Men acquire a particular quality by constantly acting in a particular way.

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

The more you seek the uncomfortable, the more you will become comfortable.

In order to heal others, we first need to heal ourselves. And to heal ourselves, we need to know how to deal with ourselves.

The difference between us and them, between you and success, is not that you never fail, but it’s how you recover from those failures – is that you keep getting up time and time again. You figure out what you did wrong, and then you make it right. I say that to my kids every day.

A man is what he thinks about all day long.

Well, in order for me to be successful… In order to be a great artist – musician, actor, painter, whatever – you must be able to be private in public at all times.

My moms always told me, ‚How long you gonna play the victim?‘ I can say I’m mad and I hate everything, but nothing really changes until I change myself.

I think who you are in school really sticks with you.

I think being able to age gracefully is a very important talent. It is too late for me.

You’re always learning. The problem is, sometimes you stop and think you understand the world. This is not correct. The world is always moving. You never reach the point you can stop making an effort.

I think it’s OK to be confident in yourself.

Knowledge will give you power, but character respect.

Fame is ultimately about the cycles of desire and how to do away with them or manage them well.

Finite to fail, but infinite to venture.

The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.

Libraries raised me.

The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.

Manifest plainness, embrace simplicity, reduce selfishness, have few desires.

Whoever doesn’t know it must learn and find by experience that ‚a quiet conscience makes one strong!‘

I learned a long time ago how to be coachable.

In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.

In the dim background of mind we know what we ought to be doing but somehow we cannot start.

Just as your car runs more smoothly and requires less energy to go faster and farther when the wheels are in perfect alignment, you perform better when your thoughts, feelings, emotions, goals, and values are in balance.

When I was about thirteen, the library was going to get ‚Calculus for the Practical Man.‘ By this time I knew, from reading the encyclopedia, that calculus was an important and interesting subject, and I ought to learn it.

I am never satisfied with myself and that is what keeps me going – I have no post-satisfaction.

I never say I am a guru.

Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.

I’m not a regrets-type person.

Nine-tenths of wisdom is being wise in time.

I don’t want to be too critical of what other people do, but when people go back to do the same thing that they did, I’m completely confused. I’m like, ‚Didn’t you make that movie already?‘ I’ve been very fortunate, and I’m well taken care of, so the least I can do is try to go forward.

I have brought myself, by long meditation, to the conviction that a human being with a settled purpose must accomplish it, and that nothing can resist a will which will stake even existence upon its fulfillment.

A man wrapped up in himself makes a very small bundle.

As a leader, the first person I need to lead is me. The first person that I should try to change is me.

I’ve learned that men and women who are living wholehearted lives really allow themselves to soften into joy and happiness. They allow themselves to experience it.

Your success, or lack of success, is your responsibility. Even when you have a chain of command that you don’t like as well, its your responsibility to work with the up chain of command.

Only one who devotes himself to a cause with his whole strength and soul can be a true master. For this reason mastery demands all of a person.

Let our advance worrying become advance thinking and planning.

The first quality that is needed is audacity.

Healthy discontent is the prelude to progress.

I think it’s quite great to set yourself a big challenge, and then you’ve got another reason for keeping fit.

If you don’t like how things are, change it! You’re not a tree.

You fail only if you stop writing.

If it’s going to come out eventually, better have it come out immediately.

The man who can centre his thoughts and hopes upon something transcending self can find a certain peace in the ordinary troubles of life, which is impossible to the pure egoist.

I’m not this horrible, evil person.

I’m of the school of thought where, if you can’t sort something out for yourself, no one can help you. Rehab is great for some people but not others.

I could not do what I do, and teach a class, and never miss a deadline, never be late for anything if I was a lush, OK? I would really love to read a piece that said, ‚He is not a lush.‘ That would be fabulous, it would be a first, I could show it to people and say, ‚Look!‘

We can never obtain peace in the outer world until we make peace with ourselves.

No evil dooms us hopelessly except the evil we love, and desire to continue in, and make no effort to escape from.

Once you say you’re going to settle for second, that’s what happens to you in life.

I like pushing boundaries.

I know my flaws before other people point them out to me.

I will not be concerned at other men’s not knowing me; I will be concerned at my own want of ability.

A person places themselves on a level with the ones they praise.

Power is the measure of the degree of control you have over circumstances in your life and the actions of the people around you. It is a skill that is developed by a deep understanding of human nature, of what truly motivates people, and of the manipulations necessary for advancement and protection.

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 was a kind of hyper-intense person in my twenties and very impatient.

Maxim for life: You get treated in life the way you teach people to treat you.

For a long time now I have tried simply to write the best I can. Sometimes I have good luck and write better than I can.

A nation or civilization that continues to produce soft-minded men purchases its own spiritual death on the installment plan.