Nothing stands out so conspicuously, or remains so firmly fixed in the memory, as something which you have blundered.

Power is the measure of the degree of control you have over circumstances in your life and the actions of the people around you. It is a skill that is developed by a deep understanding of human nature, of what truly motivates people, and of the manipulations necessary for advancement and protection.

If the Christian is a restorationist, a legalist, if he wants everything clear and safe, then he will find nothing. Tradition and memory of the past must help us to have the courage to open up new areas to God.

Watch out for the joy-stealers: gossip, criticism, complaining, faultfinding, and a negative, judgmental attitude.

Failure is unimportant. It takes courage to make a fool of yourself.

People will try to bring you down, but you gotta go up.

If you want to be a voice for peace in the world, begin by making peace a permanent condition of your own life.

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.

If I like a thing, it just sticks after once reading it or hearing it.

Time and money spent in helping men to do more for themselves is far better than mere giving.

You can’t learn in school what the world is going to do next year.

It is easier to prevent bad habits than to break them.

When I was 50 years old, I actually decided to draw up a list of half a dozen things that I really hadn’t done very well, and I was going to make efforts to improve. One of them was skiing, and I really did become a very much better skier.

I have goals.

It is a most mortifying reflection for a man to consider what he has done, compared to what he might have done.

Trust not yourself, but your defects to know, make use of every friend and every foe.

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.

No evil propensity of the human heart is so powerful that it may not be subdued by discipline.

Don’t be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment.

Imagine for yourself a character, a model personality, whose example you determine to follow, in private as well as in public.

The more one does and sees and feels, the more one is able to do, and the more genuine may be one’s appreciation of fundamental things like home, and love, and understanding companionship.

One’s only rival is one’s own potentialities. One’s only failure is failing to live up to one’s own possibilities. In this sense, every man can be a king, and must therefore be treated like a king.

The greatest of faults, I should say, is to be conscious of none.

No man who worships education has got the best out of education… Without a gentle contempt for education no man’s education is complete.

The noblest search is the search for excellence.

If you can’t read, the only thing you can do is enjoy the pictures, not the whole story. Reading is the key to knowledge. Knowledge is the key to understanding. So read on, young man! Read on, young lady!

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.

How many cares one loses when one decides not to be something but to be someone.

Meditation has been a loyal friend to me. It has helped me write my books.

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

You don’t learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing, and by falling over.

Undeserved praise causes more pangs of conscience later than undeserved blame, but probably only for this reason, that our power of judgment are more completely exposed by being over praised than by being unjustly underestimated.

O wretched man, wretched not just because of what you are, but also because you do not know how wretched you are!

I’m only as good as my last word, my last hook, my last bridge.

To forget one’s purpose is the commonest form of stupidity.

One of the things I definitely think of as a driver of me is fear. And it’s fear of failure, fear of being overtaken.

The need to be right is the sign of a vulgar mind.

Never bend your head. Always hold it high. Look the world straight in the eye.

No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path.

Every movie I make teaches me something. That’s why I keep making them.

Success makes so many people hate you. I wish it wasn’t that way. It would be wonderful to enjoy success without seeing envy in the eyes of those around you.

I think everybody’s trying to get to a place in themselves where they conquer what they was afraid of; they achieve some of their life goals, kept their word about what they were trying to do.

To know oneself, one should assert oneself.

Everybody who is incapable of learning has taken to teaching.

Freedom makes a huge requirement of every human being. With freedom comes responsibility. For the person who is unwilling to grow up, the person who does not want to carry his own weight, this is a frightening prospect.

Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.

Many receive advice, only the wise profit from it.

Don’t be afraid to give your best to what seemingly are small jobs. Every time you conquer one it makes you that much stronger. If you do the little jobs well, the big ones will tend to take care of themselves.

The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up.

As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world – that is the myth of the atomic age – as in being able to remake ourselves.

It doesn’t matter which side of the fence you get off on sometimes. What matters most is getting off. You cannot make progress without making decisions.

Testing oneself is best when done alone.

Indeed, it is as important to learn how to receive a blessing as it is to be willing to give one.

Get up tomorrow early in the morning, and earlier than you did today, and do the best that you can. Always stay near me, for tomorrow I will have much to do and more than I ever had, and tomorrow blood will leave my body above the breast.

Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.

I was always taught not to answer no questions. I’m not really good at answering them because I get agitated so fast.

The story of the human race is the story of men and women selling themselves short.

I do believe in self-help.

A failure is a man who has blundered, but is not able to cash in the experience.

We are all geniuses up to the age of ten.

Though ambition in itself is a vice, it often is also the parent of virtue.