Nobody can give you wiser advice than yourself.

There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge.

I deeply regret any harm, or any perceived harm, that I may have done to anyone by any behaviour of mine.

The man who is aware of himself is henceforward independent; and he is never bored, and life is only too short, and he is steeped through and through with a profound yet temperate happiness.

If you’ve got a talent, protect it.

I think happiness is a goal all of us can agree on. Let’s face it – we all would like to be happy.

He that hath knowledge spareth his words.

Suppose that we are wise enough to learn and know – and yet not wise enough to control our learning and knowledge, so that we use it to destroy ourselves? Even if that is so, knowledge remains better than ignorance.

Every man has his own courage, and is betrayed because he seeks in himself the courage of other persons.

People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar.

Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.

No question is so difficult to answer as that to which the answer is obvious.

Talent develops in quiet places, character in the full current of human life.

If selfishness is the key to being miserable, then selflessness must be the key to being happy!

Our mind is capable of passing beyond the dividing line we have drawn for it. Beyond the pairs of opposites of which the world consists, other, new insights begin.

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

As we advance in life we learn the limits of our abilities.

Remembering what you’ve been through and how that has strengthened your mindset can lift you out of a negative brain loop and help you bypass those weak, one-second impulses to give in. Even if you’re feeling low and beat down by life right now, I guarantee you can think of a time or two when you overcame odds and tasted success.

For good nurture and education implant good constitutions.

Man’s task is to become conscious of the contents that press upward from the unconscious.

This has always been my life and no one else’s, and that’s how it’s always been since the day I came in it.

I don’t believe in ‚thinking‘ old. Although I’ve transitioned through many bodies – a baby, toddler, child, teen, young adult, mid-life and older adult – my spirit is unchanged. I support my body with exercise, my mind with reading and writing, and my spirit with the knowing that I am part of the Divine source of all life.

With fame, you know, you can read about yourself, somebody else’s ideas about you, but what’s important is how you feel about yourself – for survival and living day to day with what comes up.

People tend to play in their comfort zone, so the best things are achieved in a state of surprise, actually.

What? You seek something? You wish to multiply yourself tenfold, a hundredfold? You seek followers? Seek zeros!

The people in my songs are all me.

I’ve always believed that you can think positive just as well as you can think negative.

The unexamined life is not worth living.

Compared to what we ought to be, we are half awake.

We’re one of the only animals in the world that don’t really think of ourselves as animals, but we are animals, and we must respect our fellow animals.

Religion is essentially the art and the theory of the remaking of man. Man is not a finished creation.

I don’t have to be what you want me to be.

Nothing is more difficult, and therefore more precious, than to be able to decide.

If you know me, and you call me Stefani, you don’t really know me at all.

Actors know what actors are insecure about – and they’re all insecure.

I came up from a difficult background.

In so many ways, segregation shaped me, and education liberated me.

My thought is me: that is why I cannot stop thinking. I exist because I think I cannot keep from thinking.

I have never given adoration to any body except myself.

The first step in a person’s salvation is knowledge of their sin.

If you have the chance to be exposed to a loving, understanding environment where the seed of compassion, loving kindness, can be watered every day, then you become a more loving person.

Intellectual passion drives out sensuality.

But blind to former as to future fate, what mortal knows his pre-existent state?

The beginning of compunction is the beginning of a new life.

When I see myself as an old woman, I just think about being happy. And hopefully, I’ll still be fly.

‚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.

Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other.

I think I have to trust that you end up with the person you’re supposed to end up with, and that everything in between is there to teach you stuff.

Many a man thinks he is buying pleasure, when he is really selling himself to it.

When I was growing up, there was nobody in my family – not even my mother – who I could look to and be like, ‚I know you’ve never said anything homophobic.‘ So, you know, you worry about people in the business who you’ve heard talk that way. Some of my heroes coming up talk recklessly like that.

I lived a sloppy life. So I took very small increments in my life. I started making my bed. I started cleaning my room. There were dishes in the sink. It started off with doing small house chores. I saw that the yard needed to be mowed. So instead of being told it needed to be mowed, I would mow it.

How people themselves perceive what they are doing is not a question that interests me.

A day wasted on others is not wasted on one’s self.

If a man could have half of his wishes, he would double his troubles.

I’ve had no contact with my daughter for years. That’s her choice. Anyway, you move on. If people don’t want to bother with me, fine. You know, God bless them, and move on.

I think I have a dualistic nature.

I’m not trying to follow a set of rules and stuff. I’m just living my life.

The human being is a strange mixture of blind instinct, on one hand, and conscience, on the other.

Every human being is under construction from conception to death.

Start wide, expand further, and never look back.

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.