The way of fortune is like the milkyway in the sky; which is a number of small stars, not seen asunder, but giving light together: so it is a number of little and scarce discerned virtues, or rather faculties and customs, that make men fortunate.

I’m filthy rich!

I’ve always strived to be successful, not famous.

No evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death.

He that does good to another does good also to himself.

If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.

I read Plato’s ‚Republic.‘ I read it through about five times until I could actually understand it.

Death may be the greatest of all human blessings.

Often people become our friend or follower with an undercurrent of resentment in our having more success than they have. They secretly desire the opportunity to take us down a notch; they have a nose for any misstep on our part they can exploit.

God wants you to be a winner, not a whiner.

I don’t see how people are comfortable with seeing other people be great. You can be happy for anybody, but what is your excuse to not want to be great? These people are great because they just say, ‚I’ma do that,‘ and they do it. That’s it. There’s no scientifical process.

Without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement, and success have no meaning.

How could man rejoice in victory and delight in the slaughter of men?

Eternity is a mere moment, just long enough for a joke.

Forever is composed of nows.

Are creeds such simple things like the clothes which a man can change at will and put on at will? Creeds are such for which people live for ages and ages.

I get so excited when a song I wrote that’s very personal to me goes No. 1 and I look down and see people singing the words back to me.

I just figured out that if I gave my all into this game – if I put everything into the fight business – then I would eventually run the fight business.

The value of a principle is the number of things it will explain.

Nothing goes by luck in composition. It allows of no tricks. The best you can write will be the best you are.

When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor.

Ambition is a dream with a V8 engine.

Religion is more than life. Remember that his own religion is the truest to every man even if it stands low in the scales of philosophical comparison.

There is no victory at bargain basement prices.

I never could have done what I have done without the habits of punctuality, order, and diligence, without the determination to concentrate myself on one subject at a time.

When small men attempt great enterprises, they always end by reducing them to the level of their mediocrity.

The formation of one’s character ought to be everyone’s chief aim.

At the center of non-violence stands the principle of love.

I don’t believe in death, neither in flesh nor in spirit.

You can’t knock on opportunity’s door and not be ready.

Everything that happens once can never happen again. But everything that happens twice will surely happen a third time.

It may be that our role on this planet is not to worship God – but to create him.

What the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve.

I had therefore to remove knowledge, in order to make room for belief.

If you wish to succeed in life, make perseverance your bosom friend, experience your wise counselor, caution your elder brother, and hope your guardian genius.

Of course, ‚I Will Always Love You‘ is the biggest song so far in my career. I’m famous for several, but that one has been recorded by more people and made me more money, I think, than all of them. But that song did come from a true and deep place in my heart.

Personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures.

I didn’t know how to deal with success. If there was a Rock Star 101, I would have liked to take it. It might have helped me.

All things truly wicked start from innocence.

The book, ’12 Rules For Life,‘ is a very serious book. There’s elements of humor in it, but I’m trying to struggle with things at the deepest possible level and to explain to people why it’s necessary to live a upstanding and noble and moral and truthful and responsible life, and why there’s hell to pay if you don’t do that.

I still think like a Marxist in many ways.

Justice is a temporary thing that must at last come to an end; but the conscience is eternal and will never die.

Nothing will work unless you do.

Only aim to do your duty, and mankind will give you credit where you fail.

If I shall exist eternally, how shall I exist tomorrow?

Every strike brings me closer to the next home run.

There is in general good reason to suppose that in several respects the gods could all benefit from instruction by us human beings. We humans are – more humane.

With the casino and the beds, our passengers will have at least two ways to get lucky on one of our flights.

History should be written as philosophy.

More gold has been mined from the thoughts of men than has been taken from the earth.

Existence precedes and rules essence.

The difference between Socrates and Jesus? The great conscious and the immeasurably great unconscious.

Sometimes I wonder why I’m a novelist right now. There is no definite career reason why I became a writer. Something happened, and I became a writer. And now I’m a successful writer.

If you believe in what you are doing, then let nothing hold you up in your work. Much of the best work of the world has been done against seeming impossibilities. The thing is to get the work done.

No matter how dull, or how mean, or how wise a man is, he feels that happiness is his indisputable right.

In the world today many people rightfully feel entitled to have success and the good things in life, but they usually understand it will require sacrifice and hard work.

Premature certainty is the enemy of the truth.

But although all our knowledge begins with experience, it does not follow that it arises from experience.

Here we are, trapped in the amber of the moment. There is no why.

By all means, marry. If you get a good wife, you’ll become happy; if you get a bad one, you’ll become a philosopher.

Becoming famous was never what I wanted to do. There’s a lot of things that come with fame – it’s what people in the limelight have to do.