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

I am not handsome or sexy. Of course, it’s not like I am hopeless.

The reason I talk to myself is that I’m the only one whose answers I accept.

At fifty everyone has the face he deserves.

When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen.

It’s easy to forget who you are.

If you choose to do something, attack it. You can hate me, but there’s one thing you can’t say about me – that I didn’t attack it.

Go on thinking that you don’t need to be read and you’ll find that it may become quite true: no one will feel the need tom read it because it is written for yourself alone; and the public won’t feel any impulse to gate crash such a private party.

Self-talk, for me, has been the biggest thing in my life. A lot of us have a dialogue that is crap. It’s a crappy dialogue. We live in a world right now that is very external. Everything is very on the surface. Superficial. Everything. And what we’re telling ourselves is what we see on TV.

It is better to offer no excuse than a bad one.

I don’t do research. I never have.

I have a great respect for incremental improvement, and I’ve done that sort of thing in my life, but I’ve always been attracted to the more revolutionary changes. I don’t know why. Because they’re harder. They’re much more stressful emotionally. And you usually go through a period where everybody tells you that you’ve completely failed.

I believe that every human mind feels pleasure in doing good to another.

In a controversy the instant we feel anger we have already ceased striving for the truth, and have begun striving for ourselves.

My experience of malaria was just taking anti-malarials, which give you strange dreams, because I don’t want to get malaria.

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

To know yourself as the Being underneath the thinker, the stillness underneath the mental noise, the love and joy underneath the pain, is freedom, salvation, enlightenment.

I think that people just have this core desire to express who they are. And I think that’s always existed.

If human beings were shown what they’re really like, they’d either kill one another as vermin, or hang themselves.

So when you are listening to somebody, completely, attentively, then you are listening not only to the words, but also to the feeling of what is being conveyed, to the whole of it, not part of it.

It’s still scary every time I go back to the past. Each morning, my heart catches. When I get there, I remember how the light was, where the draft was coming from, what odors were in the air. When I write, I get all the weeping out.

I’m aware that, whatever the circumstances, there will always be speculation about me.

Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, be fortified by it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it.

No man is hurt but by himself.

He who has felt his own ruin will not imagine the case of any to be hopeless; nor will he think them too fallen to be worthy his regard.

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

Before you try to keep up with the Joneses, be sure they’re not trying to keep up with you.

I can very well do without God both in my life and in my painting, but I cannot, suffering as I am, do without something which is greater than I am, which is my life, the power to create.

To have no time for philosophy is to be a true philosopher.

You may think it was a very little thing, and in these days it seems to me like a trifle, but it was a most important incident in my life. I could scarcely credit that I, the poor boy, had earned a dollar in less than a day; that by honest work, I had earned a dollar. I was a more hopeful and thoughtful boy from that time.

When I was a youngster I lived with different families. I nearly always felt closer to the man of the house. Maybe because I always dreamed of having a father of my own.

I have trouble with letting go. That’s my problem.

Few women, I fear, have had such reason as I have to think the long sad years of youth were worth living for the sake of middle age.

If I went back to my 20-year-old self, what I would tell my 20-year-old self is, ‚You don’t know anything.‘ Because everyone, when they’re young, they think they know what’s going on in the world, and you don’t.

Sweet is the memory of past troubles.

They must often change, who would be constant in happiness or wisdom.

I try not to think about my life. I have no life. I need therapy.

No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.

Prospering just doesn’t have to do with money.

Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit. We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.

The more I see the less I know for sure.

Follow that will and that way which experience confirms to be your own.

You must live for another if you wish to live for yourself.

I remember, when I was a young guy in the SEAL teams, I was very afraid of making mistakes and looking stupid or doing dumb things and getting a bad reputation.

Old age is like a plane flying through a storm. Once you’re aboard, there’s nothing you can do.

You cannot hope to sweep someone else away by the force of your writing until it has been done to you.

The secret of happiness is this: let your interests be as wide as possible, and let your reactions to the things and persons that interest you be as far as possible friendly rather than hostile.

Learning to live for others isn’t something that just comes naturally to anybody. You have to train yourself to do it.

Vulnerability is basically uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure.

The first thing which I can record concerning myself is, that I was born. These are wonderful words. This life, to which neither time nor eternity can bring diminution – this everlasting living soul, began. My mind loses itself in these depths.

Therapy? I don’t need that. The roles that I choose are my therapy.

Really, the only thing that makes sense is to strive for greater collective enlightenment.

Courage that grows from constitution often forsakes a man when he has occasion for it; courage which arises from a sense of duty acts; in a uniform manner.

If you live only in one culture for the first 20 years of your life, you become conditioned without knowing it.

It’s dangerous to read the Internet about yourself when you’re me. Or when you’re anyone in the public eye.

My father was a mean, controlling and manipulative person for most of his life. He was unpredictable and unstable.

Let everyone try and find that as a result of daily prayer he adds something new to his life, something with which nothing can be compared.

If you care about other people, you might try to organize to undermine power and authority. That’s not going to happen if you care only about yourself.

We need to, you know, restore people. We need to show mercy. I mean, because as much mercy as you show people, that’s the mercy you’re going to be receiving.

Absolutely not. I have no problem with commitment. In fact, I love having someone in my life.

None but ourselves can free our minds.