Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit. We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.

Without discipline, there’s no life at all.

I’m so nervous. I’ve always been nervous, ever since I was a kid.

We just seem to have lost all our morals and principles and values these days.

Let’s pray that the human race never escapes from Earth to spread its iniquity elsewhere.

The most happy man is he who knows how to bring into relation the end and beginning of his life.

Let us all be brave enough to die the death of a martyr, but let no one lust for martyrdom.

I grew up in a funny way.

Tyrants have always some slight shade of virtue; they support the laws before destroying them.

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.

I have no time to think about other writers. I am too busy with my own problems.

All wrong-doing arises because of mind. If mind is transformed can wrong-doing remain?

It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues.

Conscious of not being able to separate myself from my time, I have decided to become part of it.

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.

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

The ego is only an illusion, but a very influential one. Letting the ego-illusion become your identity can prevent you from knowing your true self. Ego, the false idea of believing that you are what you have or what you do, is a backwards way of assessing and living life.

I’m not a bad person.

I think most defense attorneys know, to some extent, their clients are guilty.

My mother did not like children.

I can do no other than be reverent before everything that is called life. I can do no other than to have compassion for all that is called life. That is the beginning and the foundation of all ethics.

People who want the most approval get the least and people who need approval the least get the most.

All travel has its advantages. If the passenger visits better countries, he may learn to improve his own. And if fortune carries him to worse, he may learn to enjoy it.

God has entrusted me with myself.

Not everyone loves me, but I have to be okay no matter what they think about me.

Peace is not the absence of war, but a virtue based on strength of character.

Never contract friendship with a man that is not better than thyself.

Thoughts are mental energy; they’re the currency that you have to attract what you desire. Learn to stop spending that currency on thoughts you don’t want.

To know oneself, one should assert oneself.

What I enjoy most is doing something I’ve never done before.

Why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me.

I used to worry about every little thing, trying to figure out every problem. Well, I realize now how foolish that was. I was no more in control of my life than the man on the moon.

At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.

Ethics and power are separate.

For me, being raised in a free America made all the difference.

A scholar who cherishes the love of comfort is not fit to be deemed a scholar.

Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire, called conscience.

The competitor to be feared is one who never bothers about you at all, but goes on making his own business better all the time.

I’ve always had a problem with the average macho man – they’ve always been a threat to me.

You have learnt something. That always feels at first as if you had lost something.

About morals, I know only that what is moral is what you feel good after and what is immoral is what you feel bad after.

My goal is to entertain myself and others.

What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal.

Jealousy… is a mental cancer.

You can be happy where you are.

I’m only going to stand before God and give an account for my life, not for somebody else’s life. If I have a bad attitude, then I need to say there’s no point in me blaming you for what’s wrong in my life.

Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome.

Not being beautiful was the true blessing. Not being beautiful forced me to develop my inner resources. The pretty girl has a handicap to overcome.

God is more interested in your future and your relationships than you are.

You need to understand what works best for your own body.

I just get annoyed at myself. A lot of swearing goes on generally when I am driving.

If something can corrupt you, you’re corrupted already.

There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written.

True virtue is life under the direction of reason.

Ego is only fine when it is working for your motivation.

When there is a lack of honor in government, the morals of the whole people are poisoned.

The idea of recognising your strengths and using them in as versatile a way as you can is cool to me.

We construct a narrative for ourselves, and that’s the thread that we follow from one day to the next. People who disintegrate as personalities are the ones who lose that thread.

The Sisters of Notre Dame at St. Aloysius Grade School influenced my life tremendously. This was due to the fact that they encouraged you always to make sure that God is the focus of your life, and they didn’t allow you to do anything except to the very best of your ability.

Truth is certainly a branch of morality and a very important one to society.

One advantage in keeping a diary is that you become aware with reassuring clarity of the changes which you constantly suffer.