Never say anything about yourself you do not want to come true.

I have my flaws too, but I am a professional who doesn’t like to miss or lose.

I know I want to always do the best I can.

Unless I am both capable of and willing to reopen the wound every time I write a song, if I choose to not look inside myself to write music, I’m really not worth being called an artist at all.

The best author will be the one who is ashamed to become a writer.

I am, as a character, at times, a little overbearing. I recognize that.

An alcoholic is someone you don’t like who drinks as much as you do.

As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world – that is the myth of the atomic age – as in being able to remake ourselves.

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.

I’ve lived a very colorful life, and I’ve said some things, But not once have I taken them back, and I’ve never apologized for them – and I won’t.

When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy. When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.

I’ve actually not read any books on time management.

The aim of a joke is not to degrade the human being, but to remind him that he is already degraded.

My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure.

The ego is nothing other than the focus of conscious attention.

I’m not convinced that women have the education or the sense of their own history enough or that they understand the cruelty of which men are capable and the delight that many men will take in seeing you choose to chain yourself – then they get to say ‚See, you did it yourself.‘

We grow older, but we do not change. We become more sophisticated, but at bottom we continue to resemble our young selves, eager to listen to the next story and the next, and the next.

Instead of blaming everyone and everything else for your problems, pray for God to help you take an inventory of what’s been on your mind so you can think about what you’ve been thinking about.

You all look like happy campers to me. Happy campers you are, happy campers you have been, and, as far as I am concerned, happy campers you will always be.

To create something you must be something.

I don’t mind telling a dark side.

There are three kinds of intelligence: one kind understands things for itself, the other appreciates what others can understand, the third understands neither for itself nor through others. This first kind is excellent, the second good, and the third kind useless.

It is a most mortifying reflection for a man to consider what he has done, compared to what he might have done.

If we say it long enough eventually we’re going to reap a harvest. We’re going to get exactly what we’re saying.

When you’re in hell, you forget how great you really are because you’re suffering and you forget the great things you’ve done.

If we’re going to bring out the best in people, we, too, need to sow seeds of encouragement.

Man is fully responsible for his nature and his choices.

Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win.

I’m convinced of this: Good done anywhere is good done everywhere. For a change, start by speaking to people rather than walking by them like they’re stones that don’t matter. As long as you’re breathing, it’s never too late to do some good.

Goodness is the only investment that never fails.

It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn’t feel like a giant. I felt very, very small.

While we may lose heart, we never have to lose hope.

The only way to avoid being miserable is not to have enough leisure to wonder whether you are happy or not.

Friendship with ones self is all important, because without it one cannot be friends with anyone else in the world.

Every man is said to have his peculiar ambition. Whether it be true or not, I can say, for one, that I have no other so great as that of being truly esteemed of my fellow-men, by rendering myself worthy of their esteem. How far I shall succeed in gratifying this ambition is yet to be developed.

It is well for the world that in most of us, by the age of thirty, the character has set like plaster, and will never soften again.

Loving people live in a loving world. Hostile people live in a hostile world. Same world.

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 don’t feel too much pressure. I only see an opportunity.

When I’m a director, I look at myself the actor as a completely different person. It’s somebody else up there, an actor playing a role. I keep myself out of it.

This world of ours… must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be, instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect.

In oneself lies the whole world and if you know how to look and learn, the door is there and the key is in your hand. Nobody on earth can give you either the key or the door to open, except yourself.

‚Trilogy‘ was more of a claustrophobic body of work. Before it was released, I hadn’t left my city for 21 years, and I had never been on a plane, not once. I spent my entire life on one setting; that’s probably why pieces of the album feel like one long track, because that’s what my life felt like. It felt like one long song.

There is no hope unmingled with fear, and no fear unmingled with hope.

An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself.

Whatever you are, be a good one.

I can never say ‚why‘ about anything I do. I suppose I can say ‚how‘ and ‚when‘ and ‚what.‘ But ‚why‘ is impenetrable to me.

Man is the only creature that refuses to be what he is.

No one lives long enough to learn everything they need to learn starting from scratch. To be successful, we absolutely, positively have to find people who have already paid the price to learn the things that we need to learn to achieve our goals.

Never leave a rhinestone unturned.

Apply yourself both now and in the next life. Without effort, you cannot be prosperous. Though the land be good, You cannot have an abundant crop without cultivation.

People like to build their own story about my life. I don’t know if it makes them feel better, or if it makes it okay for them to not like me, but the last thing I grew up as was rich.

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.

Your ability to use the principle of autosuggestion will depend, very largely, upon your capacity to concentrate upon a given desire until that desire becomes a burning obsession.

It is necessary for me to establish a winner image. Therefore, I have to beat somebody.

If you carefully consider what you want to be said of you in the funeral experience, you will find your definition of success.

I am being frank about myself in this book. I tell of my first mistake on page 850.

True self is non-self, the awareness that the self is made only of non-self elements. There’s no separation between self and other, and everything is interconnected. Once you are aware of that you are no longer caught in the idea that you are a separate entity.

Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.

Communication is a skill that you can learn. It’s like riding a bicycle or typing. If you’re willing to work at it, you can rapidly improve the quality of evry part of your life.

If human beings were shown what they’re really like, they’d either kill one another as vermin, or hang themselves.