We are all sculptors and painters, and our material is our own flesh and blood and bones. Any nobleness begins at once to refine a man’s features, any meanness or sensuality to imbrute them.

Some people are very good at being ‚stars‘ and it suits them. I’m grudging about it and I find it annoying.

Little things affect little minds.

I restore myself when I’m alone.

Being humble matters.

Although I’m only fourteen, I know quite well what I want. I know who is right and who is wrong. I have my opinions, my own ideas and principles, and although it may sound pretty mad from an adolescent, I feel more of a person than a child. I feel quite independent of anyone.

So many people live with anger and unforgiveness, and many of them are Christians.

Concentration is one of the happiest things in my life.

Really, who you are is defined by the people who you know – not even the people that you know, but the people you spend time with and the people that you love and the people that you work with. I guess we show your friends in your profile, but that’s kind of different from the information you put in your profile.

Changing your mind is probably one of the most beautiful things people can do. And I’ve changed my mind about a lot of things over the years.

A Religion of Evolution: that, when all is said and done, is what Man needs ever more explicitly if he is to survive and ‚superlive,‘ as soon as he becomes conscious of his power to ultra-hominize himself and of his duty to do so.

One of the greatest discoveries a man makes, one of his great surprises, is to find he can do what he was afraid he couldn’t do.

Returning to your family and where you came from, and your history… this is what makes you strong. It’s not looking out that’s going to do that – it’s looking in.

Is it not enough to know the evil to shun it? If not, we should be sincere enough to admit that we love evil too well to give it up.

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

The greatest enemy of any one of our truths may be the rest of our truths.

I realized, ‚Yo, I can’t do anything in moderation. I don’t know how.‘

There are only two kinds of men: the righteous who think they are sinners and the sinners who think they are righteous.

You cannot let where you are today cause you to get stuck. I’m going to be my best right now. That’s what faith is all about.

We grow older, but we do not change. We become more sophisticated, but at bottom we continue to resemble our young selves, eager to listen to the next story and the next, and the next.

Every man’s memory is his private literature.

Your success and happiness lies in you. Resolve to keep happy, and your joy and you shall form an invincible host against difficulties.

People need motivation to do anything. I don’t think human beings learn anything without desperation.

An Englishman thinks he is moral when he is only uncomfortable.

If you’re always under the pressure of real identity, I think that is somewhat of a burden.

No man should escape our universities without knowing how little he knows.

Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person.

Egos are never nice. I have been a victim of it a lot of times in my career. Whenever I have used it, I have failed.

It’s true that I’ve never had a burning desire to rebel against my parents.

If I feel good about my parenting, I have no interest in judging other people’s choices. If I feel good about my body, I don’t go around making fun of other people’s weight or appearance. We’re hard on each other because we’re using each other as a launching pad out of our own perceived deficiency.

I get naturally uncomfortable when I’m put under a magnifying glass.

How one life turns out is not dependent on what people do to us or what they don’t do for us.

Growth is the great separator between those who succeed and those who do not. When I see a person beginning to separate themselves from the pack, it’s almost always due to personal growth.

I never want to change so much that people can’t recognize me.

Don’t ever play yourself.

It is a fine thing to have ability, but the ability to discover ability in others is the true test.

Desperation is a necessary ingredient to learning anything, or creating anything. Period. If you ain’t desperate at some point, you ain’t interesting.

Anybody can be good in the country. There are no temptations there.

Do the thing you fear to do and keep on doing it… that is the quickest and surest way ever yet discovered to conquer fear.

The final proof of greatness lies in being able to endure criticism without resentment.

You have learnt something. That always feels at first as if you had lost something.

You’ll never rise any higher than the way you see yourself.

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

My philosophy is: It’s none of my business what people say of me and think of me.

It’s like, remember who you always were, where you came from, who your parents were, how they raised you. Because that authentic self is going to follow you all through life, so make sure that it’s solid so it’s something that you can hold on and be proud of for the rest of your life.

I never took a day off in my twenties. Not one. And I’m still fanatical, but now I’m a little less fanatical.

Do something everyday for no other reason than you would rather not do it, so that when the hour of dire need draws nigh, it may find you not unnerved and untrained to stand the test.

I always keep my guard up with guys and I guess that can get in the way sometimes. I can make them go through hell.

To be conscious means not simply to be, but to be reported, known, to have awareness of one’s being added to that being.

Somebody’s boring me. I think it’s me.

The tragedy of life is what dies inside a man while he lives.

Happiness is within the reach of everyone, rich or poor. Yet comparatively few people are happy. I believe the reason for this is that the majority don’t recognize happiness even when it is within their grasp.

I know I want to always do the best I can.

Don’t spend time beating on a wall, hoping to transform it into a door.

While I thought that I was learning how to live, I have been learning how to die.

When making your choice in life, do not neglect to live.

The advice I’ve been giving to people all my life – that you may not be interested in the dialectic but the dialectic is interested in you; you can’t give up politics, it won’t give you up – was the advice I should have been taking myself.

For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged, by better information or fuller consideration, to change opinions, even on important subjects, which I once thought right but found to be otherwise.

Mothers and daughters generally have fairly complex relationships, and ours was made much more so by Mother’s illness. She had Parkinson’s disease, which was not diagnosed for a long time… All that made me very self-protective, because for one thing, I didn’t want to get trapped.

I am not the humblest person in the world. I admit that.

Since we cannot know all that there is to be known about anything, we ought to know a little about everything.