Thinking is a wonderful tool if it’s applied. Thinking, however, can not become the master. Thinking is a very bad master. If you’re dominated by thinking then your life becomes very restricted.

Nothing so needs reforming as other people’s habits.

I look upon every day to be lost, in which I do not make a new acquaintance.

Nobody can ever say that being negative ever helped them at all – not in any way.

Never succumb to the temptation of bitterness.

To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else.

When you take your attention into the present moment, a certain alertness arises. You become more conscious of what’s around you, but also, strangely, a sense of presence that is both within and without.

Frankly, I think that the news industry is critically important because it points out things and surfaces truths that can often be uncomfortable. I think that that’s working, and the spotlight has been pointed on things that we have a responsibility to do better, and I accept that.

One mustn’t close one’s eyes to difficulty and to shortcomings; the more one recognizes them, the less they upset one.

I believe enlightenment or revelation comes in daily life. I look for joy, the peace of action. You need action. I’d have stopped writing years ago if it were for the money.

Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.

Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your position falls, your ego goes with it.

I have opinions of my own, strong opinions, but I don’t always agree with them.

At 50, I began to know who I was. It was like waking up to myself.

In my next incarnation, I want to be a writer.

I’ve never been shy or secretive with the fact that if you walk into my life, you may be walking onto a record.

The only real failure in life is not to be true to the best one knows.

I don’t want to make money; I want to make a difference.

It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.

There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow men. True nobility lies in being superior to your former self.

I’m not in this world to live up to your expectations and you’re not in this world to live up to mine.

The experience of pain or loss can be a formidably motivating force.

The mind is the limit. As long as the mind can envision the fact that you can do something, you can do it, as long as you really believe 100 percent.

Relish everything that’s inside of you, the imperfections, the darkness, the richness and light and everything. And that makes for a full life.

In the long run, the sharpest weapon of all is a kind and gentle spirit.

When you are angry or frustrated, what comes out? Whatever it is, it’s a good indication of what you’re made of.

Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.

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

My father wasn’t perfect. He had a temper. I took some of that. He would snap, but the older he got, he started calming down. He learned about life, but the thing that he taught my whole family was that family was the most important thing and, no matter what, if a family member needs you, you go and help them out; you get there.

The trained mind is a rich mind.

Let him that would move the world first move himself.

All my big mistakes are when I try to second-guess or please an audience. My work is always stronger when I get very selfish about it.

People don’t usually compliment your character.

I don’t follow all the 48 laws. Like, I’ve never crushed anyone totally.

We cannot live being obsessed with what other people think about us. It’s impossible to live like that. Not even God managed to please the entire world.

Every step of life shows much caution is required.

I grew up as this very carefree, happy kid then things turned darker for me. Maybe it was because I saw that the world wasn’t as happy a place as I had hoped it would be for me.

When I wake up in the morning, I feel just like any other insecure 24-year-old girl.

These words dropped into my childish mind as if you should accidentally drop a ring into a deep well. I did not think of them much at the time, but there came a day in my life when the ring was fished up out of the well, good as new.

Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It’s perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we’ve learned something from yesterday.

If anything is good for pounding humility into you permanently, it’s the restaurant business.

It is only imperfection that complains of what is imperfect. The more perfect we are the more gentle and quiet we become towards the defects of others.

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.

As you get older it is harder to have heroes, but it is sort of necessary.

I grew up with the sea, and poverty for me was sumptuous; then I lost the sea and found all luxuries gray and poverty unbearable.

For me, education was power.

Either you run the day or the day runs you.

We are not living in a world where all roads are radii of a circle and where all, if followed long enough, will therefore draw gradually nearer and finally meet at the centre: rather in a world where every road, after a few miles, forks into two, and each of those into two again, and at each fork, you must make a decision.

Suppose that we are wise enough to learn and know – and yet not wise enough to control our learning and knowledge, so that we use it to destroy ourselves? Even if that is so, knowledge remains better than ignorance.

There are some Christian people who taste and see and enjoy religion in their own souls, and who get at a deeper knowledge of it than books can ever give them, though they should search all their days.

In a real dark night of the soul, it is always three o’clock in the morning, day after day.

At the center of your being you have the answer; you know who you are and you know what you want.

Why go through life if you’re not going to challenge yourself?

If you cannot do great things, do small things in a great way.

If you try to protect yourself from pain, it becomes a stone in your heart. But the more you learn to face things, the more likely that stone can become a pearl.

To live alone is the fate of all great souls.

The important work of moving the world forward does not wait to be done by perfect men.

I hate to be smart.

If I make a fool of myself, who cares? I’m not frightened by anyone’s perception of me.

The best of us must sometimes eat our words.

I was lousy in school. Real screwed-up. A moron. I was antisocial and didn’t bother with the other kids. A really bad student. I didn’t have any brains. I didn’t know what I was doing there. That’s why I became an actor.