Man can alter his life by altering his thinking.

We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future.

If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.

It is better to do one’s own duty, however defective it may be, than to follow the duty of another, however well one may perform it. He who does his duty as his own nature reveals it, never sins.

Freedom from effort in the present merely means that there has been effort stored up in the past.

Health is the greatest possession. Contentment is the greatest treasure. Confidence is the greatest friend. Non-being is the greatest joy.

Everybody has a creative potential and from the moment you can express this creative potential, you can start changing the world.

When one begins to live by habit and by quotation, one has begun to stop living.

Do not be embarrassed by your failures, learn from them and start again.

It is very important to generate a good attitude, a good heart, as much as possible. From this, happiness in both the short term and the long term for both yourself and others will come.

People who pity themselves think, ‚Why would I try to do anything? I’ll just fail.‘

Only stupid people are changed by success.

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

No matter what your mission is, have some notion in your head. Forget the model, whether it’s government or nonprofit or profit. Ask yourself the more important question: Is my mission improving the world? Are you sure about it? Seek to disconfirm that all the time. And if you can, change your mission.

People intoxicate themselves with work so they won’t see how they really are.

If you sit there and have that mentality of ‚triple down on what you’re good at,‘ you’re never going to grow. You’re always going to stay the same.

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.

If you can do a half-assed job of anything, you’re a one-eyed man in a kingdom of the blind.

I think writing really helps you heal yourself. I think if you write long enough, you will be a healthy person. That is, if you write what you need to write, as opposed to what will make money, or what will make fame.

You can’t be happy by doing something groovy.

I claim to be a simple individual liable to err like any other fellow mortal. I own, however, that I have humility enough in me to confess my errors and to retrace my steps.

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.

My work is the only ground I’ve ever had to stand on. To put it bluntly, I seem to have a whole superstructure with no foundation, but I’m working on the foundation.

At 155, I will be the same animal, an even better animal.

Either you’re the one erasing or you’re the one being erased.

A man must be big enough to admit his mistakes, smart enough to profit from them, and strong enough to correct them.

The final forming of a person’s character lies in their own hands.

There are a lot of ‚chicken Christians.‘ Chickens are generally afraid of life, and they seldom fly or reach their potential in life. And when a storm comes, all they seem to do is flap around the chicken yard, stirring up dirt and running to the chicken house.

The most important thing is to try and inspire people so that they can be great in whatever they want to do.

With patient and firm determination, I am going to press on for jobs. I’m going to press on for equality. I’m going to press on for the sake of our children. I’m going to press on for the sake of all those families who are struggling right now. I don’t have time to feel sorry for myself. I don’t have time to complain. I am going to press on.

Either you run the day or the day runs you.

If your only goal is to become rich, you will never achieve it.

No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path.

The trained mind is a rich mind.

Respond intelligently even to unintelligent treatment.

I have a self-defense mind. I’ve had it all my life.

I just think it’s so important not to take yourself too seriously.

You cannot let where you are today cause you to get stuck. I’m going to be my best right now. That’s what faith is all about.

I spent most of the early years of my walk with God focused on what was wrong with me. Most of us probably do that, hoping to change ourselves.

I find hope in the darkest of days, and focus in the brightest. I do not judge the universe.

Man is made by his belief. As he believes, so he is.

I know that I came into the world with what I call ‚big dharma‘ – with a blueprint to teach self-reliance and a positive loving approach to large numbers of people all over the globe. I am ever so grateful for the circumstances of my life that allowed me to be pretty much left alone and to develop as I was so intended in this incarnation.

I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartanlike as to put to rout all that was not life.

Life is a series of experiences, each one of which makes us bigger, even though sometimes it is hard to realize this. For the world was built to develop character, and we must learn that the setbacks and grieves which we endure help us in our marching onward.

I feel confident imposing change on myself. It’s a lot more fun progressing than looking back. That’s why I need to throw curve balls.

Nobody likes to fail. I want to succeed in everything I do, which isn’t much. But the things that I’m really passionate about, if I fail at those, if I’m not successful, what do I have?

Don’t spend time beating on a wall, hoping to transform it into a door.

Just remember, you can’t climb the ladder of success with your hands in your pockets.

Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain – and most fools do.

Don’t ever forget two things I’m going to tell you. One, don’t believe everything that’s written about you. Two, don’t pick up too many checks.

I never sell a book. I sell myself. And the way to sell yourself is to be an instrument of love.

The human wish to credit good things as miraculous and to charge bad things to another account is apparently universal.

The successful man will profit from his mistakes and try again in a different way.

I firmly believe that unless one has tasted the bitter pill of failure, one cannot aspire enough for success.

I have made the mistaken assumption – and I will attempt to be better at this – of thinking that because somebody is on Twitter and is attacking me that it is open season. And that is my mistake.

A fit body gives you confidence. And there’s nothing more impressive than a great attitude, which you can wear on your sleeve. But you’ll have to remember the difference between being rude and being confident.

Action seems to follow feeling, but really action and feeling go together; and by regulating the action, which is under the more direct control of the will, we can indirectly regulate the feeling, which is not.

We are always getting ready to live but never living.

I’m not critic-proof, and I still take it personally, but I take it less personally now.

The simple act of paying attention can take you a long way.

A truly good book teaches me better than to read it. I must soon lay it down, and commence living on its hint. What I began by reading, I must finish by acting.