Much of your pain is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self.

Education consists mainly of what we have unlearned.

How people themselves perceive what they are doing is not a question that interests me.

Everybody wants to be somebody; nobody wants to grow.

And finally I twist my heart round again, so that the bad is on the outside and the good is on the inside, and keep on trying to find a way of becoming what I would so like to be, and could be, if there weren’t any other people living in the world.

The moment the alarm goes off is the first test; it sets the tone for the rest of the day. The test is not a complex one: when the alarm goes off, do you get up out of bed, or do you lie there in comfort and fall back to sleep? If you have the discipline to get out of bed, you win – you pass the test.

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.

The cleverest of all, in my opinion, is the man who calls himself a fool at least once a month.

Our errors are surely not such awfully solemn things. In a world where we are so certain to incur them in spite of all our caution, a certain lightness of heart seems healthier than this excessive nervousness on their behalf.

Why should it be essential to love rarely in order to love much?

Be content to seem what you really are.

You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.

I suppose my best attribute, if you want to call it that, is sincerity. I can sell sincerity because that’s the way I am.

How you think when you lose determines how long it will be until you win.

What I love best in life is new starts.

It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.

The question is not, ‚Do you have a problem?‘ The question is, ‚Does the problem have you?‘

Forty is when you actually begin even deserving to be on stage telling people what you think.

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.

Sometimes I’m a bit under-aggressive and sometimes a bit over. But I think it’s good to have both.

If you have to stand and fight, you train yourself so that you’re able to do it.

One ought never to turn one’s back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it. If you do that, you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half. Never run away from anything. Never!

Control and surrender have to be kept in balance. That’s what surfers do – take control of the situation, then be carried, then take control. In the last few thousand years, we’ve become incredibly adept technically. We’ve treasured the controlling part of ourselves and neglected the surrendering part.

Just because something didn’t work out your way, or somebody disappointed you, that does not change who you are.

Who can exhaust a man? Who knows a man’s resources?

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

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

It’s none of their business that you have to learn how to write. Let them think you were born that way.

People can cry much easier than they can change.

The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature cures the disease.

Every human has four endowments – self awareness, conscience, independent will and creative imagination. These give us the ultimate human freedom… The power to choose, to respond, to change.

There is no easy walk to freedom anywhere, and many of us will have to pass through the valley of the shadow of death again and again before we reach the mountaintop of our desires.

This above all, to refuse to be a victim.

If you’re losing your soul and you know it, then you’ve still got a soul left to lose.

If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn’t part of ourselves doesn’t disturb us.

I was lucky – I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents‘ garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years, Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees.

For people who may think they know, or have snippets of who I am, you can attack that person. That’s part of being a public figure.

I like to use the hard times in the past to motivate me today.

It is not our purpose to become each other; it is to recognize each other, to learn to see the other and honor him for what he is.

I’m just like you – I want to be a good human being. I’m doing my best, and I’m working at it. And I’m trying to be a Christian. I’m always amazed when people walk up to me and say, ‚I’m a Christian.‘ I always think, ‚Already? You’ve already got it?‘ I’m working at it. And at my age, I’ll still be working at it at 96.

I don’t want to be an action star, an action star’s life is so short. I want my life to get longer, I want my career to get longer.

I am not happy, and the quest for happiness as a principal objective is not part of my world. Of course, ever since I can remember, I have done what I felt like doing.

Control your own destiny! Control your own destiny!

Breathe in deeply to bring your mind home to your body. Then look at, or think of, the person triggering this emotion: With mindfulness, you can see that she is unhappy, that she is suffering. You can see her wrong perceptions. You can see that she is not beautiful when she says things that are unkind.

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

When life is too easy for us, we must beware or we may not be ready to meet the blows which sooner or later come to everyone, rich or poor.

You might win some, you might lose some. But you go in, you challenge yourself, you become a better man, a better individual, a better fighter.

If evil be spoken of you and it be true, correct yourself, if it be a lie, laugh at it.

A man is never more truthful than when he acknowledges himself a liar.

For a young person, it is almost a sin, or at least a danger, to be too preoccupied with himself; but for the ageing person, it is a duty and a necessity to devote serious attention to himself.

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 kept a diary right after I was born. Day 1: Tired from the move. Day 2: Everyone thinks I’m an idiot.

Know that any and all thoughts that you have regarding your own skills, interests, and inclinations are valid. To reinforce the validity of your thoughts, keep them private. Tell yourself that they’re between you and God.

I always felt like there was a certain standard of music that I had to do from the beginning, even when I didn’t have the recognition that I have now.

I know that I am intelligent, because I know that I know nothing.

Really, the only thing that makes sense is to strive for greater collective enlightenment.

He who knows that enough is enough will always have enough.

Great industries are never made from single companies. There is room in space for a lot of winners.

I was brought up as an only child, and we were very close. But when I was 14, we got evicted. We came home to a padlock, and I looked up at my mom and she was crying, and there was nothing to do.

Right discipline consists, not in external compulsion, but in the habits of mind which lead spontaneously to desirable rather than undesirable activities.

People won’t have time for you if you are always angry or complaining.