The world can criticize me, but l can always criticize it back.

I liked his ability to deal with a lot of the negativity that surrounded him. Even though he was in a world that he didn’t want to be in, he still saw the bigger picture.

I’d like to think you don’t stop being creative once you get happy.

A daily portion is really all we need. We do not need tomorrow’s supply, for that day has not yet dawned, and its needs are still unborn.

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

Courage is being scared to death… and saddling up anyway.

Because you know when you first become famous, you start walking a little different because people are staring at you.

Knowing that you are going to die is, I suspect, the beginning of wisdom.

You simply have to accept that your demons are a part of you.

As for my own views, they’ve of course evolved over the years. This conception of ‚renouncing beliefs‘ is very odd, as if we’re in some kind of religious cult. I ‚renounce beliefs‘ practically every time I think about the topics or find out what someone else is thinking.

I have always been regretting that I was not as wise as the day I was born.

Win as if you were used to it, lose as if you enjoyed it for a change.

The hardest thing for – not only an artist but for anybody to do is look themselves in the mirror and acknowledge, you know, their own flaws and fears and imperfections and put them out there in the open for people to relate to it.

We should every night call ourselves to an account: what infirmity have I mastered today? what passions opposed? what temptation resisted? what virtue acquired? Our vices will abate of themselves if they be brought every day to the shrift.

We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think. When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves.

The proper study of Man is anything but Man; and the most improper job of any man, even saints (who at any rate were at least unwilling to take it on), is bossing other men. Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity.

Prejudice is a chain, it can hold you. If you prejudice, you can’t move, you keep prejudice for years. Never get nowhere with that.

I know how to swim through backlash. I can tread water through backlash… If anything, that’s all giving me power.

Do whatever you will, but first be such as are able to will.

People gonna be they own individuals and have they own worlds and I can’t knock it.

Sometimes if you got a problem deep rooted in your life, it takes a little bit of time to overcome it in that area.

People who want the most approval get the least and people who need approval the least get the most.

It’s more interesting for me to figure out how to be superior in areas where I’m naive, where I’m a novice.

The only shame is to have none.

Great emergencies and crises show us how much greater our vital resources are than we had supposed.

I am sometimes sad when I hear the personal stories of Tibetan refugees who have been tortured or beaten. Some irritation, some anger comes. But it never lasts long. I always try to think at a deeper level, to find ways to console.

How is it possible that a being with such sensitive jewels as the eyes, such enchanted musical instruments as the ears, and such fabulous arabesque of nerves as the brain can experience itself anything less than a god.

Anger, if not restrained, is frequently more hurtful to us than the injury that provokes it.

Ninety percent of all music is always crap, and when too many people decide they’re going to have guitar bands, then ninety percent of them are going to be crap. It’s just a given law.

Songwriting is my way of channeling my feelings and my thoughts. Not just mine, but the things I see, the people I care about. My head would explode if I didn’t get some of that stuff out.

We’re all insecure, aren’t we? I’m not walking around like I’m macho man or anything.

It is only a man’s own fundamental thoughts that have truth and life in them. For it is these that he really and completely understands. To read the thoughts of others is like taking the remains of someone else’s meal, like putting on the discarded clothes of a stranger.

I haven’t been faithful to my own advice in the past. I will in the future.

Some people carry their heart in their head and some carry their head in their heart. The trick is to keep them apart yet working together.

We will always tend to fulfill our own expectation of ourselves.

I love California, I practically grew up in Phoenix.

When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hang on.

The Bible tells us to be perfect. This is likely a scary thought for many people. It used to scare me. I didn’t think I could ever get there, no matter how hard I tried.

The real power of the Buddha was that he had so much love. He saw people trapped in their notions of small separate self, feeling guilty or proud of that self, and he offered revolutionary teachings that resounded like a lion’s roar, like a great rising tide, helping people to wake up and break free from the prison of ignorance.

Nowhere can man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul.

Life cannot be without relationship, but we have made it so agonizing and hideous by basing it on personal and possessive love. Can one love and yet not possess? You will find the true answer not in escape, ideals, beliefs but through the understanding of the causes of dependence and possessiveness.

No man who worships education has got the best out of education… Without a gentle contempt for education no man’s education is complete.

Show me someone who has done something worthwhile, and I’ll show you someone who has overcome adversity.

I am not a particularly thick-skinned person.

I’ve seen firsthand that being president doesn’t change who you are. It reveals who you are.

We have a tendency to condemn people who are different from us, to define their sins as paramount and our own sinfulness as being insignificant.

I think I have always had a little humor.

Inside every cynical person, there is a disappointed idealist.

Breathing in, I am aware of my heart. Breathing out, I smile to my heart and know that my heart still functions normally. I feel grateful for my heart.

I’ve learned that men and women who are living wholehearted lives really allow themselves to soften into joy and happiness. They allow themselves to experience it.

I got my own back.

I’ve experienced great things, I’ve experienced great tragedies. I’ve done almost everything I could possibly ever imagine doing, but I just know that there’s more.

Sometimes I’m fascinated with how famous my work could be while I’m not so famous.

There is no value in life except what you choose to place upon it and no happiness in any place except what you bring to it yourself.

I heard that when Christina Aguilera went back to her prom, people, like, booed her. I can’t imagine going through that. If you know that’s going to happen, why put yourself in that situation? I’d rather play for 20,000 screaming people, you know?

Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of the time he will pick himself up and continue on.

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

I never read one hateful thing said about me by some 12 year old. So I got to live an actual life. And I’ve kept that mentality. Just because there’s a hurricane going on around you doesn’t mean you have to open the window and look at it.

When you realize who you live for, and who’s important to please, a lot of people will actually start living. I am never going to get caught up in that. I’m gonna look back on my life and say that I enjoyed it – and I lived it for me.

I’ve been through natural disasters. I lived down in Miami and was down there for Hurricane Andrew which was a Category 5. There were members of my family that thought they were going to die. Everyone was in the bathtub.

It never bothered me when people would say, ‚You only win championships because you’re playing with Shaq.‘ It bothered me when he said it.