Someone told me something that stuck with me: ‚You have to envision your life, and then go backwards.‘ I’ve been living by that motto for a while, so I see where I need to be. Now I’m just backtracking and trying to get back up there.

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

We all have possibilities we don’t know about. We can do things we don’t even dream we can do.

Man, unlike anything organic or inorganic in the universe, grows beyond his work, walks up the stairs of his concepts, emerges ahead of his accomplishments.

The very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream.

Never let your head hang down. Never give up and sit down and grieve. Find another way. And don’t pray when it rains if you don’t pray when the sun shines.

Practice yourself, for heaven’s sake in little things, and then proceed to greater.

When you are discontent, you always want more, more, more. Your desire can never be satisfied. But when you practice contentment, you can say to yourself, ‚Oh yes – I already have everything that I really need.‘

I feel like I have a job to do, like I constantly have to reinvent myself. The more I up the ante for myself, the better it is in the long run. I try to interact with my fans as much as possible. It’s good that the person I’m being onstage isn’t really an act. It’s really me.

We all know we have a finite period of time. I just feel if I’m going to be alive, I want to be challenged – to be as immortal as possible. The path to that isn’t an easy way, but it’s a rewarding way.

No work or love will flourish out of guilt, fear, or hollowness of heart, just as no valid plans for the future can be made by those who have no capacity for living now.

Desire is the very essence of man.

Get someone else to blow your horn and the sound will carry twice as far.

Ambition never is in a greater hurry than I; it merely keeps pace with circumstances and with my general way of thinking.

If we’re going to bring out the best in people, we, too, need to sow seeds of encouragement.

I still have mixed feelings about what growing up is – this thing that happens to everyone, so I’ve heard.

The book you don’t read won’t help.

Instead of being concerned that you have no office, be concerned to think how you may fit yourself for office. Instead of being concerned that you are not known, seek to be worthy of being known.

What is a fear of living? It’s being preeminently afraid of dying. It is not doing what you came here to do, out of timidity and spinelessness. The antidote is to take full responsibility for yourself – for the time you take up and the space you occupy. If you don’t know what you’re here to do, then just do some good.

Testing oneself is best when done alone.

The single most powerful thing I can be is to be myself.

When I grow up, I want to be like Balvin.

They would not find me changed from him they knew – only more sure of all I thought was true.

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.

Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.

Our whole life is set up in the path of least resistance. We don’t want to suffer. We don’t want to feel discomfort. So the whole time, we’re living our lives in a very comfortable area. There’s no growth in that.

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

Before I can live with other folks I’ve got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.

We fear to know the fearsome and unsavory aspects of ourselves, but we fear even more to know the godlike in ourselves.

I like to recede away from classifications. You might say that indicates a fundamental lack of commitment. I suppose that’s true to some degree.

Unless and until you inspire the people, you will not get results. Imposition will never give you the results. Inspiration will always give you the results.

Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow ripening fruit.

We all have a tendency to avoid our weaknesses. When we do that, we never progress or get any better.

At 50, I began to know who I was. It was like waking up to myself.

We are not retreating – we are advancing in another direction.

Be happy with being you. Love your flaws. Own your quirks. And know that you are just as perfect as anyone else, exactly as you are.

Playing in MLS was a great experience. It has boosted my confidence and I feel I have matured as a player.

Getting money is not all a man’s business: to cultivate kindness is a valuable part of the business of life.

The best of us must sometimes eat our words.

While I thought that I was learning how to live, I have been learning how to die.

In search of my mother’s garden, I found my own.

Don’t bring your need to the marketplace, bring your skill. If you don’t feel well, tell your doctor, but not the marketplace. If you need money, go to the bank, but not the marketplace.

Ambition has one heel nailed in well, though she stretch her fingers to touch the heavens.

I don’t want to hear the word ‚can’t.‘

If you’re going to wake up early all the time, and you’re working hard, and you’re working out, sometimes you’re going to get tired. It’s OK. It’s acceptable – somewhat. We’re all human, unfortunately.

There is a fine balance between honoring the past and losing yourself in it. For example, you can acknowledge and learn from mistakes you made, and then move on and refocus on the now. It is called forgiving yourself.

We do not need to proselytise either by our speech or by our writing. We can only do so really with our lives. Let our lives be open books for all to study.

My interest in life comes from setting myself huge, apparently unachievable challenges and trying to rise above them.

So never lose an opportunity of urging a practical beginning, however small, for it is wonderful how often in such matters the mustard-seed germinates and roots itself.

I think that I am better than the people who are trying to reform me.

Watch what people are cynical about, and one can often discover what they lack.

Efforts and courage are not enough without purpose and direction.

To enjoy freedom we have to control ourselves.

There wasn’t much as a kid that inspired me in what I did as an adult, but I was always very interested in what motivates people, and in telling stories and building things.

I remember they used to tell me, they said, ‚Khaled, you can’t get a Rolls-Royce; you need to get one of them small ones.‘ So I went and bought a Phantom.

I’m on record that it didn’t really traumatize me to do away with some people.

The truth is, anyone can start projects. The world is full of just-started projects that looked great at the time but were never completed.

So long as a man imagines that he cannot do this or that, so long as he is determined not to do it; and consequently so long as it is impossible to him that he should do it.

Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.

Remember, man does not live on bread alone: sometimes he needs a little buttering up.

If you haven’t forgiven yourself something, how can you forgive others.