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

The problem with me, as far as getting married and having a family, is that my comedy is so important to me. So I don’t know if I’ll ever be as good a dad as my dad.

Affluence means influence.

I just have always felt that people don’t change, circumstances change.

For a long time I was scared I’d find out I was like my mother.

Be the hunter, not the hunted.

I’m aware that, whatever the circumstances, there will always be speculation about me.

I kinda live where I find myself.

I try to teach my heart not to want things it can’t have.

Energy and persistence conquer all things.

When we got into office, the thing that surprised me most was to find that things were just as bad as we’d been saying they were.

As a man sow, shall he reap. and I know that talk is cheap. But the heat of the battle is as sweet as the victory.

Every time somebody speaks of my honesty, there is someone who quivers inside me.

Whenever you are angry, be assured that it is not only a present evil, but that you have increased a habit.

No crime is so great as daring to excel.

It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all, in which case you have failed by default.

When we do the best that we can, we never know what miracle is wrought in our life, or in the life of another.

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

Things do not happen. Things are made to happen.

My whole life has been one big improvisation.

What humility does for one is it reminds us that there are people before me. I have already been paid for. And what I need to do is prepare myself so that I can pay for someone else who has yet to come but who may be here and needs me.

I always had music growing up, but music was also like a journal. It was like my personal diary or personal journal. A lot of the things I couldn’t express to an individual, I would express them in my music.

I’m working at trying to be a Christian, and that’s serious business. It’s like trying to be a good Jew, a good Muslim, a good Buddhist, a good Shintoist, a good Zoroastrian, a good friend, a good lover, a good mother, a good buddy – it’s serious business.

Microsoft has had two goals in the last 10 years. One was to copy the Mac, and the other was to copy Lotus‘ success in the spreadsheet – basically, the applications business. And over the course of the last 10 years, Microsoft accomplished both of those goals. And now they are completely lost.

As much as it might look like, to someone else, that I’m successful, I never feel like I’m anywhere. The further I go, I still feel equally further from my eventual goal. Because as I grow, I get more goals. I’m never content.

Each success only buys an admission ticket to a more difficult problem.

Believe it or not, I was just given an honorary doctorate degree from the University of Tennessee.

Loving someone liberates the lover as well as the beloved. And that kind of love comes with age.

Create a ladder of values and priorities in your life, reminding yourself of what really matters to you.

No matter what happens on the field, getting an education makes you a winner.

First ask yourself: What is the worst that can happen? Then prepare to accept it. Then proceed to improve on the worst.

I love getting out of my comfort zone.

If the other person injures you, you may forget the injury; but if you injure him you will always remember.

I promise you, I will have something on the Internet that is game-changing. I can’t lose.

The great epochs of our life are the occasions when we gain the courage to rebaptize our evil qualities as our best qualities.

Age wrinkles the body. Quitting wrinkles the soul.

It were a real increase of human happiness, could all young men from the age of nineteen be covered under barrels, or rendered otherwise invisible; and there left to follow their lawful studies and callings, till they emerged, sadder and wiser, at the age of twenty-five.

Why did I become Jackie Chan? Mostly because I work very hard. When people were sleeping, I was still training.

The most happy man is he who knows how to bring into relation the end and beginning of his life.

Where much is expected from an individual, he may rise to the level of events and make the dream come true.

Fear clogs; faith liberates.

And now, of course this is another thing I didn’t count on, that now as the governor of the state of California, I am selling California worldwide. You see that? Selling.

To meditate means to go home to yourself. Then you know how to take care of the things that are happening inside you, and you know how to take care of the things that happen around you.

I am happy and I’m single.

Individuals need to be willing to face truth about their attitudes, behaviors, even what we want out of life.

I’m sure I’ve changed my mind about something. Inevitably, when we grow up – as we get more experience and wiser. Well, I’ve changed my mind about some food that I didn’t like when I was young.

I really have had to swallow my own prejudice at times.

Fear defeats more people than any other one thing in the world.

It is a great piece of folly to attempt to make anything out of my early life.

Great geniuses have the shortest biographies.

To do all that one is able to do, is to be a man; to do all that one would like to do, is to be a god.

For me life is continuously being hungry. The meaning of life is not simply to exist, to survive, but to move ahead, to go up, to achieve, to conquer.

Ordinary readers, forgive my paradoxes: one must make them when one reflects; and whatever you may say, I prefer being a man with paradoxes than a man with prejudices.

Remember that your imagination is yours and yours alone. You have the inborn capacity to use it in any way that you choose. No one else is responsible for your imagination. Anything placed in your imagination and held there ultimately becomes your reality.

I get nervous when I don’t get nervous. If I’m nervous I know I’m going to have a good show.

Now I realize that from ’72 through to about ’76, I was the ultimate rock star. I couldn’t have been more rock star.

Choosing to be positive and having a grateful attitude is going to determine how you’re going to live your life.

Not to go back is somewhat to advance, and men must walk, at least, before they dance.

I never expected any sort of success with ‚Mockingbird’… I sort of hoped someone would like it enough to give me encouragement.

Life becomes harder for us when we live for others, but it also becomes richer and happier.

I just feel like, with rappers, there’s so much complacency. It’s like, ‚Oh, I’m a rapper. I’m successful. I make money. That’s all that matters.‘ But there’s a lot of stuff going on in the world. Whether or not you’re aware of it, it’s happening.