One thing I’ve tried to never do is make wish lists. I try to have a very steppingstone mentality about this whole thing, where as soon as you make one step you visualize the next step, not five steps ahead.

I say there’re no depressed words just depressed minds.

The lessons of history would suggest that civilisations move in cycles. You can track that back quite far – the Babylonians, the Sumerians, followed by the Egyptians, the Romans, China. We’re obviously in a very upward cycle right now, and hopefully that remains the case. But it may not.

At one point, I didn’t care. Now I want as many people to hear my music as possible.

A man’s felicity consists not in the outward and visible blessing of fortune, but in the inward and unseen perfections and riches of the mind.

An enemy generally says and believes what he wishes.

All of our problems start in our minds.

Didn’t get promoted? Good. More time to get better.

Hitch your wagon to a star.

But there’s so much kludge, so much terrible stuff, we are at the 1908 Hurley washing machine stage with the Internet. That’s where we are. We don’t get our hair caught in it, but that’s the level of primitiveness of where we are. We’re in 1908.

Here is the rule to remember in the future, When anything tempts you to be bitter: not, ‚This is a misfortune‘ but ‚To bear this worthily is good fortune.‘

When you know what you want, and want it bad enough, you will find a way to get it.

If a man constantly aspires is he not elevated?

Every strike brings me closer to the next home run.

You can’t build a reputation on what you are going to do.

If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could then better judge what to do, and how to do it.

Competition has been shown to be useful up to a certain point and no further, but cooperation, which is the thing we must strive for today, begins where competition leaves off.

One of the best mental disciplines for people to implement is simply putting together a schedule or a task list and actually executing it. Write the list or the schedule the night before, and then do what you said you would do. Life becomes much better when you do that.

Do the difficult things while they are easy and do the great things while they are small. A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.

If you only have a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.

I have no faith in human perfectability. I think that human exertion will have no appreciable effect upon humanity. Man is now only more active – not more happy – nor more wise, than he was 6000 years ago.

My goal in music is to create nostalgic moments.

We must walk consciously only part way toward our goal, and then leap in the dark to our success.

It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.

I am not young but I feel young. The day I feel old, I will go to bed and stay there. J’aime la vie! I feel that to live is a wonderful thing.

Failure means a stripping away of the inessential.

If you even dream of beating me you’d better wake up and apologize.

I am still far from being what I want to be, but with God’s help I shall succeed.

You’re always learning. The problem is, sometimes you stop and think you understand the world. This is not correct. The world is always moving. You never reach the point you can stop making an effort.

Changing is not just changing the things outside of us. First of all we need the right view that transcends all notions including of being and non-being, creator and creature, mind and spirit. That kind of insight is crucial for transformation and healing.

The press, the machine, the railway, the telegraph are premises whose thousand-year conclusion no one has yet dared to draw.

Life is a series of commas, not periods.

I think it’s very important to have a feedback loop, where you’re constantly thinking about what you’ve done and how you could be doing it better.

Don’t be afraid to give up the good to go for the great.

It is for us to pray not for tasks equal to our powers, but for powers equal to our tasks, to go forward with a great desire forever beating at the door of our hearts as we travel toward our distant goal.

Could the young but realize how soon they will become mere walking bundles of habits, they would give more heed to their conduct while in the plastic state.

Don’t get older just to get wiser. If you get older, you will be wiser, I believe that – if you dare. But get older because it’s fun!

The happiness of this life depends less on what befalls you than the way in which you take it.

If that’s there, I believe that technology will probably step up to their part of it.

What is not started today is never finished tomorrow.

If four things are followed – having a great aim, acquiring knowledge, hard work, and perseverance – then anything can be achieved.

Learning never exhausts the mind.

Well I think a lot of times we’re putting things off and I’m going to do it later. I’m going to break this bad habit or I’m going to pursue this dream or I’m going to treat my spouse better.

Until we’re educating every kid in a fantastic way, until every inner city is cleaned up, there is no shortage of things to do.

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.

Let others lead small lives, but not you. Let others argue over small things, but not you. Let others cry over small hurts, but not you. Let others leave their future in someone else’s hands, but not you.

You will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the greatest quality of the mind next to honor.

Your energy, your spirit are important considerations. Feeling petty and frustrated can have reverberating consequences for your ability to think strategically and reach your goals.

When things are going bad, don’t get all bummed out. Don’t get startled; don’t get frustrated. If you can say the word ‚good,‘ guess what? It means you’re still alive. It means you’re still breathing.

It’s a philosophy of life. A practice. If you do this, something will change, what will change is that you will change, your life will change, and if you can change you, you can perhaps change the world.

Knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind.

A revolution can be neither made nor stopped. The only thing that can be done is for one of several of its children to give it a direction by dint of victories.

My justification is that most people my age spend a lot of time thinking about what they’re going to do for the next five or ten years. The time they spend thinking about their life, I just spend drinking.

A man who is not afraid is not aggressive, a man who has no sense of fear of any kind is really a free, a peaceful man.

Plans are nothing; planning is everything.

We cannot live being obsessed with what other people think about us. It’s impossible to live like that. Not even God managed to please the entire world.

In the material sciences these are and have been, and are most surely likely to continue to be heroic days.

Writing is challenging work because it’s so easy to get consumed with how it’s going, what’s going to happen to it, who’s going to like or not like it. You want to get all of that stuff out of your head and just let the work flow.

Great thoughts speak only to the thoughtful mind, but great actions speak to all mankind.

You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.

As your career grows, the list of things that makes you happy should not become smaller, it should become bigger.