Me not finishing school – in my head, I still have this insecurity when I’m talking to someone educated.

Within us there is someone who knows everything, wills everything, does everything better than we ourselves.

The reason I became 297 pounds is because that was comfortable. What was very uncomfortable was running. What was very uncomfortable was being on a diet. What was very uncomfortable was trying to face things that I didn’t want to face. And I also realized, when I was really big, I had no growth. Why? Because I was living comfortable.

Connectivity enables transparency for better government, education, and health.

Inside every cynical person, there is a disappointed idealist.

The greatest gift that you can give to others is the gift of unconditional love and acceptance.

Never have we stolen the intelligences of other peoples. On the contrary, in Cuba we have trained tens of thousands of doctors and other top-level professionals, for free, in order to send them back to their own countries.

I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday.

I was a very shy character, always feeling uncomfortable because everybody was stronger than I, and always afraid I would look like a sissy. Everybody else played baseball; everybody else did all kinds of athletic things.

I got teased my entire school life. What they were picking on I don’t even understand.

I’ve never been one to sit back and go, ‚I’d better do what the audience wants me to do, because I don’t want to lose them.‘

My mother is not educated but keeps in touch with world events through news on TV.

I didn’t want to become a professor or get tenure or teach or anything. All I wanted to do was get a degree because Louis Leakey said I needed one, which was right, and once I succeeded I could get back to the field.

I will praise any man that will praise me.

We have a choice about how we take what happens to us in our life and whether or not we allow it to turn us. We can become consumed by hate and darkness, or we’re able to regain our humanity somehow, or come to terms with things and learn something about ourselves.

Words are powerful; if you change your words, you can change your life.

I am, as a character, at times, a little overbearing. I recognize that.

Spiritual people don’t float around all day on clouds of glory; they live in the real world and deal with real issues in real ways.

The training of children is a profession, where we must know how to waste time in order to save it.

Everyone goes through adversity in life, but what matters is how you learn from it.

I really have had to swallow my own prejudice at times.

You cannot open a book without learning something.

I write songs about stuff that I can’t really get past personally – and then I write a song about it and I feel better.

If you wish to succeed in life, make perseverance your bosom friend, experience your wise counselor, caution your elder brother, and hope your guardian genius.

The foundation of every state is the education of its youth.

I am not the humblest person in the world. I admit that.

Any reading not of a vicious species must be a good substitute for the amusements too apt to fill up the leisure of the labouring classes.

Such as are your habitual thoughts, such also will be the character of your mind; for the soul is dyed by the thoughts.

One thing I want to make clear, as far as my own rebirth is concerned, the final authority is myself and no one else, and obviously not China’s Communists.

The thing about Jiu Jitsu is it is also not for everybody. It can be very humiliating and humbling. If you have a hard time dealing with the fact that someone smaller than you may be able to tap you out, it is going to be difficult.

When I first stopped going to high school, I was about 15, 16. It had to be, like, 2000, 2001.

If you have the chance to be exposed to a loving, understanding environment where the seed of compassion, loving kindness, can be watered every day, then you become a more loving person.

We have an epidemic of insecure people in our society today.

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

I think that all people who feel that there is injustice in the world anywhere should learn as much of it as they can bear. That is our duty.

When we get to wishing a great deal for ourselves, whatever we get soon turns into mere limitation and exclusion.

People will try to bring you down, but you gotta go up.

I had nothing growing up, but I always wanted to be ‚sexy,‘ even before I knew what the word was.

While you’re saving your face, you’re losing your ass.

Testing oneself is best when done alone.

Why go through life if you’re not going to challenge yourself?

A mother takes twenty years to make a man of her boy, and another woman makes a fool of him in twenty minutes.

We do not need to proselytise either by our speech or by our writing. We can only do so really with our lives. Let our lives be open books for all to study.

We are wiser than we know.

When we do the best that we can, we never know what miracle is wrought in our life, or in the life of another.

Thirty was so strange for me. I’ve really had to come to terms with the fact that I am now a walking and talking adult.

Since we cannot know all that there is to be known about anything, we ought to know a little about everything.

Unemployment rates among Americans who never went to college are about double that of those who have a postsecondary education.

‚Trilogy‘ was more of a claustrophobic body of work. Before it was released, I hadn’t left my city for 21 years, and I had never been on a plane, not once. I spent my entire life on one setting; that’s probably why pieces of the album feel like one long track, because that’s what my life felt like. It felt like one long song.

The real truths of life are never entirely new to you or to anybody because there is a level deep down within you where you already know all the things, all those spiritual truths that you read or hear, and then recognize them. I say ‚recognize‘ because you’re not… it’s not new.

What is true belongs to me!

When you are angry or frustrated, what comes out? Whatever it is, it’s a good indication of what you’re made of.

The more people I reach, the more people there are that have opinions about me. Not everyone loves me, but I have to be okay no matter what they think about me.

As a small child in England, I had this dream of going to Africa. We didn’t have any money and I was a girl, so everyone except my mother laughed at it. When I left school, there was no money for me to go to university, so I went to secretarial college and got a job.

The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes.

You simply have to accept that your demons are a part of you.

I’m afraid that people who know me as I usually am will discover I have another side, a better and finer side. I’m afraid they’ll mock me, think I’m ridiculous and sentimental and not take me seriously. I’m used to not being taken seriously, but only the ‚light-hearted‘ Anne is used to it and can put up with it; the ‚deeper‘ Anne is too weak.

The greatest enemy of any one of our truths may be the rest of our truths.

If all you’re doing is grinding for the man, it’s going to burden you. Once you say, ‚Hey, I’m grinding for the man, but I’m putting money away, and this is part of my exit strategy,‘ you’re working for you.

Nobody can hurt me without my permission.

Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.