Let others lead small lives, but not you. Let others argue over small things, but not you. Let others cry over small hurts, but not you. Let others leave their future in someone else’s hands, but not you.

How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.

There are some women I definitely would not want to succeed me… but a man like David Souter, that would be great.

If people lose faith in their government, the result is the same whether or not the loss of confidence is justified.

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

I feel matured in a way that I’m happy about. I’m at this other stage in my life – and it’s not a bad thing at all.

The only real security that a man can have in this world is a reserve of knowledge, experience and ability.

Each year one vicious habit discarded, in time might make the worst of us good.

Time is kind of an amazing thing because you can do so much with it. I think people underestimate time… I don’t want to just sit on my phone for hours.

Politics is not bean bags. It’s serious, tough stuff.

If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else.

Oh, you weak, beautiful people who give up with such grace. What you need is someone to take hold of you – gently, with love, and hand your life back to you.

I think a number of the leaders are, whether you like it or not, in the hip-hop generation. And when they understand enough, they’ll do wonders. I count on them.

There is no person so severely punished, as those who subject themselves to the whip of their own remorse.

I can die a happy man never having been president of the United States of America. But it doesn’t mean I won’t run.

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.

Every thought you produce, anything you say, any action you do, it bears your signature.

Adversity is the diamond dust Heaven polishes its jewels with.

An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory.

If there is anything that a man can do well, I say let him do it. Give him a chance.

Let us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic answer, but the right answer. Let us not seek to fix the blame for the past. Let us accept our own responsibility for the future.

Nothing stands out so conspicuously, or remains so firmly fixed in the memory, as something which you have blundered.

My mom cleaned toilets for a long time, and she’d seen a lot of terrible things, but she was still the strength of our family. And there are women like that all across the country – all around the world – who show that type of fortitude.

Mind your speech a little lest you should mar your fortunes.

He who falls in love with himself will have no rivals.

I find with most of my readers are kind of like me, sort of people who were a little bit naive in life and then learned the hard way that this is what’s going on, the political games and most of my readers write to me telling me that the book helped them open their eyes to what other people are doing to them.

What’s amazing is, if young people understood how doing well in school makes the rest of their life so much interesting, they would be more motivated. It’s so far away in time that they can’t appreciate what it means for their whole life.

I think New York has evolved in my work just the way the city has.

Talent without working hard is nothing.

The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.

Let me tell you what I literally told every world leader I’ve met with, and I’ve met them all: It’s never, never, never been a good bet to bet against America. We have the finest fighting force in the world.

Partition is bad. But whatever is past is past. We have only to look to the future.

What could I say to you that would be of value, except that perhaps you seek too much, that as a result of your seeking you cannot find.

If passion drives you, let reason hold the reins.

When you draw or paint a tree, you do not imitate the tree; you do not copy it exactly as it is, which would be mere photography. To be free to paint a tree or a flower or a sunset, you have to feel what it conveys to you: the significance, the meaning of it.

When fate hands you a lemon, make lemonade.

Success is steady progress toward one’s personal goals.

I’m not a centerfold.

What keeps me going is goals.

Nearly all the things I do that are of any merit at all start off just being good fun, and I think I’m sort of building up to doing something else quite soon.

I love playing under pressure. In fact, if there’s no pressure, then I’m not in the perfect zone.

Your Highest Self is not just an idea that sounds lofty and spiritual. It is a way of being. It is the very first principle that you must come to understand and embrace as you move toward attracting to you that which you want and need for this parenthesis in eternity that you know as your life.

No man who worships education has got the best out of education… Without a gentle contempt for education no man’s education is complete.

If you want to achieve something, you build the basis for it.

I like George Carlin’s jokes. I like his humor. He’s one of my heroes, and I like what he did with talking about everyday things.

So many objections may be made to everything, that nothing can overcome them but the necessity of doing something.

What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to the soul.

Men make history and not the other way around. In periods where there is no leadership, society stands still. Progress occurs when courageous, skillful leaders seize the opportunity to change things for the better.

What is not started today is never finished tomorrow.

Thomas Jefferson once said, ‚We should never judge a president by his age, only by his works.‘ And ever since he told me that, I stopped worrying.

We rarely confide in those who are better than we are.

In my later years, I have looked in the mirror each day and found a happy person staring back. Occasionally I wonder why I can be so happy. The answer is that every day of my life I’ve worked only for myself and for the joy that comes from writing and creating. The image in my mirror is not optimistic, but the result of optimal behavior.

We don’t believe in planners and deciders making the decisions on behalf of Americans.

Do you wish people to think well of you? Don’t speak well of yourself.

The way I approach this thing, when I started to get my head screwed on straight and really trying to make something of myself as an artist, when I was 19 or 20, it became more about function for me. Like, what is this song doing to you? What is the function of this type of artform? What is it doing?

Habit is a second nature that destroys the first. But what is nature? Why is habit not natural? I am very much afraid that nature itself is only a first habit, just as habit is a second nature.

I have a memory, and I can just eliminate mistakes when they come up because I’ve already made them.

We named the book ‚Extreme Ownership‘ because we really found that when we looked at not only at leaders but at teams that were the most successful, we found that the ones that had this attitude of extreme ownership were the ones that did the best, and it’s definitely an attitude that I had.

At Microsoft there are lots of brilliant ideas but the image is that they all come from the top – I’m afraid that’s not quite right.

I don’t think of all the misery but of the beauty that still remains.

If you hear a voice within you say ‚you cannot paint,‘ then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.