The power of our thoughts may never be measured or appreciated, but it became obvious to me as a young boy that there was value and power in being aware of my thoughts and how I expressed myself.

Let others lead small lives, but not you. Let others argue over small things, but not you. Let others cry over small hurts, but not you. Let others leave their future in someone else’s hands, but not you.

You aren’t your work, your accomplishments, your possessions, your home, your family… your anything. You’re a creation of your Source, dressed in a physical human body intended to experience and enjoy life on Earth.

People and organizations don’t grow much without delegation and completed staff work because they are confined to the capacities of the boss and reflect both personal strengths and weaknesses.

Let us not forget who we are. Drug abuse is a repudiation of everything America is.

Courage – you develop courage by doing small things like just as if you wouldn’t want to pick up a 100-pound weight without preparing yourself.

I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.

True happiness is… to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future.

This is love: the flowering of love is meditation.

I know I’m a good professional, I know that no one’s harder on me than myself and that’s never going to change, under any circumstances.

We are never further from what we wish than when we believe that we have what we wished for.

A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.

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.

Remember: your bosses prefer to keep you in dependent positions. It is in their interest that you do not become self-reliant, and so they will tend to hoard information. You must secretly work against this and seize this information for yourself.

Character is higher than intellect. A great soul will be strong to live as well as think.

We awaken in others the same attitude of mind we hold toward them.

I cannot with any real integrity perform songs I’ve done for 25 years. I don’t need the money. What I need is to feel that I am not letting myself down as an artist and that I still have something to contribute.

Lots of songs aren’t even from my experiences, but they’re about accepting… the dark things about yourself.

In the long run, we shape our lives, and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility.

My heroes don’t have anything special. They have something to tell other people but they don’t know how, so they talk to themselves.

There is no way to happiness – happiness is the way.

We see the world not as it is, but as we are.

That nice, soft pillow and the warm blanket, and it’s all comfortable, and no one wants to leave that comfort – but if you can wake up early in the morning, get a head start on everyone else that’s still sleeping, get productive time doing things that you need to do – that’s a huge piece to moving your life forward.

I kind of make a film for myself to sort of express myself.

Bitterness is cancer – it eats upon the host. It doesn’t do anything to the object of its displeasure.

To realize that you do not understand is a virtue; Not to realize that you do not understand is a defect.

Sometimes when you’ve had a long series of disappointing things happen, you can get into the very bad habit of just expecting more of what you’ve already had.

As unique as we all are, an awful lot of us want the same things. We want to shake up our current less-than-fulfilling lives. We want to be happier, more loving, forgiving and connected with the people around us.

When we give ourselves the chance to let go of all our tension, the body’s natural capacity to heal itself can begin to work.

How people themselves perceive what they are doing is not a question that interests me.

A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself.

A good essay must have this permanent quality about it; it must draw its curtain round us, but it must be a curtain that shuts us in not out.

I want to appeal to everyone. Because I’m not saying I’m the best, but we the best.

It’s easy to forget who you are.

It’s kind of like a challenge to myself to be able to hear somebody else’s hook and kind of interpret the words. Because my own hooks, I already know what I mean when I write them.

I’m happy being myself, which I’ve never been before. I always hid in other people, or tried to find myself through the characters, or live out their lives, but I didn’t have those things in mine.

If you are against yourself, you will never reach your highest potential. And when you criticize yourself, you’re criticizing God.

If I could write directly on a typewriter or a computer, I would do it. But keyboards have always intimidated me. I’ve never been able to think clearly with my fingers in that position. A pen is a much more primitive instrument. You feel that the words are coming out of your body and then you dig the words into the page.

Keep silence for the most part, and speak only when you must, and then briefly.

To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.

Everything is an open book. I don’t speak on other people’s hardship, but if it happened in my life or something that has been an experience on my particular journey, I’m going to talk about it. That’s what my fan base appreciates the most. I’m universal. You can relate to the things I say or that I go through.

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

It is better to create than to learn! Creating is the essence of life.

Even if you’re happy with the life you’ve chosen, you’re still curious about the other options.

I’ve never thought about songwriting as a weapon. I’ve only thought about it as a way to help me get through love and loss and sadness and loneliness and growing up.

I am trying to find myself. Sometimes that’s not easy.

Expecting is the greatest impediment to living. In anticipation of tomorrow, it loses today.

We must find our duties in what comes to us, not in what might have been.

Often, little situations trigger enormous reactions. Be there, present for it. Your partner will find it easier to see it in you, and you will find it easier to see it in them.

Just remember, you can’t climb the ladder of success with your hands in your pockets.

Everything’s fine today, that is our illusion.

Time is compressed like the fist I close on my knee… I hold inside it the clues and solutions and the power for what I must do now.

Never find fault with the absent.

Drag your thoughts away from your troubles… by the ears, by the heels, or any other way you can manage it.

I’ve never been shy or secretive with the fact that if you walk into my life, you may be walking onto a record.

I don’t even know how to speak up for myself, because I don’t really have a father who would give me the confidence or advice.

The art of being a slave is to rule one’s master.

I never had a policy; I have just tried to do my very best each and every day.

I look out at the stadiums full of people and see them all knowing the words to songs I wrote. And curling their hair! I remember straightening my hair because I wanted to be like everybody else, and now the fact that anybody would emulate what I do? It’s just funny. And wonderful.

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.

Everybody always laughs because I feel so much more comfortable with, like, a giant paper bag on my whole body and paint on my face. Sometimes I try really hard to take it all off. But inevitably what’s underneath is still not a straight edge. And I don’t think it ever will be.