The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is.

If you’re going through hell, keep going.

The reason we want to go on and on is because we live in an impoverished present.

The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.

Experience is something you don’t get until just after you need it.

Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome.

I believe in pink. I believe that laughing is the best calorie burner. I believe in kissing, kissing a lot. I believe in being strong when everything seems to be going wrong. I believe that happy girls are the prettiest girls. I believe that tomorrow is another day and I believe in miracles.

Experience which was once claimed by the aged is now claimed exclusively by the young.

I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. It is never of any use to oneself.

Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing. And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb. And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.

Be willing to have it so. Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune.

Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough.

After many years of great mercy, after tasting of the powers of the world to come, we still are so weak, so foolish; but, oh! when we get away from self to God, there all is truth and purity and holiness, and our heart finds peace, wisdom, completeness, delight, joy, victory.

We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces.

Don’t ever take a fence down until you know why it was put up.

There is nothing new in the world except the history you do not know.

Let my skin and sinews and bones dry up, together with all the flesh and blood of my body! I welcome it! But I will not move from this spot until I have attained the supreme and final wisdom.

It’s the job that’s never started as takes longest to finish.

Books are as useful to a stupid person as a mirror is useful to a blind person.

On the mountains of truth you can never climb in vain: either you will reach a point higher up today, or you will be training your powers so that you will be able to climb higher tomorrow.

The only real valuable thing is intuition.

The way of the Creative works through change and transformation, so that each thing receives its true nature and destiny and comes into permanent accord with the Great Harmony: this is what furthers and what perseveres.

Nothing ever comes to one, that is worth having, except as a result of hard work.

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

Must is a hard nut to crack, but it has a sweet kernel.

A man lives by believing something: not by debating and arguing about many things.

I heard a definition once: Happiness is health and a short memory! I wish I’d invented it, because it is very true.

It is the fight alone that pleases us, not the victory.

I don’t focus on the critics. Everyone who is making any difference in any field has critics. As long as I feel like I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing, then I don’t worry about it.

I wrote some of the worst poetry west from the Mississippi River, but I wrote. And I finally sometimes got it right.

When I was writing ‚Kitchen Confidential,‘ I was in my 40s, I had never paid rent on time, I was 10 years behind on my taxes, I had never owned my own furniture or a car.

The two powers which in my opinion constitute a wise man are those of bearing and forbearing.

Opportunity often comes disguised in the form of misfortune, or temporary defeat.

Who has fully realized that history is not contained in thick books but lives in our very blood?

Being at ease with not knowing is crucial for answers to come to you.

Practical politics consists in ignoring facts.

The fact that the adult American Negro female emerges a formidable character is often met with amazement, distaste and even belligerance. It is seldom accepted as an inevitable outcome of the struggle won by survivors, and deserves respect if not enthusiastic acceptance.

There are only two ways of telling the complete truth – anonymously and posthumously.

The false is nothing but an imitation of the true.

He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.

Any man is liable to err, only a fool persists in error.

Life is a gamble. You can get hurt, but people die in plane crashes, lose their arms and legs in car accidents; people die every day. Same with fighters: some die, some get hurt, some go on. You just don’t let yourself believe it will happen to you.

A lot of psychological principles and even medical principles, you see them coming around to what the Bible said hundreds of years ago: a merry heart is good like a medicine.

It is not well to make great changes in old age.

In soloing – as in other activities – it is far easier to start something than it is to finish it.

What is normal? Normal was yesterday. If you lose a leg, one day you’re hopping around on one leg, so you know the difference.

I pity the fool who just gives up.

Let’s just be smart this time. I’m looking for smart.

I am sure there’s going to be times when I do things wrong that no one’s going to like and everyone’s going to think I’m terrible and rubbish but I know I’m going to go through those times, and it’s just about understanding that that’s going to happen.

Between falsehood and useless truth there is little difference. As gold which he cannot spend will make no man rich, so knowledge which cannot apply will make no man wise.

People always fear change. People feared electricity when it was invented, didn’t they? People feared coal, they feared gas-powered engines… There will always be ignorance, and ignorance leads to fear. But with time, people will come to accept their silicon masters.

I’d be so bored if I wasn’t going out there, knowing that I could still do it. So, I’m going to work hard to be ready to go, and I still plan on playing for a long time.

There may not be one Truth – there may be several truths – but saying that is not to say that reality doesn’t exist.

I firmly believe that unless one has tasted the bitter pill of failure, one cannot aspire enough for success.

Live as brave men; and if fortune is adverse, front its blows with brave hearts.

Everything in the world may be endured except continual prosperity.

This is the highest wisdom that I own; freedom and life are earned by those alone who conquer them each day anew.

We’re in the last days, man – I truly, in my heart, believe that. It’s written. I could go on with biblical situations and things my grandma told me. But it’s about being at peace with myself and making good with the people around me.

We should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once. And we should call every truth false which was not accompanied by at least one laugh.

A nation or civilization that continues to produce soft-minded men purchases its own spiritual death on the installment plan.

Blessed is the man, who having nothing to say, abstains from giving wordy evidence of the fact.