No matter how full a reservoir of maxims one may possess, and no matter how good one’s sentiments may be, if one has not taken advantage of every concrete opportunity to act, one’s character may remain entirely unaffected for the better.

I fear that many a man’s good resolutions only need the ordinary fire of daily life to make them melt away. So, too, with fine professions and the boastings of perfection which abound in this age of shams.

Those who lack the courage will always find a philosophy to justify it.

It’s better to be good than evil, but one achieves goodness at a terrific cost.

Where much is expected from an individual, he may rise to the level of events and make the dream come true.

As soon as the fear approaches near, attack and destroy it.

If you wish to achieve worthwhile things in your personal and career life, you must become a worthwhile person in your own self-development.

You may make some mistakes – but that doesn’t make you a sinner. You’ve got the very nature of God on the inside of you.

You have to be willing to go to war with yourself and create a whole new identity.

Only by contending with challenges that seem to be beyond your strength to handle at the moment you can grow more surely toward the stars.

We must all suffer one of two things: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret or disappointment.

Work out your own salvation. Do not depend on others.

I don’t want to just revolve. I want to evolve. As a man, as a human, as a father, as a lover.

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.

Life doesn’t require that we be the best, only that we try our best.

If I’d had some set idea of a finish line, don’t you think I would have crossed it years ago?

No one has a right to consume happiness without producing it.

We have to wake up. We have to refuse to be a clone.

I don’t care if people I admire criticize me because their opinion is valuable to me.

Forgiveness says you are given another chance to make a new beginning.

All of us should be on guard against beliefs that flatter ourselves. At the very least, we should check such beliefs against facts.

Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes.

I never had a policy; I have just tried to do my very best each and every day.

Enjoy the satisfaction that comes from doing little things well.

The greater our knowledge increases the more our ignorance unfolds.

A man who views the world the same at fifty as he did at twenty has wasted thirty years of his life.

I think it’s healthy for a person to be nervous. It means you care – that you work hard and want to give a great performance. You just have to channel that nervous energy into the show.

There’s a victory, and defeat; the first and best of victories, the lowest and worst of defeats which each man gains or sustains at the hands not of another, but of himself.

I always try to be smart. I try to treat all the money I’m making like it’s the last time I’m going to make it.

Virtue is a state of war, and to live in it we have always to combat with ourselves.

We must, all of us, learn actually not to have enemies, but only confused adversaries who are ourselves in disguise.

Find people who will make you better.

If you must hold yourself up to your children as an object lesson, hold yourself up as a warning and not as an example.

Don’t let the incidents which take place in life bring you low. And certainly don’t whine. You can be brought low, that’s OK, but don’t be reduced by them. Just say, ‚That’s life.‘

I think it’s my responsibility, as a person of influence… to sometimes try to do what I can.

To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.

It is possible to live happily in the here and the now. So many conditions of happiness are available – more than enough for you to be happy right now. You don’t have to run into the future in order to get more.

It is one of the beautiful compensations in this life that no one can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.

Without discipline, there’s no life at all.

I’m not interested in cutting the feet off my characters or stretching them to make them fit my certain political view.

It is unbecoming for young men to utter maxims.

The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.

I liked school, but I used to dread those moments when the teacher would call me up to give an oral report. I forced myself to deal with it and not dwell on the class in front of me – to keep a straight face, give the report and concentrate on getting it right. That’s normally how I perform. That’s how I am.

I never let schooling interfere with my education.

Virtue she finds too painful an endeavour, content to dwell in decencies for ever.

Should you find yourself in a chronically leaking boat, energy devoted to changing vessels is likely to be more productive than energy devoted to patching leaks.

If you deserve it, go get it.

If you wish to forget anything on the spot, make a note that this thing is to be remembered.

The challenge is to stay cool enough to handle the pressure in the moment so that you can succeed in the future.

I’ll promise to go easier on drinking and to get to bed earlier, but not for you, fifty thousand dollars, or two-hundred and fifty thousand dollars will I give up women. They’re too much fun.

Needing to have things perfect is the surest way to immobilize yourself with frustration.

I always had a repulsive need to be something more than human.

The world would be happier if men had the same capacity to be silent that they have to speak.

Trust yourself. Create the kind of self that you will be happy to live with all your life. Make the most of yourself by fanning the tiny, inner sparks of possibility into flames of achievement.

Whatever you are, be a good one.

No matter what, people grow. If you chose not to grow, you’re staying in a small box with a small mindset. People who win go outside of that box. It’s very simple when you look at it.

Any man is liable to err, only a fool persists in error.

I never learn anything talking. I only learn things when I ask questions.

If you’re doing your best, you won’t have any time to worry about failure.

Sometimes, if you begin to sing in a halfhearted mood, you can sing yourself up the ladder. Singing will often make the heart rise.

I can’t jump the highest. I’m obviously not the biggest, not the strongest.