Send forth the child and childish man together, and blush for the pride that libels our own old happy state, and gives its title to an ugly and distorted image.

With mindfulness, you can establish yourself in the present in order to touch the wonders of life that are available in that moment.

The community stagnates without the impulse of the individual. The impulse dies away without the sympathy of the community.

A lot of us grow up and we grow out of the literal interpretation that we get when we’re children, but we bear the scars all our life. Whether they’re scars of beauty or scars of ugliness, it’s pretty much in the eye of the beholder.

I’m selfish.

Your Highest Self is not just an idea that sounds lofty and spiritual. It is a way of being. It is the very first principle that you must come to understand and embrace as you move toward attracting to you that which you want and need for this parenthesis in eternity that you know as your life.

Sometimes we be playing the politics too much and forget who we are just to win.

I’m always trying. Between every book, I think, ‚Well now, it’s time to get down to the serious stuff.‘

Confession of errors is like a broom which sweeps away the dirt and leaves the surface brighter and clearer. I feel stronger for confession.

Fame is ultimately about the cycles of desire and how to do away with them or manage them well.

We’re all capable of mistakes, but I do not care to enlighten you on the mistakes we may or may not have made.

If a person gets his attitude toward money straight, it will help straighten out almost every other area in his life.

I’ve never professed to be anything but an average student.

Do not keep saying to yourself, if you can possibly avoid it, ‚But how can it be like that?‘ because you will get ‚down the drain,‘ into a blind alley from which nobody has yet escaped. Nobody knows how it can be like that.

One cannot and must not try to erase the past merely because it does not fit the present.

I’m sure the feeling of fear, as long as you can take advantage of it and not be rendered useless by it, can make you extend yourself beyond what you would regard as your capacity. If you’re afraid, the blood seems to flow freely through the veins, and you really do feel a sense of stimulation.

Nothing so needs reforming as other people’s habits.

When I was nine years old, living on the south side of Chicago, my father was a minister and my mother used to scrub floors. I had seven brothers and four sisters. I told my mama, ‚One of these days I’m going to be big and strong and buy you a beautiful house.‘ That’s all I’ve ever wanted to do with my life, is to take care of my mother.

If I see something sagging, bagging or dragging I’ll get it nipped, tucked or sucked.

Fear makes us feel our humanity.

I like to complain and do nothing to make things better.

You need to overcome the tug of people against you as you reach for high goals.

I’m sure a lot of people out there make mistakes.

Every mind must make its choice between truth and repose. It cannot have both.

One’s real life is so often the life that one does not lead.

When I inspire myself, I want to spread the word because its important to be healthy. I don’t think they’re teaching us enough about that. I think we should eat better and exercise. Look who’s saying that – a guy who was 300 pounds – but I’m doing a lot better than I used to. I’m letting people know its important because it makes you feel better.

Every one goes astray, but the least imprudent are they who repent the soonest.

It’s always appealing to play a character that has to overcome himself as well as an obstacle. It makes the drama so much deeper.

I don’t want to be too critical of what other people do, but when people go back to do the same thing that they did, I’m completely confused. I’m like, ‚Didn’t you make that movie already?‘ I’ve been very fortunate, and I’m well taken care of, so the least I can do is try to go forward.

Freedom from effort in the present merely means that there has been effort stored up in the past.

Every artist was first an amateur.

My weaknesses have always been food and men – in that order.

I have a memory, and I can just eliminate mistakes when they come up because I’ve already made them.

When I wake up in the morning, I feel just like any other insecure 24-year-old girl.

I think one’s feelings waste themselves in words; they ought all to be distilled into actions which bring results.

I change my mind a lot. I usually don’t agree with what I say very much. I’m an awful liar.

If you stop struggling, then you stop life.

I claim to be a simple individual liable to err like any other fellow mortal. I own, however, that I have humility enough in me to confess my errors and to retrace my steps.

If a man neglects education, he walks lame to the end of his life.

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

The people in my songs are all me.

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

I never sell a book. I sell myself. And the way to sell yourself is to be an instrument of love.

When your higher self is present, it always promotes peace.

Don’t wait to be successful at some future point. Have a successful relationship with the present moment and be fully present in whatever you are doing. That is success.

One thing about me is I try to be honest.

As you think, so shall you become.

All theory, dear friend, is gray, but the golden tree of life springs ever green.

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!

In the stillness of your presence, you can feel your own formless and timeless reality as the unmanifested life that animates your physical form. You can then feel the same life deep within every other human and every other creature. You look beyond the veil of form and separation. This is the realization of oneness. This is love.

When you write your first book aged 25 or so, you have 25 years of experience, albeit much of it juvenile experience. The second book comes after an extra year sitting in bookshops. Pretty soon, you begin to run on empty.

Instead of being just a church that welcomes and receives by keeping the doors open, let us try also to be a church that finds new roads, that is able to step outside itself and go to those who do not attend Mass, to those who have quit or are indifferent.

Synergy is what happens when one plus one equals ten or a hundred or even a thousand! It’s the profound result when two or more respectful human beings determine to go beyond their preconceived ideas to meet a great challenge.

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

I grew up where, when a door closed, a window didn’t open. The only thing I had was cracks. I’d do everything to get through those cracks – scratch, claw, bite, push, bleed. Now the opportunity is here. The door is wide open, and it’s as big as a garage.

It is well for the world that in most of us, by the age of thirty, the character has set like plaster, and will never soften again.

If you don’t like how things are, change it! You’re not a tree.

Find people who will make you better.

Without deep reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people.

Man is the only creature that refuses to be what he is.

I am a good listener. I think that came from my schooling.