My message isn’t perfectly defined. I have, as a human being, fallen to peer pressure.

You are only afraid if you are not in harmony with yourself. People are afraid because they have never owned up to themselves.

For me, I used to be shy towards journalism because it wasn’t poetry. And then I realized that the events that I covered in essays that became journalism were actually great because they inspired me, and they became my muse.

What starts the process, really, are laughs and slights and snubs when you are a kid. If your anger is deep enough and strong enough, you learn that you can change those attitudes by excellence, personal gut performance.

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

The stories are not autobiographical, but they’re personal in that way. I seem to know only the things that I’ve learned. Probably some things through observation, but what I feel I know surely is personal.

He that humbleth himself wishes to be exalted.

Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to cast a stone.

Oh, God, I struggle with low self-esteem all the time! I think everyone does. I have so much wrong with me, it’s unbelievable!

I guess every single word I’ve ever said is going to be dissected now.

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

The desire to annoy no one, to harm no one, can equally well be the sign of a just as of an anxious disposition.

Fame doesn’t fulfill you. It warms you a bit, but that warmth is temporary.

I think I’m pretty smart. I think I’m pretty clever. But there’s a lot that you hone in on when you finish your education.

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

Do the thing you fear to do and keep on doing it… that is the quickest and surest way ever yet discovered to conquer fear.

In all affairs it’s a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted.

My philosophy is: It’s none of my business what people say of me and think of me.

I found it hard to be young. When I was married in my twenties, I hated being regarded as ‚the little wife.‘ You don’t know what it was like then! I’d never even written a cheque. I had to ask my husband for money for groceries.

Do what you love. Know your own bone; gnaw at it, bury it, unearth it, and gnaw it still.

One of the many lessons that one learns in prison is, that things are what they are and will be what they will be.

I feel matured in a way that I’m happy about. I’m at this other stage in my life – and it’s not a bad thing at all.

The first test of a truly great man is his humility. By humility I don’t mean doubt of his powers or hesitation in speaking his opinion, but merely an understanding of the relationship of what he can say and what he can do.

I was willing to accept what I couldn’t change.

How many things there are concerning which we might well deliberate whether we had better know them.

Stay active. Read the Word. Worship with other believers. Continue to give. Keep learning and growing. Your faith will be unleashed!

I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.

Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. But anger is like fire. It burns it all clean.

Education must provide the opportunities for self-fulfillment; it can at best provide a rich and challenging environment for the individual to explore, in his own way.

We must lay hold of the fact that economic laws are not made by nature. They are made by human beings.

O wretched man, wretched not just because of what you are, but also because you do not know how wretched you are!

Everything you need you already have. You are complete right now, you are a whole, total person, not an apprentice person on the way to someplace else. Your completeness must be understood by you and experienced in your thoughts as your own personal reality.

The older I get, the more important the eternal becomes to me personally.

It’s not the daily increase but daily decrease. Hack away at the unessential.

Back in the day, what motivated me was overcoming myself. Now I believe in being a leader. I’ve done it all – I’m good. Now, it’s about setting an example for others to follow. I can’t just talk it – I have to live it.

The worst disease which can afflict executives in their work is not, as popularly supposed, alcoholism; it’s egotism.

People need hard times and oppression to develop psychic muscles.

He who knows himself is enlightened.

There’s not some idea I’m going to create a work that’s going to change everybody’s consciousness.

We should take care not to make the intellect our goal; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality.

I had wanted a tape recorder since I was tiny. I thought it was a magic thing. I never got one until just before I went to art school.

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.

And above all things, never think that you’re not good enough yourself. A man should never think that. My belief is that in life people will take you at your own reckoning.

I’m no genius.

I have spent many years of my life in opposition, and I rather like the role.

Relationships are the hallmark of the mature person.

To know yet to think that one does not know is best; Not to know yet to think that one knows will lead to difficulty.

As we advance in life we learn the limits of our abilities.

For most of us, wisdom is acquired in the thicket of experience and usually meets us somewhere along the way if we live long enough. But sooner is better than later.

The Bible tells us to be perfect. This is likely a scary thought for many people. It used to scare me. I didn’t think I could ever get there, no matter how hard I tried.

People don’t usually compliment your character.

It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or by demons, heaven or hell.

The man who writes about himself and his own time is the only man who writes about all people and about all time.

It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of nonviolence to cover impotence.

I don’t think I am evangelical in my work.

The mind is everything. What you think you become.

However happy people say they are, nobody is satisfied: we always have to be with the prettiest woman, buy a bigger house, change cars, desire what we do not have.

I didn’t want to be a fashion designer, and for a good half of my career I didn’t like it. I always wanted to do other things.

We begin to see, therefore, the importance of selecting our environment with the greatest of care, because environment is the mental feeding ground out of which the food that goes into our minds is extracted.

I have many regrets, and I’m sure everyone does. The stupid things you do, you regret… if you have any sense, and if you don’t regret them, maybe you’re stupid.

It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.