Reading is a basic tool in the living of a good life.

I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.

Our will is always for our own good, but we do not always see what that is.

It is more difficult to rule yourself than to rule a city.

When you’re young, you keep reading new writers and you keep changing your mind about how you ought to sound.

My job is to bring out in people what they wouldn’t dare do themselves.

We work to become, not to acquire.

A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.

Vanity can create a very cruel space for you if you don’t know how to manage it.

I can’t tell anybody else how to run their life or their business, but I really believe I’ve got a good bead on myself.

The only shame is to have none.

Probably the greatest harm done by vast wealth is the harm that we of moderate means do ourselves when we let the vices of envy and hatred enter deep into our own natures.

Wanting to be someone else is a waste of the person you are.

Don’t be dependent. At all. Ever. Period.

Deliver me from writers who say the way they live doesn’t matter. I’m not sure a bad person can write a good book, If art doesn’t make us better, then what on earth is it for.

You know, not to sound corny or nuthin‘, but I felt like a fighter comin‘ up, man. I felt like, you know, I’m being attacked for this reason or that reason, and I gotta fight my way through this.

There is no man living that can not do more than he thinks he can.

Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character.

If you are a leader, you should never forget that everyone needs encouragement. And everyone who receives it – young or old, successful or less-than-successful, unknown or famous – is changed by it.

I’ve been studying the Bible for a long time. I remember that after the first five years or so of diligently studying the Word, I didn’t feel like I had made any progress. There were a lot of things in my life that were out of order, and I didn’t feel like I was getting anywhere.

The best government is that which teaches us to govern ourselves.

The true university of these days is a collection of books.

A lot of people cry and complain and put their hand out and beg. It never goes well.

Look at a book. A book is the right size to be a book. They’re solar-powered. If you drop them, they keep on being a book. You can find your place in microseconds. Books are really good at being books, and no matter what happens, books will survive.

Intelligent people should learn from their experiences. With people on the street, the bad experience has beaten them.

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

I feel like this: Whatever is in your path and in your heart, you need to do.

I spent three days a week for 10 years educating myself in the public library, and it’s better than college. People should educate themselves – you can get a complete education for no money. At the end of 10 years, I had read every book in the library and I’d written a thousand stories.

Nobody can ever say that being negative ever helped them at all – not in any way.

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 not be embarrassed by your failures, learn from them and start again.

You are the sum total of everything you’ve ever seen, heard, eaten, smelled, been told, forgot – it’s all there. Everything influences each of us, and because of that I try to make sure that my experiences are positive.

One secret of success in life is for a man to be ready for his opportunity when it comes.

If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.

By imposing too great a responsibility, or rather, all responsibility, on yourself, you crush yourself.

I’m only going to stand before God and give an account for my life, not for somebody else’s life. If I have a bad attitude, then I need to say there’s no point in me blaming you for what’s wrong in my life.

Honestly, I always believed in myself. For real, for real.

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

Every three months, I’ll say, ‚Honey, I think I should learn how to cook‘.

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

When one does away with oneself one does the most estimable thing possible: one thereby almost deserves to live.

I’ve learned never to say never.

Never find fault with the absent.

Each of us has a vision of good and of evil. We have to encourage people to move towards what they think is good… Everyone has his own idea of good and evil and must choose to follow the good and fight evil as he conceives them. That would be enough to make the world a better place.

Whenever things go a bit sour in a job I’m doing, I always tell myself, ‚You can do better than this.‘

I worked out early on to give up things I couldn’t do well at all.

If I’ve got something do. I’m going to attack it. I’m going to attack that stress.

Without tact you can learn nothing.

Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends… Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts.

Everybody should do at least two things each day that he hates to do, just for practice.

Ambition has become a dirty word, and I believe it is a great evolutionary force for the positive. If people fail or go astray in their ambition I can live with it but not with people lowering their expectations, wasting time, slacking off and glorifying failure and stupidity.

He who learns but does not think, is lost! He who thinks but does not learn is in great danger.

Determine never to be idle. No person will have occasion to complain of the want of time who never loses any. It is wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing.

How to gain, how to keep, how to recover happiness is in fact for most men at all times the secret motive of all they do, and of all they are willing to endure.

I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor.

I have promised myself that I’m going to do everything I can for as long as I can.

I haven’t been faithful to my own advice in the past. I will in the future.

Not being afraid to be wrong – I had to learn how to do that.

Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so.

He who waits to do a great deal of good at once will never do anything.

People always tell you, ‚Be humble. Be humble.‘ When was the last time someone told you to be amazing? Be great! Be great! Be awesome! Be awesome!