Secretly we’re all a little more absurd than we make ourselves out to be.

A wise man is cured of ambition by ambition itself; his aim is so exalted that riches, office, fortune and favour cannot satisfy him.

The questions which one asks oneself begin, at least, to illuminate the world, and become one’s key to the experience of others.

Whatever you are, be a good one.

I am, as a character, at times, a little overbearing. I recognize that.

It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.

When we see persons of worth, we should think of equaling them; when we see persons of a contrary character, we should turn inwards and examine ourselves.

We have a choice about how we take what happens to us in our life and whether or not we allow it to turn us. We can become consumed by hate and darkness, or we’re able to regain our humanity somehow, or come to terms with things and learn something about ourselves.

There is nothing happens to any person but what was in his power to go through with.

What an ugly beast the ape, and how like us.

Invest three percent of your income in yourself (self-development) in order to guarantee your future.

I have discovered that all human evil comes from this, man’s being unable to sit still in a room.

Do not be in a hurry to succeed. What would you have to live for afterwards? Better make the horizon your goal; it will always be ahead of you.

I was bullied as a boy – lots of kids are, but hopefully most of us get on with our lives and grow up.

It makes no sense to worry about things you have no control over because there’s nothing you can do about them, and why worry about things you do control? The activity of worrying keeps you immobilized.

When I was four, my mother insisted I get out of the car and find my own way home. Although I got lost, I did find my way home. It taught me the value of independence at an early age.

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.

Each one has to find his peace from within. And peace to be real must be unaffected by outside circumstances.

Thirty was so strange for me. I’ve really had to come to terms with the fact that I am now a walking and talking adult.

The older you get, the better you get.

My life is my argument.

I always say, decisions I make, I live with them. There’s always ways you can correct them or ways you can do them better. At the end of the day, I live with them.

I don’t have much positive to say about motor neuron disease, but it taught me not to pity myself because others were worse off, and to get on with what I still could do. I’m happier now than before I developed the condition.

You can’t trust very many people.

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.

I’m at peace with what I’m doing, I feel good with what I wake up doing and about my lifestyle.

I put a lot of pressure on myself. I think something’s not good enough, and I won’t stop until I feel like I’ve made it. I’m never satisfied.

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

I find with most of my readers are kind of like me, sort of people who were a little bit naive in life and then learned the hard way that this is what’s going on, the political games and most of my readers write to me telling me that the book helped them open their eyes to what other people are doing to them.

If you’re not ready for everything, you’re not ready for anything.

Men must know their limitations.

I’m trying to keep a level head. You have to be careful out in the world. It’s so easy to get turned.

We’re all sinners. Everybody you meet all over the world is a sinner.

I have always considered it as treason against the great republic of human nature, to make any man’s virtues the means of deceiving him.

Man is an idea, and a precious small idea once he turns his back on love.

Nature that framed us of four elements, warring within our breasts for regiment, doth teach us all to have aspiring minds.

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

My favorite thing in life is writing about life, specifically the parts of life concerning love. Because, as far as I’m concerned, love is absolutely everything.

A lot of people like to do certain things, but they’re not that good at it. Keep going through the things that you like to do, until you find something that you actually seem to be extremely good at. It can be anything.

Always be sincere, even if you don’t mean it.

There is a blessed necessity by which the interest of men is always driving them to the right; and, again, making all crime mean and ugly.

I’m not the same man I used to be, I’m not out hell-raising, stuff like that. I am a changed man.

Of all that is written, I love only what a person has written with his own blood.

I keep working because I learn something new all the time.

I’ve experienced great things, I’ve experienced great tragedies. I’ve done almost everything I could possibly ever imagine doing, but I just know that there’s more.

There are a lot of people who don’t know me and what I am all about.

I myself have been on my own and utterly independent since I graduated. I haven’t belonged to any company or any system. It isn’t easy to live like this in Japan.

I have spent many years of my life in opposition, and I rather like the role.

If we live a self-directed, self-motivated, self-centered life, always needing to get our own way, then we’re going to be miserable. In fact, many times we believe it’s our problems that are making us unhappy when, in reality, it’s because we’re focused on ourselves!

Everybody’s got that split between the beautiful and fragile, the hard and the dark.

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.

A great secret of success is to go through life as a man who never gets used up.

Even the securest financial plan and the finest health coverage aren’t enough to hold us steady when the challenges come… We need something more, something deeper and unshakeable, something that will see us through life’s hard times.

Personally I’m always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught.

In bourgeois society capital is independent and has individuality, while the living person is dependent and has no individuality.

I’m not going to say I’m cool, because I don’t really feel that. I just don’t care at all, and I guess that’s what people think is cool.

Character is determined more by the lack of certain experiences than by those one has had.

The superior man thinks always of virtue; the common man thinks of comfort.

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.

‚Born this Way‘ is about being yourself, and loving who you are and being proud.

Only the insecure strive for security.