I’ve never managed to keep a journal longer than two weeks.

How to gain, how to keep, how to recover happiness is in fact for most men at all times the secret motive of all they do, and of all they are willing to endure.

Personally I’m always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught.

Progressively saved by the machine from the anxieties that bound his hands and mind to material toil, relieved of a large part of his work and compelled to an ever-increasing speed of action by the devices which his intelligence cannot help ceaselessly creating and perfecting, man is about to find himself abruptly plunged into idleness.

It is our duty as men and women to proceed as though the limits of our abilities do not exist.

There are some cases in which the sense of injury breeds not the will to inflict injuries and climb over them as a ladder, but a hatred of all injury.

When I was 50 years old, I actually decided to draw up a list of half a dozen things that I really hadn’t done very well, and I was going to make efforts to improve. One of them was skiing, and I really did become a very much better skier.

The assumption is that your personal life has to be a mess to create, but how much chaos can you allow in before it takes over?

I have goals.

Character is the result of two things: mental attitude and the way we spend our time.

Better keep yourself clean and bright; you are the window through which you must see the world.

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

If you love life, don’t waste time, for time is what life is made up of.

Humility is not something that comes naturally. But it is a cardinal virtue that should be pursued more than any other.

If all you’re doing is grinding for the man, it’s going to burden you. Once you say, ‚Hey, I’m grinding for the man, but I’m putting money away, and this is part of my exit strategy,‘ you’re working for you.

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.

Our errors are surely not such awfully solemn things. In a world where we are so certain to incur them in spite of all our caution, a certain lightness of heart seems healthier than this excessive nervousness on their behalf.

There’s not a note of mine that’s worth the noting.

It’s an offseason. These days are valuable for everybody.

No work or love will flourish out of guilt, fear, or hollowness of heart, just as no valid plans for the future can be made by those who have no capacity for living now.

You can become an even more excellent person by constantly setting higher and higher standards for yourself and then by doing everything possible to live up to those standards.

Your big opportunity may be right where you are now.

We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.

For a long time now I have tried simply to write the best I can. Sometimes I have good luck and write better than I can.

I already am a product.

Don’t wait to be successful at some future point. Have a successful relationship with the present moment and be fully present in whatever you are doing. That is success.

I never – you know also one of the things that would save me for a man my age, it was not that easy to lose that much weight and fall down and look like something draped.

To become ‚unique,‘ the challenge is to fight the hardest battle which anyone can imagine until you reach your destination.

The best thing I did was to choose the right heroes.

I tweet in the morning and the evening. To write 12 hours a day, there is a moment when you’re really tired. It’s my relaxing time.

A goal is not always meant to be reached, it often serves simply as something to aim at.

Failure is unimportant. It takes courage to make a fool of yourself.

To forget one’s purpose is the commonest form of stupidity.

Vanity is great motivation, to be fair.

Fear clogs; faith liberates.

I feel like I have a job to do, like I constantly have to reinvent myself. The more I up the ante for myself, the better it is in the long run. I try to interact with my fans as much as possible. It’s good that the person I’m being onstage isn’t really an act. It’s really me.

The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be.

My justification is that most people my age spend a lot of time thinking about what they’re going to do for the next five or ten years. The time they spend thinking about their life, I just spend drinking.

Like every man of sense and good feeling, I abominate work.

Reading is a basic tool in the living of a good life.

Nature never breaks her own laws.

You cannot find peace by avoiding life.

If you’re not very clever you should be conciliatory.

Precepts or maxims are of great weight; and a few useful ones on hand do more to produce a happy life than the volumes we can’t find.

Be not a slave of words.

We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.

We should take care not to make the intellect our goal; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality.

Fires can’t be made with dead embers, nor can enthusiasm be stirred by spiritless men. Enthusiasm in our daily work lightens effort and turns even labor into pleasant tasks.

When I wake up, I expect things to be good. If they’re not, then I try to set about trying to make them as good as I can ‚cause I know I’m gonna have to live that day anyway. So why not try to make the most of it if you can? Some days, they pan out a little better than others, but you still gotta always just try.

The final proof of greatness lies in being able to endure criticism without resentment.

Life is a lively process of becoming.

You may be always victorious if you will never enter into any contest where the issue does not wholly depend upon yourself.

Intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease only at death.

The key is to keep company only with people who uplift you, whose presence calls forth your best.

It is never too late to give up our prejudices.

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

Apply yourself both now and in the next life. Without effort, you cannot be prosperous. Though the land be good, You cannot have an abundant crop without cultivation.

It’s more interesting for me to figure out how to be superior in areas where I’m naive, where I’m a novice.

I knew ‚Crenshaw‘ had elevated me and distinguished me.

Well, in order for me to be successful… In order to be a great artist – musician, actor, painter, whatever – you must be able to be private in public at all times.

Commit yourself to a mighty purpose.