Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darknesses of other people.

I’ve had a few semi-toxic relationships, but it’s not what I look for when I’m seeing someone.

For me, ‚risky‘ is revealing what really happened in my life through music. Risky is writing confessional songs and telling the true story about a person with enough details so everyone knows who that person is.

God has his plans and his reasons. Sometimes we are supposed to go through things so that we learn lessons.

I’m the most stubborn person I know.

There is a fine balance between honoring the past and losing yourself in it. For example, you can acknowledge and learn from mistakes you made, and then move on and refocus on the now. It is called forgiving yourself.

You can be happy where you are.

If you were to ask me what I want to do – I don’t want to be a celebrity, I want to make a difference.

If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.

There are going to be things I’m not going to be great at, times when I make mistakes, 100%.

Except for the young or very happy, I can’t say I am sorry for anyone who dies.

I’m not very ambitious at all.

I’m only going to stand before God and give an account for my life, not for somebody else’s life. If I have a bad attitude, then I need to say there’s no point in me blaming you for what’s wrong in my life.

Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other’s eyes for an instant?

My number one thing? Don’t overleverage yourself. Don’t say you can do something when you really can’t.

I feel like people can relate to me because we all go through wins and roadblocks and passion and pain, and it’s a vibe.

Mine is better than ours.

Now I realize that from ’72 through to about ’76, I was the ultimate rock star. I couldn’t have been more rock star.

I can’t keep somebody from being a star, and I can’t make somebody a star, and nobody can.

You’ll never get ahead of anyone as long as you try to get even with him.

The proper study of Mankind is Man.

There is no coming to consciousness without pain.

You can’t have it all, all at once. Who – man or woman – has it all, all at once? Over my lifespan, I think I have had it all. But in different periods of time, things were rough. And if you have a caring life partner, you help the other person when that person needs it.

It’s normal for human beings to identify with their own separate self. The problem is that we get caught in that notion of ourself as a separate individual and caught in that individual self’s agenda.

No matter what message you are about to deliver somewhere, whether it is holding out a hand of friendship, or making clear that you disapprove of something, is the fact that the person sitting across the table is a human being, so the goal is to always establish common ground.

The more in harmony with yourself you are, the more joyful you are and the more faithful you are. Faith is not to disconnect you from reality – it connects you to reality.

When we see persons of worth, we should think of equaling them; when we see persons of a contrary character, we should turn inwards and examine ourselves.

In our obscurity – in all this vastness – there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us.

What I enjoy most is doing something I’ve never done before.

I realized, ‚Yo, I can’t do anything in moderation. I don’t know how.‘

Something I’ve realized lately, to my shock, is that I am an optimist, in that I think humans are almost infinitely capable of self-change and self-modification, and that we really can build the future that we want if we’re smart about it.

Because of its phantom nature, and despite elaborate defense mechanisms, the ego is very vulnerable and insecure, and it sees itself as constantly under threat. This, by the way, is the case even if the ego is outwardly very confident.

I enjoy competition. I enjoy challenges. If a challenge is in front of me and it appeals to me, I will go ahead and conquer it.

Build me a son, O Lord, who will be strong enough to know when he is weak, and brave enough to face himself when he is afraid, one who will be proud and unbending in honest defeat, and humble and gentle in victory.

I had a really good childhood up until I was nine, then a classic case of divorce really affected me.

My confidence is easy to shake. I am very well aware of all of my flaws. I am aware of all the insecurities that I have.

A sense of duty is useful in work but offensive in personal relations. People wish to be liked, not to be endured with patient resignation.

I like working. That’s when I’m feeling my best. And the people around me know that. My wife knows that.

We just cannot worry about ourselves.

My view is that at a younger age your optimism is more and you have more imagination etc. You have less bias.

A wise man should consider that health is the greatest of human blessings, and learn how by his own thought to derive benefit from his illnesses.

I am not saying I am the best manager in the world. But I’m quite good.

Knowledge is knowing that we cannot know.

I always knew from that moment, from the time I found myself at home in that little segregated library in the South, all the way up until I walked up the steps of the New York City library, I always felt, in any town, if I can get to a library, I’ll be OK. It really helped me as a child, and that never left me.

What a waste it is to lose one’s mind. Or not to have a mind is being very wasteful. How true that is.

Sometimes you have to take two steps back to take ten forward.

The young think that failure is the Siberian end of the line, banishment from all the living, and tend to do what I then did – which was to hide.

A woman knows by intuition, or instinct, what is best for herself.

The superior man is distressed by the limitations of his ability; he is not distressed by the fact that men do not recognize the ability that he has.

You are 27 or 28 right? It is very tough to live at that age. When nothing is sure. I have sympathy with you.

I am good, but not an angel. I do sin, but I am not the devil. I am just a small girl in a big world trying to find someone to love.

Try and leave this world a little better than you found it, and when your turn comes to die, you can die happy in feeling that at any rate, you have not wasted your time but have done your best.

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

In the practice of tolerance, one’s enemy is the best teacher.

I don’t follow all the 48 laws. Like, I’ve never crushed anyone totally.

I gather from motivation around me – from a lot of personalities who have done well in their respective fields.

The first thing which I can record concerning myself is, that I was born. These are wonderful words. This life, to which neither time nor eternity can bring diminution – this everlasting living soul, began. My mind loses itself in these depths.

Vulnerability is basically uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure.

Self-knowledge comes from knowing other men.

I know that I am intelligent, because I know that I know nothing.

I have a strong feeling that I shall be glad when I am dead and done for – scrapped at last to make room for somebody better, cleverer, more perfect than myself.