No sanction can stand against ignited minds.

If at first you don’t succeed… so much for skydiving.

When I’m 40 and nobody wants to see me in a sparkly dress anymore, I’ll be like: ‚Cool, I’ll just go in the studio and write songs for kids.‘

I think a certain amount of stress in life is good. The stress of just working, which takes effort – I think it keeps you going.

If you enjoy living, it is not difficult to keep the sense of wonder.

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.

If you want to be successful, it’s just this simple. Know what you are doing. Love what you are doing. And believe in what you are doing.

Nothing’s ever easy as long as you go on living.

Neil Young is my hero, and such a great example. You know what that guy has been doing for the past 40 years? Making music. That’s what that guy does. Sometimes you pay attention, sometimes you don’t. Sometimes he hands it to you, sometimes he keeps it to himself. He’s a good man with a beautiful family and wonderful life.

You can’t hire someone to practice for you.

If you can do a half-assed job of anything, you’re a one-eyed man in a kingdom of the blind.

Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.

Sometimes I’ll jot a clever turn of phrase down. Sometimes I’ll just remember it.

Few things can help an individual more than to place responsibility on him, and to let him know that you trust him.

Nature that framed us of four elements, warring within our breasts for regiment, doth teach us all to have aspiring minds.

The task of the leader is to get his people from where they are to where they have not been.

Human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge.

I’d be so bored if I wasn’t going out there, knowing that I could still do it. So, I’m going to work hard to be ready to go, and I still plan on playing for a long time.

Not knowing when the dawn will come I open every door.

I’m really bad with answering questions. Usually, I don’t even answer them. I try to find inspiration inside of the question. I think, and I jump from one beam of inspiration or energy to the next, as opposed to explaining the energy.

Have no fear of perfection – you’ll never reach it.

Having listened to great songwriters like James Taylor and Carole King, I felt there was nothing new that was coming out that really represented me and the way I felt. So I started writing my own stuff.

All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure.

There are a lot of good women in New York.

It’s lack that gives us inspiration. It’s not fullness.

I think life on Earth must be about more than just solving problems… It’s got to be something inspiring, even if it is vicarious.

When I wake up, I expect things to be good. If they’re not, then I try to set about trying to make them as good as I can ‚cause I know I’m gonna have to live that day anyway. So why not try to make the most of it if you can? Some days, they pan out a little better than others, but you still gotta always just try.

You get to a point where it’s like you can’t really do anything right, and people will pick on you for whatever decisions you make, so I just try and take no notice and get on with my music.

When you draw or paint a tree, you do not imitate the tree; you do not copy it exactly as it is, which would be mere photography. To be free to paint a tree or a flower or a sunset, you have to feel what it conveys to you: the significance, the meaning of it.

I pass my life in preventing the storm from blowing down the tent, and I drive in the pegs as fast as they are pulled up.

The future rewards those who press on. I don’t have time to feel sorry for myself. I don’t have time to complain. I’m going to press on.

Adopt responsibility for your own well-being, try to put your family together, try to serve your community, try to seek for eternal truth… That’s the sort of thing that can ground you in your life, enough so that you can withstand the difficulty of life.

I began revolution with 82 men. If I had to do it again, I do it with 10 or 15 and absolute faith. It does not matter how small you are if you have faith and plan of action.

Two things awe me most, the starry sky above me and the moral law within me.

Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can’t ride you unless your back is bent.

Fight with a happy heart.

He who has faith has… an inward reservoir of courage, hope, confidence, calmness, and assuring trust that all will come out well – even though to the world it may appear to come out most badly.

I was hit by a car once on my bike, but I still rode home.

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.

Don’t let your ego get too close to your position, so that if your position gets shot down, your ego doesn’t go with it.

There is no easy walk to freedom anywhere, and many of us will have to pass through the valley of the shadow of death again and again before we reach the mountaintop of our desires.

You’re not a product of your nature. That is your genetic makeup or your nurture, the things that have happened to you. Of course those things affect you powerfully, but they do not determine you.

I believe in sketching because there is something very sensitive in sketching, you know, in sketches that you don’t have out of a computer that looks the same like everybody even if, later on, the dresses are OK, but I like to sketch, and I like to see trails made after my sketches that look the same. It is you know, what I like.

What spectacle can be more edifying or more seasonable, than that of Liberty and Learning, each leaning on the other for their mutual and surest support?

Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat.

There is no room for military people, including our veterans, to see themselves as victims, even if so many of our countrymen are prone to relish that role.

Predicting rain doesn’t count. Building arks does.

Great men are like eagles, and build their nest on some lofty solitude.

Men do less than they ought, unless they do all that they can.

There is no security on this earth; there is only opportunity.

As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.

My mother, I suppose, is still a main figure in my life because her life was so sad and unfair, and she so brave, but also because she was determined to make me into the Sunday-school-recitation little girl I was, from the age of seven or so, fighting not to be.

I like to use the hard times in the past to motivate me today.

What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?

Civil disobedience’s main goal typically is to try to arouse and inspire others to join and do something. Well, sometimes that is a good tactic, sometimes not.

A word of encouragement from a teacher to a child can change a life. A word of encouragement from a spouse can save a marriage. A word of encouragement from a leader can inspire a person to reach her potential.

The only way you gain mental toughness is to do things you’re not happy doing. If you continue doing things that you’re satisfied and make you happy, you’re not getting stronger. You’re staying where you’re at. Either you’re getting better, or you’re getting worse. You’re not staying the same.

A man who has no office to go, to I don’t care who he is, is a trial of which you can have no conception.

I’m just writing, writing, writing. I keep these tablets on me until I’m inspired to go back in and make the music. I never take a break from my pen, because I pride myself on that.

‚Suffering should not make us bitter people,‘ my mother once said, ‚it should make us better comforters.‘ Young people need to hear this from those who have walked before them, because someday they’ll be walking those same steps, but there may not be anyone following behind.

When fate hands you a lemon, make lemonade.