No one should be ashamed to admit he is wrong, which is but saying, in other words, that he is wiser today than he was yesterday.

Custom reconciles us to everything.

If someone you know makes a bad decision or uses bad judgment, it doesn’t mean you have to allow that to alter your attitude. Why should you allow anyone else’s bad decisions to send you into a tailspin of misery?

The less you know, the more you believe.

I used to let other people’s struggles affect my happiness. If they weren’t happy, there was no way I was going to be happy. The opposite was also true: If I wasn’t happy, I didn’t want anyone around me to be happy.

Your attitude towards failure determines your altitude after failure.

I give opinions, not advice.

I don’t make people bend over backwards, and I don’t like that in people. I am definitely no diva.

No driver is perfect.

That’s what a man wants in a wife, mostly; he wants to make sure one fool tells him he’s wise.

The time to take counsel of your fears is before you make an important battle decision. That’s the time to listen to every fear you can imagine! When you have collected all the facts and fears and made your decision, turn off all your fears and go ahead!

Everyone should be respected as an individual, but no one idolized.

Follow your honest convictions and be strong.

I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance.

I was raised in a family where vulnerability was barely tolerated: no training wheels on our bicycles, no goggles in the pool, just get it done. And so I grew up not only with discomfort about my own vulnerability, I didn’t care for it in other people either.

The doors of wisdom are never shut.

Concentration is one of the happiest things in my life.

For everything you have missed, you have gained something else, and for everything you gain, you lose something else.

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.

We will be more successful in all our endeavors if we can let go of the habit of running all the time, and take little pauses to relax and re-center ourselves. And we’ll also have a lot more joy in living.

Anybody can be good in the country. There are no temptations there.

When I was old enough to change my name, I changed it to Mr. T so that the first word out of someone’s mouth was ‚Mister,‘ a sign of respect.

I am a big believer in education, because when I grew up in Austria – when I grew up in Austria I had a great education. I had great teachers.

The thing to do, it seems to me, is to prepare yourself so you can be a rainbow in somebody else’s cloud. Somebody who may not look like you. May not call God the same name you call God – if they call God at all. I may not dance your dances or speak your language. But be a blessing to somebody. That’s what I think.

We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aid, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn.

The chimpanzee study was – well, it’s still going on, and I think it’s taught us perhaps more than anything else to be a little humble; that we are, indeed, unique primates, we humans, but we’re simply not as different from the rest of the animal kingdom as we used to think.

Every man in his lifetime needs to thank his faults.

If you reveal your secrets to the wind, you should not blame the wind for revealing them to the trees.

Hatred does not cease by hatred, but only by love; this is the eternal rule.

I’ve learned over the years that when I go to that place of passion within me, there’s no force in the universe that can interfere with my completing a project.

A man’s growth is seen in the successive choirs of his friends.

Correcting bad habits cannot be done by forbidding or punishment.

When befriended, remember it; when you befriend, forget it.

The teacher is the one who gets the most out of the lessons, and the true teacher is the learner.

Many sophisticated, intelligent people lack wisdom and common sense.

Playing Etta James in the movie ‚Cadillac Records‘ really changed me. It was a darker character, and I realized that if anything is too comfortable, I want to run from it. It’s no fun being safe.

We learn martial arts as helping weakness. You never fight for people to get hurt. You’re always helping people.

Great and good are seldom the same man.

If our condition were truly happy, we would not seek diversion from it in order to make ourselves happy.

Songwriting is my way of channeling my feelings and my thoughts. Not just mine, but the things I see, the people I care about. My head would explode if I didn’t get some of that stuff out.

With ideas it is like with dizzy heights you climb: At first they cause you discomfort and you are anxious to get down, distrustful of your own powers; but soon the remoteness of the turmoil of life and the inspiring influence of the altitude calm your blood; your step gets firm and sure and you begin to look – for dizzier heights.

I make preparations both to live and to die every day, but with the emphasis on not dying, and on acting as if I was going to carry on living.

We occasionally stumble over the truth but most of us pick ourselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.

We ought to fly away from earth to heaven as quickly as we can; and to fly away is to become like God, as far as this is possible; and to become like him is to become holy, just, and wise.

Let not your mind run on what you lack as much as on what you have already.

Men must know their limitations.

If you want a quality, act as if you already had it.

If you want to go somewhere, it is best to find someone who has already been there.

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.

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.

My future is righteousness.

It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.

It is impossible to live a pleasant life without living wisely and well and justly. And it is impossible to live wisely and well and justly without living a pleasant life.

She never envisioned a legal career for me, but she did think it was very important that I be able to support myself, and I think she would be pleased to see what has become of me.

Seek ye first the good things of the mind, and the rest will either be supplied or its loss will not be felt.

Never mistake motion for action.

I think I’m like most people – we fear the unknown and the things that have yet to come to pass, which are the very things that don’t deserve to be feared. When you give God complete control, it’s very hard not to be fearless.

The fearful unbelief is unbelief in yourself.

Everything I read about hitting a midlife crisis was true. I had such a struggle letting go of youthful things and learning how to exist and have enthusiasm while settling into the comfort of an older age.

To me, a leader is someone who holds her- or himself accountable for finding potential in people and processes. And so what I think is really important is sustainability.

When you start to realise how much of what you’ve constructed of yourself is based on deception and lies, that is a horrifying realisation.