No man likes to have his intelligence or good faith questioned, especially if he has doubts about it himself.

Teach me to feel another’s woe, to hide the fault I see, that mercy I to others show, that mercy show to me.

Well, there are some things that I just can’t get out of my head, and they start to annoy me after a while. Sometimes they’re of my own creation, as well – and they’re just as annoying. It’s not only other people’s ear worms that bug me, it’s my own, as well.

Don’t ever play yourself.

All intelligent thoughts have already been thought; what is necessary is only to try to think them again.

Be smarter than other people, just don’t tell them so.

The only real failure in life is not to be true to the best one knows.

I have no delusions about my likability in every scenario. I know that in order to get things done the way you want them, oftentimes your position will be unpopular.

The man never feels the want of what it never occurs to him to ask for.

Anybody can become angry – that is easy, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way – that is not within everybody’s power and is not easy.

I think that I am better than the people who are trying to reform me.

People pay for what they do, and still more for what they have allowed themselves to become. And they pay for it very simply; by the lives they lead.

My weaknesses have always been food and men – in that order.

The proper study of Man is anything but Man; and the most improper job of any man, even saints (who at any rate were at least unwilling to take it on), is bossing other men. Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity.

I’m tired of fighting. I’ve always known that I can’t be an action star all my life.

My head’s never really quiet. The only time I can get it to turn off is if I watch ‚CSI‘ or ‚Law & Order,‘ where I have to follow the crime. If I can’t turn my head off during that, I know I’ve really got a problem.

I’m not the most patient of people.

The fact is I am not having sex. But I feel absolutely ripe for the, what would you say? plucking?

Ignorant men raise questions that wise men answered a thousand years ago.

I have a strong feeling that I shall be glad when I am dead and done for – scrapped at last to make room for somebody better, cleverer, more perfect than myself.

When I grew up, the Devil was a reason why I had a headache or the Devil was the reason I got mad today. We always blamed the Devil. I think today when I say the Enemy, I like to make it broader. Sometimes the Enemy can be our own thoughts.

I know nothing, except the fact of my ignorance.

Build me a son, O Lord, who will be strong enough to know when he is weak, and brave enough to face himself when he is afraid, one who will be proud and unbending in honest defeat, and humble and gentle in victory.

I’m concerned that my technical skills have advanced to the point where I can get closer to what I’m aiming for, which is not such a good thing.

I knew that I was ‚interesting‘ at 18 because I was aware that I could get away with doing things on stage.

We do not yet possess ourselves, and we know at the same time that we are much more.

One mustn’t close one’s eyes to difficulty and to shortcomings; the more one recognizes them, the less they upset one.

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

I am not a self-help writer. I am a self-problem writer. When people read my books, I provoke some things. I cannot justify my work. I do my work; it is up to them to classify it, to judge.

At eighteen our convictions are hills from which we look; at forty-five they are caves in which we hide.

Association with human beings lures one into self-observation.

Overall there’s going to be things I’m not great at.

If you start to think of your physical and moral condition, you usually find that you are sick.

I would like to take you seriously, but to do so would be an affront to your intelligence.

I know my flaws before other people point them out to me.

Such as we are made of, such we be.

The thing about the truth is, not a lot of people can handle it.

I think it’s a myth that American public or any other public is so stupid that they need to be constantly pricked.

It seems the older you get, the more life comes into focus.

The truth is that you can only come to know God when you give up the past and the future in your mind and merge totally into the now, because God is always here now.

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.

We are all sentenced to solitary confinement inside our own skins, for life.

I prefer tongue-tied knowledge to ignorant loquacity.

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

Thought must be divided against itself before it can come to any knowledge of itself.

It is better to do one’s own duty, however defective it may be, than to follow the duty of another, however well one may perform it. He who does his duty as his own nature reveals it, never sins.

It is better to have your head in the clouds, and know where you are… than to breathe the clearer atmosphere below them, and think that you are in paradise.

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

We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world.

Most people treat the present moment as if it were an obstacle that they need to overcome. Since the present moment is life itself, it is an insane way to live.

For the execution of the voyage to the Indies, I did not make use of intelligence, mathematics or maps.

Self-actualized people are independent of the good opinion of others.

Few are those who see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts.

There are phases in life which surface at times, and it makes you understand that despite you working hard, everything what you are doing is probably not enough. That’s when you need to look around, and beyond.

Few of us have vitality enough to make any of our instincts imperious.

You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe deserve your love and affection.

We are dying from overthinking. We are slowly killing ourselves by thinking about everything. Think. Think. Think. You can never trust the human mind anyway. It’s a death trap.

Really, who you are is defined by the people who you know – not even the people that you know, but the people you spend time with and the people that you love and the people that you work with. I guess we show your friends in your profile, but that’s kind of different from the information you put in your profile.

The power of our thoughts may never be measured or appreciated, but it became obvious to me as a young boy that there was value and power in being aware of my thoughts and how I expressed myself.

Talk to a man about himself and he will listen for hours.

It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.