philosophies. My brain and my heart are my temples; my philosophy is kindness.

Let us beware of saying that death is the opposite of life. The living being is only a species of the dead, and a very rare species.

What is important in life is life, and not the result of life.

Dogmas are collective conceptual prisons. And the strange thing is that people love their prison cells because they give them a sense of security and a false sense of ‚I know.‘ Nothing has inflicted more suffering on humanity than its dogmas.

Is it not enough to know the evil to shun it? If not, we should be sincere enough to admit that we love evil too well to give it up.

We are in a wrong state of mind if we are not in a thankful state of mind.

There is no security on this earth; there is only opportunity.

In the final analysis, the questions of why bad things happen to good people transmutes itself into some very different questions, no longer asking why something happened, but asking how we will respond, what we intend to do now that it happened.

If someone has a really great boyfriend or career, I think, it’s cool that happens.

Little girls are cute and small only to adults. To one another they are not cute. They are life-sized.

I’m very secure about my talents and about who I am.

Some men see things as they are, and say why. I dream of things that never were, and say why not.

I’m a Silicon Valley guy. I just think people from Silicon Valley can do anything.

I’m happy being myself, which I’ve never been before. I always hid in other people, or tried to find myself through the characters, or live out their lives, but I didn’t have those things in mine.

Children are all foreigners.

It is what a man thinks of himself that really determines his fate.

I think it’s a very good thing to leave your country and look at it from afar.

I have written too much history to have faith in it; and if anyone thinks I’m wrong, I am inclined to agree with him.

If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could then better judge what to do, and how to do it.

I always keep my guard up with guys and I guess that can get in the way sometimes. I can make them go through hell.

Check your ego at the door. The ego can be the great success inhibitor. It can kill opportunities, and it can kill success.

Throughout my years in business, I discovered something. I would always ask why you do things. The answers that I would invariably get are: ‚Oh, that’s just the way things are done around here.‘ Nobody knows why they do what they do. Nobody thinks very deeply about things in business.

I discovered me in the library. I went to find me in the library.

Don’t be afraid to give up the good to go for the great.

All the reasonings of men are not worth one sentiment of women.

Beauty is the promise of happiness.

People do not seem to realize that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character.

The happiest people I know as a nation are the Burmese; their brightness and cheeriness are proverbial. Kindness to animals is one of their greatest ‚weaknesses‘; no Burmese will kill an animal, even if it is to put it out of pain.

I have trouble with letting go. That’s my problem.

If I make music and people hate it, you know, whatever. I’ll die someday, and one day, they will too.

If you only have a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.

I’m the most stubborn person I know.

I don’t look at a man who’s expert in one area as a specialist. I look at him as a rookie in ten other areas.

Life well spent is long.

I’m tired of fighting. I’ve always known that I can’t be an action star all my life.

Reading is equivalent to thinking with someone else’s head instead of with one’s own.

I’m a human being. I’ve got opinions, I’m not always right, I’m not always on time, I don’t always say things in the proper way, but my intentions are always extremely pure.

Wisdom ceases to be wisdom when it becomes too proud to weep, too grave to laugh, and too selfish to seek other than itself.

Loving people live in a loving world. Hostile people live in a hostile world. Same world.

People are more aware now of cities and of different ways of life. I suppose the writing I do is a bit in the past, and I’m not sure it’s the kind of writing I would do if I were starting now.

We are wiser than we know.

Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content.

The willow which bends to the tempest, often escapes better than the oak which resists it; and so in great calamities, it sometimes happens that light and frivolous spirits recover their elasticity and presence of mind sooner than those of a loftier character.

I am not a self-help writer. I am a self-problem writer. When people read my books, I provoke some things. I cannot justify my work. I do my work; it is up to them to classify it, to judge.

A lost battle is a battle one thinks one has lost.

There are some days when I think I’m going to die from an overdose of satisfaction.

To be honest, I never really considered myself to be too much of an actress. So, whenever I get the chance to do music, I’m always, like, just in it. It’s like, ‚Oh my God, I finally get to do this. I’m so happy.‘