There may sometimes be ungenerous attempts to keep a young man down; and they will succeed, too, if he allows his mind to be diverted from its true channel to brood over the attempted injury.

Develop an attitude of gratitude, and give thanks for everything that happens to you, knowing that every step forward is a step toward achieving something bigger and better than your current situation.

Faith is the complete reliance on the power and goodness of Spirit and the firm belief that you are always connected to this goodness. Always affirm your faith and not your doubt.

Start wide, expand further, and never look back.

Black people in America, people from the struggle, immigrants, it’s no generational wealth that we are attached to, so we are tasked to create – in one generation – closing the gap. That’s why we so Doomsday about getting to the check: ‚cause it’s life or death for real.

If you have a particular faith or religion, that is good. But you can survive without it.

Freedom comes only to those who no longer ask of life that it shall yield them any of those personal goods that are subject to the mutations of time.

I have a terrifying long list of fears. Literally everything – diseases, spiders… and people getting tired of me.

You live and learn. At any rate, you live.

Life comes with many challenges. The ones that should not scare us are the ones we can take on and take control of.

It’s always appealing to play a character that has to overcome himself as well as an obstacle. It makes the drama so much deeper.

My dear friend, clear your mind of cant.

Knowledge cultivates your seeds and does not sow in your seeds.

Optimist: day dreamer more elegantly spelled.

People can cry much easier than they can change.

Questioning my spiritual life has always been germane to what I was writing. Always. It’s because I’m not quite an atheist and it worries me. There’s that little bit that holds on: ‚Well, I’m almost an atheist. Give me a couple of months.‘

What humility does for one is it reminds us that there are people before me. I have already been paid for. And what I need to do is prepare myself so that I can pay for someone else who has yet to come but who may be here and needs me.

Fear of death increases in exact proportion to increase in wealth.

Never let your ego get so close to your position that when your position goes, your ego goes with it.

When you cease to exist, then who will you blame?

To live without Hope is to Cease to live.

As a leader, the first person I need to lead is me. The first person that I should try to change is me.

Character is power.

I would rather be able to appreciate things I can not have than to have things I am not able to appreciate.

Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose.

Now I am older, I understand we have to accept who we are.

It’s the niceties that make the difference fate gives us the hand, and we play the cards.

When your dream is bigger than you are, you only have two choices: give up or get help.

Whoever is happy will make others happy too.

Test yourself on mankind. It is something that makes the doubter doubt, the believer believe.

Some people take defeat and losses a certain way. You see how some fighters take losses.

Some people feel that the world owes them a living.

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.

It’s better to hang out with people better than you. Pick out associates whose behavior is better than yours and you’ll drift in that direction.

We must use time as a tool, not as a couch.

Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment.

Have no fear of perfection – you’ll never reach it.

I’m always asked, ‚What’s the secret to success?‘ But there are no secrets. Be humble. Be hungry. And always be the hardest worker in the room.

One thing I want to make clear, as far as my own rebirth is concerned, the final authority is myself and no one else, and obviously not China’s Communists.

I’m crazy and I don’t pretend to be anything else.

I learned that very often the most intolerant and narrow-minded people are the ones who congratulate themselves on their tolerance and open-mindedness.

Being ignorant is not so much a shame, as being unwilling to learn.

Man’s real life is happy, chiefly because he is ever expecting that it soon will be so.

Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.

My goal is to entertain myself and others.

God has given you one face, and you make yourself another.

I write for no other purpose than to add to the beauty that now belongs to me. I write a book for no other reason than to add three or four hundred acres to my magnificent estate.

I think my worst problem is actually living in the moment and understanding everything that’s going on. I feel like I’m in my own bubble.

One of the things I’ve told men over and over and over and over is if you’re being rejected by all the women that you approach, it’s not the women!

I’m not perfect.

Whenever you give up something, you must replace it with something.

Only the shallow know themselves.

Your big opportunity may be right where you are now.

Now, we can’t stop the devil from coming against us, but we can overcome him each time – if we exercise the authority of Jesus and decide not to put up with him.

I think we have to own the fears that we have of each other, and then, in some practical way, some daily way, figure out how to see people differently than the way we were brought up to.

The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.

I don’t have much positive to say about motor neurone disease. But it taught me not to pity myself because others were worse off, and to get on with what I could still do.

Failure means a stripping away of the inessential.

Though I do not believe that a plant will spring up where no seed has been, I have great faith in a seed… Convince me that you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders.

Money does not change people, people change.

Don’t bring your need to the marketplace, bring your skill. If you don’t feel well, tell your doctor, but not the marketplace. If you need money, go to the bank, but not the marketplace.