Knowing others is wisdom, knowing yourself is Enlightenment.

I was in a terrible mess in my childhood.

I’m sure the feeling of fear, as long as you can take advantage of it and not be rendered useless by it, can make you extend yourself beyond what you would regard as your capacity. If you’re afraid, the blood seems to flow freely through the veins, and you really do feel a sense of stimulation.

The only real valuable thing is intuition.

Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind.

Some old men, continually praise the time of their youth. In fact, you would almost think that there were no fools in their days, but unluckily they themselves are left as an example.

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

There is nothing new in the world except the history you do not know.

It is not he who reviles or strikes you who insults you, but your opinion that these things are insulting.

Sure, I can get a little bit jealous. The good part about jealousy is that it comes from passion. It’s also the dangerous part and it’s an ugly emotion that hurts.

When I was a child, I was very poor and wanted everything. So when I got money, I began buying things.

The world is a looking glass and gives back to every man the reflection of his own face.

Before I can live with other folks I’ve got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.

When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.

The wide world is all about you: you can fence yourselves in, but you cannot forever fence it out.

Old age is like everything else. To make a success of it, you’ve got to start young.

Think occasionally of the suffering of which you spare yourself the sight.

I get naturally uncomfortable when I’m put under a magnifying glass.

To be wronged is nothing unless you continue to remember it.

Sometimes the hardest thing to do is to trust your team. It’s a lesson I’ve had to relearn quite a few times.

Do not weep; do not wax indignant. Understand.

How does a nice Catholic girl end up going to prison for a year? It’s crazy. I’ve made mistakes. I have to pay for those mistakes.

Enlightened people seldom or never possess a sense of responsibility.

Experience has shown, and a true philosophy will always show, that a vast, perhaps the larger portion of the truth arises from the seemingly irrelevant.

Even the knowledge of my own fallibility cannot keep me from making mistakes. Only when I fall do I get up again.

I was willing to accept what I couldn’t change.

You’re dead if you aim only for kids. Adults are only kids grown up, anyway.

Men often take their imagination for their heart; and they believe they are converted as soon as they think of being converted.

It’s a philosophy of life. A practice. If you do this, something will change, what will change is that you will change, your life will change, and if you can change you, you can perhaps change the world.

It’s an endless proving of myself, that I really am a musician, that I have something to offer in the room. That women can be musicians, women can be rock stars, women can be more than an objectified idea of a pop star.

A nation or civilization that continues to produce soft-minded men purchases its own spiritual death on the installment plan.

All difficult things have their origin in that which is easy, and great things in that which is small.

I look like a casual, laid-back guy, but it’s like a circus in my head.

I don’t think human beings learn anything without desperation. Desperation is a necessary ingredient to learning anything or creating anything. Period. If you ain’t desperate at some point, you ain’t interesting.

You simply have to accept that your demons are a part of you.

The misfortune of the wise is better than the prosperity of the fool.

What it’s like to be me? You know, it’s good to be me. My life is good.

Humble people ask for help.

Complaining is dangerous business. It can damage or even destroy your relationship with God, your relationships with other people, and even with your relationship with yourself.

I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them but to inform their discretion.

I’m 31 now. I think I’m beginning to understand what life is, what romance is, and what a relationship means.

I write songs about stuff that I can’t really get past personally – and then I write a song about it and I feel better.

The true identity theft is not financial. It’s not in cyberspace. It’s spiritual. It’s been taken.

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.

I learned to fly a few years ago in England. It’s the only place I’m completely alone – up in the air, detached from everything.

I don’t spend that much time being introspective, believe it or not. All I know is that I grew up not questioning God because that’s how you are. God was there like the birds and the wind.

Those whom the gods love grow young.

Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your position falls, your ego goes with it.

No question is so difficult to answer as that to which the answer is obvious.

People say you have to hit rock bottom, and, I can tell you, almost dying is as rock bottom as it gets.

Your net worth to the world is usually determined by what remains after your bad habits are subtracted from your good ones.

You’re always learning. The problem is, sometimes you stop and think you understand the world. This is not correct. The world is always moving. You never reach the point you can stop making an effort.

The reason that I’m here at all is because of my relationship with my family and their encouragement of me to be a musician and to work hard. As long as I stay there in that space, I can do anything. That’s my truth.

The one thing that I keep learning over and over again is that I don’t know nothing. I mean, that’s my life lesson.

A little learning is a dangerous thing, but we must take that risk because a little is as much as our biggest heads can hold.

A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.

It is the peculiar quality of a fool to perceive the faults of others and to forget his own.

Experience without theory is blind, but theory without experience is mere intellectual play.

The more people I reach, the more people there are that have opinions about me. Not everyone loves me, but I have to be okay no matter what they think about me.

Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.

The truth is, somebody is always talking about you, so you have to let it go… if it’s not a part of your God-given destiny.