Many a man thinks he is buying pleasure, when he is really selling himself to it.

Breathing in, I am aware of my heart. Breathing out, I smile to my heart and know that my heart still functions normally. I feel grateful for my heart.

In each action we must look beyond the action at our past, present, and future state, and at others whom it affects, and see the relations of all those things. And then we shall be very cautious.

I’m giving all that I have in this life. I’m opening up my notebook, and I’m saying everything in there out loud.

When you put down the good things you ought to have done, and leave out the bad ones you did do well, that’s Memoirs.

The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope.

I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever.

We think too much and feel too little.

I undertake the same project as Montaigne, but with an aim contrary to his own: for he wrote his Essays only for others, and I write my reveries only for myself.

Philosophy is the highest music.

How lucky Adam was. He knew when he said a good thing, nobody had said it before.

Throughout my years in business, I discovered something. I would always ask why you do things. The answers that I would invariably get are: ‚Oh, that’s just the way things are done around here.‘ Nobody knows why they do what they do. Nobody thinks very deeply about things in business.

There is only one difference between a madman and me. The madman thinks he is sane. I know I am mad.

I do all the evil I can before I learn to shun it? Is it not enough to know the evil to shun it? If not, we should be sincere enough to admit that we love evil too well to give it up.

In the stillness of your presence, you can feel your own formless and timeless reality as the unmanifested life that animates your physical form. You can then feel the same life deep within every other human and every other creature. You look beyond the veil of form and separation. This is the realization of oneness. This is love.

Most of the time I spend when I get up in the morning is trying to figure out what is going to happen.

When you realize who you live for, and who’s important to please, a lot of people will actually start living. I am never going to get caught up in that. I’m gonna look back on my life and say that I enjoyed it – and I lived it for me.

I think we’ve taken the meaning of Christmas out. People don’t stop and think about Jesus or the birth of Jesus. When they think of Christmas, they think of Santa Claus and – for the children, and they think of giving gifts and out-giving the next person of spending their time looking for the right thing for somebody who has everything.

These words dropped into my childish mind as if you should accidentally drop a ring into a deep well. I did not think of them much at the time, but there came a day in my life when the ring was fished up out of the well, good as new.

To realize that you do not understand is a virtue; Not to realize that you do not understand is a defect.

Imaginary evils soon become real one by indulging our reflections on them.

There’s not a note of mine that’s worth the noting.

If I err in belief that the souls of men are immortal, I gladly err, nor do I wish this error which gives me pleasure to be wrested from me while I live.

I used to let other people’s struggles affect my happiness. If they weren’t happy, there was no way I was going to be happy. The opposite was also true: If I wasn’t happy, I didn’t want anyone around me to be happy.

When did I know I had talent? I think it started when I first started playing sports, organized sports.

I think beating myself up sometimes and knowing I am not happy when I do it makes me work harder to do a good job.

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

How great is the mystery of the first cells which were one day animated by the breath of our souls! How impossible to decipher the welding of successive influences in which we are forever incorporated! In each one of us, through matter, the whole history of the world is in part reflected.

I tend to overthink things. I’m not the guy who screams ‚This is a world smash!‘ when I finish a song.

Vanity can create a very cruel space for you if you don’t know how to manage it.

The mouth obeys poorly when the heart murmurs.

I love those who can smile in trouble, who can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. ‚Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but they whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves their conduct, will pursue their principles unto death.

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.

For me, one of the toughest things about Valentine’s Day is that it gets geared up as the day to profess your love. See, T-E-S-T – that’s a bad word that doesn’t go with L-O-V-E.

That man is not truly brave who is afraid either to seem or to be, when it suits him, a coward.

We have to confront ourselves. Do we like what we see in the mirror? And, according to our light, according to our understanding, according to our courage, we will have to say yea or nay – and rise!

I never thought I would be such a family-oriented guy; I didn’t think that was part of my makeup. But somebody said that as you get older, you become the person you always should have been, and I feel that’s happening to me.

Self-knowledge comes from knowing other men.

Always make those above you feel comfortably superior. In your desire to please or impress them, do not go too far in displaying your talents or you might accomplish the opposite – inspire fear and insecurity.

Conscience is a mother-in-law whose visit never ends.

It is a fine thing to have ability, but the ability to discover ability in others is the true test.

I have wondered about time all my life.

To be conscious means not simply to be, but to be reported, known, to have awareness of one’s being added to that being.

How is it possible that a being with such sensitive jewels as the eyes, such enchanted musical instruments as the ears, and such fabulous arabesque of nerves as the brain can experience itself anything less than a god.

To be able to look back upon ones life in satisfaction, is to live twice.

I’m always cast in these strange men… that’s not me, really.

Contemplation of life after retirement and life after death can help you deal with contemporary challenges.

What I have in common with the character in ‚Truman‘ is this incredible need to please people. I feel like I want to take care of everyone and I also feel this terrible guilt if I am unable to. And I have felt this way ever since all this success started.

I am getting to the point where the only love worth being in is the love worth singing about.

I remember when I first came to Washington. For the first six months you wonder how the hell you ever got here. For the next six months you wonder how the hell the rest of them ever got here.

I always keep my guard up with guys and I guess that can get in the way sometimes. I can make them go through hell.

If every choice you make comes from an honest place, you’re solid, and nothing anybody can say about you can rock you or change your opinion.

Some mystery should be left in the revelation of character in a play, just as a great deal of mystery is always left in the revelation of character in life, even in one’s own character to himself.

In this big ball of people, I’m just one grain of sand on this beach.

If you’re always under the pressure of real identity, I think that is somewhat of a burden.

To be honest with you, when I got into this I never thought about reviews. I never thought about what people would say about me. I was just a young guy who was excited to become a comedian and an actor and I just wanted to get to do what I got to do.

One of the things I realized is that if you do not take control over your time and your life, other people will gobble it up. If you don’t prioritize yourself, you constantly start falling lower and lower on your list, your kids fall lower and lower on your list.

To complain is always nonacceptance of what is. It invariably carries an unconscious negative charge. When you complain, you make yourself into a victim. When you speak out, you are in your power. So change the situation by taking action or by speaking out if necessary or possible; leave the situation or accept it. All else is madness.

Mere humans who root through their refrigerators at three o’clock in the morning can only produce writing that matches what they do. And that includes me.

I’m tired of fighting. I’ve always known that I can’t be an action star all my life.

I had no talent for science. What was infinitely worse: all my fraternity brothers were engineers.