To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing.

The man who has done his level best… is a success, even though the world may write him down a failure.

All men’s miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone.

Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you.

I approach love differently now that I know it’s hard for it to work out.

Time stays long enough for anyone who will use it.

There are always three speeches, for every one you actually gave. The one you practiced, the one you gave, and the one you wish you gave.

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.

Little by little, not by making big promises, I need to be calmer, read more, spend more time with my loved ones, and be more mindful about nature and environment.

I’m not afraid to make mistakes.

I think, when you are growing up, you have to pull apart from what your mother wants or needs. You’ve got to go your own way, and that’s what I did.

No man ever achieved worth-while success who did not, at one time or other, find himself with at least one foot hanging well over the brink of failure.

No one should be ashamed to admit he is wrong, which is but saying, in other words, that he is wiser today than he was yesterday.

I am not happy, and the quest for happiness as a principal objective is not part of my world. Of course, ever since I can remember, I have done what I felt like doing.

I think the 24-hour news cycle has helped exaggerate the differences between the parties. You can always find someone on TV somewhere carping about something. That didn’t happen 20 years ago.

Ego is only fine when it is working for your motivation.

Virtue she finds too painful an endeavour, content to dwell in decencies for ever.

Much of your pain is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self.

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.

Either you run the day or the day runs you.

When we do the best that we can, we never know what miracle is wrought in our life, or in the life of another.

I learned, when I look in the mirror and tell my story, that I should be myself and not peep whatever everybody is doing.

I think I lived those years very impersonally. It was almost as though I had erected someone outside myself who was the president’s wife. I was lost somewhere deep down inside myself. That is the way I felt and worked until I left the White House.

As the biggest library if it is in disorder is not as useful as a small but well-arranged one, so you may accumulate a vast amount of knowledge but it will be of far less value than a much smaller amount if you have not thought it over for yourself.

Trials teach us what we are; they dig up the soil, and let us see what we are made of.

The longer I live, the more I feel that true repose consists in ‚renouncing‘ one’s own self, by which I mean making up one’s mind to admit that there is no importance whatever in being ‚happy‘ or ‚unhappy‘ in the usual meaning of the words.

I think I hate cynicism more than anything else. It’s the curse of our age, and I want to avoid it at all costs.

I never thought of losing, but now that it‘ s happened, the only thing is to do it right. That’s my obligation to all the people who believe in me. We all have to take defeats in life.

When I inspire myself, I want to spread the word because its important to be healthy. I don’t think they’re teaching us enough about that. I think we should eat better and exercise. Look who’s saying that – a guy who was 300 pounds – but I’m doing a lot better than I used to. I’m letting people know its important because it makes you feel better.

To deal with individual human needs at the everyday level can be noble sometimes.

You get to a point where it’s like you can’t really do anything right, and people will pick on you for whatever decisions you make, so I just try and take no notice and get on with my music.

Fame is ultimately about the cycles of desire and how to do away with them or manage them well.

We choose our joys and sorrows long before we experience them.

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.

If we keep doing what we’re doing, we’re going to keep getting what we’re getting.

Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfils the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.

Getting organized in the normal routines of life and finishing little projects you’ve started is an important first step toward realizing larger goals. If you can’t get a handle on the small things, how will you ever get it together to focus on the big things?

The truth is something that burns. It burns off dead wood. And people don’t like having the dead wood burnt off, often because they’re 95 percent dead wood.

I don’t think I am evangelical in my work.

No man is hurt but by himself.

My biggest criticism is how can people be so easily satisfied? Even people with talent.

Everything you are against weakens you. Everything you are for empowers you.

A child wants things to be a certain way. When you get to be an adult, you just understand that some people are good, some are not, and you can’t be naive.

Vanity can create a very cruel space for you if you don’t know how to manage it.

You have to motivate yourself with challenges. That’s how you know you’re still alive.

The man never feels the want of what it never occurs to him to ask for.

Whenever you do a thing, act as if all the world were watching.

My weaknesses have always been food and men – in that order.

No man really knows about other human beings. The best he can do is to suppose that they are like himself.

Accept the terrible responsibility of life with eyes wide open.

You don’t have to be like everybody else or do things like everybody else. God created you to be a unique individual, and He wants you to be free to be who He made you to be.

If you don’t like how things are, change it! You’re not a tree.

I accept chaos, I’m not sure whether it accepts me.

I’ve never been a jealous person, and I’ve never felt built up by someone else’s failure – that’s a cheap thrill.

As a kid from Compton, you can get all the success in the world and still question your worth.

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.

I don’t need to be vindicated, and I don’t want attention.

Everything you need you already have. You are complete right now, you are a whole, total person, not an apprentice person on the way to someplace else. Your completeness must be understood by you and experienced in your thoughts as your own personal reality.

To become ‚unique,‘ the challenge is to fight the hardest battle which anyone can imagine until you reach your destination.

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

Decadence is a difficult word to use since it has become little more than a term of abuse applied by critics to anything they do not yet understand or which seems to differ from their moral concepts.