My fate cannot be mastered; it can only be collaborated with and thereby, to some extent, directed. Nor am I the captain of my soul; I am only its noisiest passenger.

Men do not shape destiny, Destiny produces the man for the hour.

The more a person seeks security, the more that person gives up control over their life.

It’s a very strange thing being recognized or looked upon as someone special.

The Moon Village concept has a nice property in that it basically just says, ‚Look, everybody builds their own lunar outpost, but let’s do it close to each other.‘ That way… you can go over to the European Union lunar outpost and say, ‚I’m out of eggs. What have you got?‘

What most persons consider as virtue, after the age of 40 is simply a loss of energy.

I’ve always felt quite singular, even as a child. That I must stay on track to keep my purpose.

You are the universe, you aren’t in the universe.

Talking much about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself.

Whenever I climb I am followed by a dog called ‚Ego‘.

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

A man can’t be too careful in the choice of his enemies.

It is a most delightful reflection that if I come to the throne of God in prayer, I may feel a thousand defects, but yet there is hope. I usually feel more dissatisfied with my prayers than with anything else I do.

It was completely fruitless to quarrel with the world, whereas the quarrel with oneself was occasionally fruitful and always, she had to admit, interesting.

I know nothing, except the fact of my ignorance.

I’m an emotional person.

What’s wrong with being a boring kind of guy?

I am confident that partnering my Dollywood Company with a great company like Gaylord will create something truly special.

I have a hard time figuring out what kind of box to put me in, too, because I don’t know exactly what’s going on around me or why. But I need to stay outside of boxes because then I can look at what’s inside of them without being part of them.

I’m stupid, I’m ugly, I’m dumb, I smell. Did I mention I’m stupid?

What comes out when life squeezes you? When someone hurts or offends you? If anger, pain and fear come out of you, it’s because that’s what’s inside.

If you only believe that you’re an artist when you have a big advance in your pocket and a single coming out, I would say that’s quite soulless. You have to have a sense of your own greatness and your own ability from a very deep place inside you. I am the one with the litmus test in my hands of what people need to hear next.

I’ve always been – you know, my personality is motivating and encouraging. And so I’m just being who God made me to be.

Although I’m only fourteen, I know quite well what I want. I know who is right and who is wrong. I have my opinions, my own ideas and principles, and although it may sound pretty mad from an adolescent, I feel more of a person than a child. I feel quite independent of anyone.

Pride is an independent, me-oriented spirit. It makes people arrogant, rude and hard to get along with. When our heart is prideful, we don’t give God the credit and we mistreat people, looking down on them and thinking we deserve what we have.

I was approached about having my own network many, many years ago. There were some people who wanted to start up a network, and I didn’t want to get that involved in the business aspect of it.

We came up with TDE. As competitive as rap is, and as much as we’re trying to exceed the standards we set for ourselves, we take their wins as our wins, too.

The world can criticize me, but l can always criticize it back.

There’s two sorts of fear: one you embrace and one you should listen to and turn the other way.

Begin to see yourself as a soul with a body rather than a body with a soul.

Each one has to find his peace from within. And peace to be real must be unaffected by outside circumstances.

God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another.

Look at the means which a man employs, consider his motives, observe his pleasures. A man simply cannot conceal himself!

There are definitely designers that I love, people I love to work with. And who they are as people matters. Are they good people? Do they treat their staff well? Do they treat my staff well? Are they young? Can I give them a boost? But when all of that is equal… is it cute?

I came in with Halley’s Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don’t go out with Halley’s Comet. The Almighty has said, no doubt: ‚Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together.‘

Memories are thoughts that arise. They’re not realities. Only when you believe that they are real, then they have the power over you. But when you realize it’s just another thought arising about the past, then you can have a spacious relationship with that thought. The thought no longer has you in its grip.

Through the right people focusing on the right things, we can, in time, get on top of a lot if not most of the problems of this world. And that’s what a number of us are trying to do.

Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so.

With people of limited ability modesty is merely honesty. But with those who possess great talent it is hypocrisy.

No one but a fool is always right.

The mind is a superb instrument if used rightly. Used wrongly, however, it becomes very destructive. To put it more accurately… you usually don’t use it at all. It uses you.

To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else – means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.

There is a difference between happiness and wisdom: he that thinks himself the happiest man is really so; but he that thinks himself the wisest is generally the greatest fool.

Before you try to keep up with the Joneses, be sure they’re not trying to keep up with you.

I get naturally uncomfortable when I’m put under a magnifying glass.

Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; The proper study of mankind is man.

If we are to be happy, we must first react against our tendency to follow the line of least resistance, a tendency that causes us either to remain as we are, or to look primarily to activities external to ourselves for what will provide new impetus to our lives.

I’m actually a very honest person, and sometimes I end up like, ‚Man, I said too much.‘ It’s hard for me not to tell the truth when you ask me.

I’m not the most patient of people.

A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool.

For a long time, I thought I was ugly and disfigured. This made me shy and timid, and I often reacted to insults that were not intended.

You can always cope with the present moment, but you cannot cope with something that is only a mind projection – you cannot cope with the future.

There are few things more dreadful than dealing with a man who knows he is going under, in his own eyes, and in the eyes of others. Nothing can help that man. What is left of that man flees from what is left of human attention.

The soul is your innermost being. The presence that you are beyond form. The consciousness that you are beyond form, that is the soul. That is who you are in essence.

There is no coming to consciousness without pain.

There are so many emotions that you’re feeling, you can get stifled by them if you’re feeling them all at once. What I try to do is take one moment – one simple, simple feeling – and expand it into three-and-a-half minutes.

Never let your ego get so close to your position that when your position goes, your ego goes with it.

The world is a looking glass and gives back to every man the reflection of his own face.

Friendship, like the immortality of the soul, is too good to be believed.

Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything.

I think I have a dualistic nature.