Let everyone try and find that as a result of daily prayer he adds something new to his life, something with which nothing can be compared.

I know my country has not perfected itself. At times, we’ve struggled to keep the promise of liberty and equality for all of our people. We’ve made our share of mistakes, and there are times when our actions around the world have not lived up to our best intentions.

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

Beware of no man more than of yourself; we carry our worst enemies within us.

At one point I learned transcendental meditation. This was 30-something years ago. It took me back to the way that I naturally was as a child growing up way in the country, rarely seeing people. I was in that state of oneness with creation and it was as if I didn’t exist except as a part of everything.

Not only must we be good, but we must also be good for something.

The man who is dissatisfied with himself, what can he do?

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 grew up with the sea, and poverty for me was sumptuous; then I lost the sea and found all luxuries gray and poverty unbearable.

Things won’t get better dwelling on the past. Accept what has happened. Then move forward.

Nothing goes by luck in composition. It allows of no tricks. The best you can write will be the best you are.

If you even dream of beating me you’d better wake up and apologize.

The major reason for setting a goal is for what it makes of you to accomplish it. What it makes of you will always be the far greater value than what you get.

So when these people sell out, even though they get fabulously rich, they’re gypping themselves out of one of the potentially most rewarding experiences of their unfolding lives. Without it, they may never know their values or how to keep their newfound wealth in perspective.

The first and greatest victory is to conquer yourself; to be conquered by yourself is of all things most shameful and vile.

As your career grows, the list of things that makes you happy should not become smaller, it should become bigger.

If I’d had good discipline, I might have gone into music.

Travel teaches toleration.

My ‚fear‘ is my substance, and probably the best part of me.

Don’t let the incidents which take place in life bring you low. And certainly don’t whine. You can be brought low, that’s OK, but don’t be reduced by them. Just say, ‚That’s life.‘

Your life is like a play with several acts. Some of the characters who enter have short roles to play, others, much larger. Some are villains and others are good guys. But all of them are necessary; otherwise, they wouldn’t be in the play. Embrace them all, and move on to the next act.

You must never be satisfied with losing. You must get angry, terribly angry, about losing. But the mark of the good loser is that he takes his anger out on himself and not his victorious opponents or on his teammates.

I always was that person who was hard on myself and challenged myself no matter what I was doing, whether it was passing third grade or playing basketball.

I like to let things breathe.

There is nothing, Sir, too little for so little a creature as man. It is by studying little things that we attain the great art of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible.

The need for change bulldozed a road down the center of my mind.

Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted.

It’s hard for anybody who’s been with me not to feel starved for affection when I’m making love to my ideas. Maybe it’s not meant for me to settle down and be married.

Do not bite at the bait of pleasure, till you know there is no hook beneath it.

If you truly get in touch with a piece of carrot, you get in touch with the soil, the rain, the sunshine. You get in touch with Mother Earth and eating in such a way, you feel in touch with true life, your roots, and that is meditation. If we chew every morsel of our food in that way we become grateful and when you are grateful, you are happy.

The tragedy of life is what dies inside a man while he lives.

When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive – to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.

The Mind that lies fallow but a single Day, sprouts up in Follies that are only to be killed by a constant and assiduous Culture.

I created myself. I have taught myself so much.

Who had deceived thee so often as thyself?

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

No man ever prayed heartily without learning something.

The person who has lived the most is not the one with the most years but the one with the richest experiences.

People aren’t supposed to look back. I’m certainly not going to do it anymore.

What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lives within us.

I’d like to think you don’t stop being creative once you get happy. My ultimate goal is to end up being happy. Most of the time.

A game is like a mirror that allows you to look at yourself.

If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn’t part of ourselves doesn’t disturb us.

When we go out to the country and just sit there, what we’re really doing is just switching off various kinds of alertness that we don’t have to use. When we do that, we are stopping being defensive. We are no longer shutting ourselves off from different types of experiences, we are welcoming them in.

Now that I understand that I’m an addict, I definitely have compassion for my mother. I get it.

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

You practice mindfulness, on the one hand, to be calm and peaceful. On the other hand, as you practice mindfulness and live a life of peace, you inspire hope for a future of peace.

In the struggle between yourself and the world second the world.

Real happiness is cheap enough, yet how dearly we pay for its counterfeit.

When I was growing up, there was nobody in my family – not even my mother – who I could look to and be like, ‚I know you’ve never said anything homophobic.‘ So, you know, you worry about people in the business who you’ve heard talk that way. Some of my heroes coming up talk recklessly like that.

I don’t try to control my days.

When it comes to life the critical thing is whether you take things for granted or take them with gratitude.

We will be more successful in all our endeavors if we can let go of the habit of running all the time, and take little pauses to relax and re-center ourselves. And we’ll also have a lot more joy in living.

Before we acquire great power we must acquire wisdom to use it well.

Most people already know what they’re doing wrong. When I get them to church I want to tell them that you can change.

It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or by demons, heaven or hell.

Your big opportunity may be right where you are now.

I’m sure a lot of people out there make mistakes.

I think we have to own the fears that we have of each other, and then, in some practical way, some daily way, figure out how to see people differently than the way we were brought up to.

When you’re coming up with new material, it’s not always gonna be good. The only way to learn is for it not to get a laugh, so you can adjust it and come back the next day to see if it’s working right. Next time, you might get a different laugh. You’re constantly rebuilding.

I was a bit challenged when I was younger to stay on the right path.