On the whole, human beings want to be good, but not too good, and not quite all the time.

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.

Man can hardly even recognize the devils of his own creation.

Enlightened people seldom or never possess a sense of responsibility.

You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose. You’re on your own, and you know what you know. And you are the guy who’ll decide where to go.

Reverence for life is the highest court of appeal.

Hollywood is not suited for me, and I am not suited for it.

Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich.

Experience demands that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the general prey of the rich on the poor.

One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.

There is no need for temples, no need for complicated philosophies. My brain and my heart are my temples; my philosophy is kindness.

You may be always victorious if you will never enter into any contest where the issue does not wholly depend upon yourself.

Meditation is not following any system; it is not constant repetition and imitation. Meditation is not concentration.

I’ve never been reckless – it’s always calculated. I’m mischievous, but I’m calculated.

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.

Well, I think we tried very hard not to be overconfident, because when you get overconfident, that’s when something snaps up and bites you.

Of all that is good, sublimity is supreme. Succeeding is the coming together of all that is beautiful. Furtherance is the agreement of all that is just. Perseverance is the foundation of all actions.

I’m not a complete psychopath. Am I partially? Sure. I’ll accept that. But I’m not a complete psychopath.

I’m stupid, I’m ugly, I’m dumb, I smell. Did I mention I’m stupid?

We see the world not as it is, but as we are.

Force always attracts men of low morality.

Seemingly, man has learned to live without God, preoccupied and indifferent toward Him and concerned only about material security and pleasure.

I’ve seen firsthand that being president doesn’t change who you are. It reveals who you are.

We are all at times unconscious prophets.

At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worst.

As the father of eight children, I’m quite convinced that each individual arrives here with their own unique personality. We are intended here from an invisible held of infinite potentiality. That which has no form, has no boundaries – it’s the I that’s in the ever-changing body.

Can anything be stupider than that a man has the right to kill me because he lives on the other side of a river and his ruler has a quarrel with mine, though I have not quarrelled with him?

Silence is a source of great strength.

Whatever talents I possess may suddenly diminish or suddenly increase. I can with ease become an ordinary fool. I may be one now. But it doesn’t do to upset one’s own vanity.

If a person doesn’t change, there’s something really wrong with him.

It is natural for the mind to believe and for the will to love; so that, for want of true objects, they must attach themselves to false.

Revenge is a kind of wild justice, which the more a man’s nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out.

There is a moral obligation that those who have should give to those who don’t.

Everyone has at least one story, and each of us is funny if we admit it. You have to admit you’re the funniest person you’ve ever heard of.

Everyone knows nowadays that people ‚have complexes‘. What is not so well known, though far more important theoretically, is that complexes can have us.

The word ‚good‘ has many meanings. For example, if a man were to shoot his grandmother at a range of five hundred yards, I should call him a good shot, but not necessarily a good man.

Most of one’s life is one prolonged effort to prevent oneself thinking.

What most persons consider as virtue, after the age of 40 is simply a loss of energy.

Confine yourself to the present.

The greatness of man is great in that he knows himself to be wretched. A tree does not know itself to be wretched.

Aim above morality. Be not simply good, be good for something.

Through pride we are ever deceiving ourselves. But deep down below the surface of the average conscience a still, small voice says to us, something is out of tune.

Narrow your life down to this moment. Your life situation may be full of problems – most life situations are – but find out if you have a problem at this moment. Do you have a problem now?

I am easily satisfied with the very best.

There is a difference between happiness and wisdom: he that thinks himself the happiest man is really so; but he that thinks himself the wisest is generally the greatest fool.

Truth is the beginning of every good to the gods, and of every good to man.

To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else – means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.

One cannot violate the promptings of one’s nature without having that nature recoil upon itself.

My crown is called content, a crown that seldom kings enjoy.

People have discovered that they can fool the devil; but they can’t fool the neighbors.

Conscience is the inner voice that warns us that someone might be looking.

If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must Man be of learning from experience.

I know who I am, I know what I can and can’t do. I know what I will and won’t do. I know what I’m capable of and I don’t agree to do things that I don’t think I can pull off.

What you have outside you counts less than what you have inside you.

Many a man thinks he is patient when, in reality, he is indifferent.

Sometimes I think it would be easier to avoid old age, to die young, but then you’d never complete your life, would you? You’d never wholly know you.

The ego is only an illusion, but a very influential one. Letting the ego-illusion become your identity can prevent you from knowing your true self. Ego, the false idea of believing that you are what you have or what you do, is a backwards way of assessing and living life.

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

Let us be absolutely clear about one thing: we must not confuse humility with false modesty or servility.

The only way to keep your health is to eat what you don’t want, drink what you don’t like, and do what you’d rather not.

I think and that is all that I am.