It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance.

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.

Autobiographies are only useful as the lives you read about and analyze may suggest to you something that you may find useful in your own journey through life.

The longer I live, the more I feel that true repose consists in ‚renouncing‘ one’s own self, by which I mean making up one’s mind to admit that there is no importance whatever in being ‚happy‘ or ‚unhappy‘ in the usual meaning of the words.

I need one of those baby monitors from my subconscious to my consciousness so I can know what the hell I’m really thinking about.

Meditation is not following any system; it is not constant repetition and imitation. Meditation is not concentration.

I think beating myself up sometimes and knowing I am not happy when I do it makes me work harder to do a good job.

It is better to do one’s own duty, however defective it may be, than to follow the duty of another, however well one may perform it. He who does his duty as his own nature reveals it, never sins.

There’s only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that’s your own self.

If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.

As long as you know men are like children, you know everything!

I’m not going to change the way I look or the way I feel to conform to anything. I’ve always been a freak. So I’ve been a freak all my life and I have to live with that, you know. I’m one of those people.

The modern mind is in complete disarray. Knowledge has stretched itself to the point where neither the world nor our intelligence can find any foot-hold. It is a fact that we are suffering from nihilism.

Remember, you can always stoop and pick up nothing.

Know thyself? If I knew myself I would run away.

Watch out for the joy-stealers: gossip, criticism, complaining, faultfinding, and a negative, judgmental attitude.

As you get older it is harder to have heroes, but it is sort of necessary.

I was bold in the pursuit of knowledge, never fearing to follow truth and reason to whatever results they led, and bearding every authority which stood in their way.

I don’t go around thinking I’m Ray Bradbury all the time.

No one even knows one percent of the fabulous history of Man; but thanks to history, we know about occurrences that go beyond the limits of the imaginable.

And what, Socrates, is the food of the soul? Surely, I said, knowledge is the food of the soul.

No man ever prayed heartily without learning something.

If you’re embarrassed because you have some notion about how men are supposed to behave, and it doesn’t include weeping, then you have some personal work to do.

People who want the most approval get the least and people who need approval the least get the most.

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

I never fall in love.

You have to be able to accept failure to get better.

There are certain things that bother me and certain things that don’t. Personal attacks on me? I think I’m just so used to it.

No man likes to have his intelligence or good faith questioned, especially if he has doubts about it himself.

Character is power.

What’s the greater risk? Letting go of what people think – or letting go of how I feel, what I believe, and who I am?

Experience is not what happens to you; it’s what you do with what happens to you.

Take time to gather up the past so that you will be able to draw from your experience and invest them in the future.

Doubt grows with knowledge.

I am happy and I’m single.

There are two things a person should never be angry at, what they can help, and what they cannot.

If one is master of one thing and understands one thing well, one has at the same time, insight into and understanding of many things.

If you haven’t forgiven yourself something, how can you forgive others.

Do not look for approval except for the consciousness of doing your best.

I carry a small sheet of paper in my wallet that has written on it the names of people whose opinions of me matter. To be on that list, you have to love me for my strengths and struggles.

You can retire from a job, but don’t ever retire from making extremely meaningful contributions in life.

An identity would seem to be arrived at by the way in which the person faces and uses his experience.

Sometimes when you’ve had a long series of disappointing things happen, you can get into the very bad habit of just expecting more of what you’ve already had.

Many admire, few know.

Opinion is the medium between knowledge and ignorance.

Love is a state of Being. Your love is not outside; it is deep within you. You can never lose it, and it cannot leave you. It is not dependent on some other body, some external form.

To be able to look back upon ones life in satisfaction, is to live twice.

If you look at my life, generally, I’ve been put in situations which were difficult and which I conquered.

Sometimes you must suffer through something to defeat your fear of it.

Most of us aren’t defeated in one decisive battle. We are defeated one tiny, seemingly insignificant surrender at a time that chips away at who we should really be.

I tended to place my wife under a pedestal.

My purpose is to help people look at themselves and begin to shift their concepts. Remember, we are not our country, our race, or religion. We are eternal spirits. Seeing ourselves as spiritual beings without label is a way to transform the world and reach a sacred place for all of humanity.

All travel has its advantages. If the passenger visits better countries, he may learn to improve his own. And if fortune carries him to worse, he may learn to enjoy it.

I’ve learned never to say never.

A great secret of success is to go through life as a man who never gets used up.

I’ve seen firsthand that being president doesn’t change who you are. It reveals who you are.

My experience has been that work is almost the best way to pull oneself out of the depths.

I had a lot of resistance, and not just to fame. I was always conscious of not changing.

If you have the chance to be exposed to a loving, understanding environment where the seed of compassion, loving kindness, can be watered every day, then you become a more loving person.

Knowledge is a polite word for dead but not buried imagination.

If man makes himself a worm he must not complain when he is trodden on.