We need enlightenment, not just individually but collectively, to save the planet. We need to awaken ourselves. We need to practice mindfulness if we want to have a future, if we want to save ourselves and the planet.

Most of us aren’t defeated in one decisive battle. We are defeated one tiny, seemingly insignificant surrender at a time that chips away at who we should really be.

Between stimulus and response, there is a space where we choose our response.

I have only one counsel for you – be master.

In all my work, in the movies I write, the lyrics, the poetry, the prose, the essays, I am saying that we may encounter many defeats – maybe it’s imperative that we encounter the defeats – but we are much stronger than we appear to be and maybe much better than we allow ourselves to be. Human beings are more alike than unalike.

When I feel I’m doing too much, I do less if I can.

Shun no toil to make yourself remarkable by some talent or other; yet do not devote yourself to one branch exclusively. Strive to get clear notions about all. Give up no science entirely; for science is but one.

The most important thing is to read as much as you can, like I did. It will give you an understanding of what makes good writing and it will enlarge your vocabulary.

Such as are your habitual thoughts, such also will be the character of your mind; for the soul is dyed by the thoughts.

The more you seek the uncomfortable, the more you will become comfortable.

Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.

Solving the climate crisis is the greatest and most complex challenge that homo sapiens have ever faced. The main solution, however, is so simple that even a small child can understand it. We have to stop our emissions of greenhouse gases.

Ambition has become a dirty word, and I believe it is a great evolutionary force for the positive. If people fail or go astray in their ambition I can live with it but not with people lowering their expectations, wasting time, slacking off and glorifying failure and stupidity.

Creativity is the key to success in the future, and primary education is where teachers can bring creativity in children at that level.

I want to solidify as an artist and show that as I grow as a person and make mistakes and learn from them, I’m going to grow artistically.

That is my wish, hope, instruction for all of you: Take your education seriously, okay? Always do that. Because I wouldn’t be here today if it weren’t for my education.

Just as we develop our physical muscles through overcoming opposition – such as lifting weights – we develop our character muscles by overcoming challenges and adversity.

By having a reverence for life, we enter into a spiritual relation with the world By practicing reverence for life we become good, deep, and alive.

Whatever you do may seem insignificant to you, but it is most important that you do it.

You should be attacking the carbon emissions, period, and whether it’s cap-and-trade or carbon tax or whatever, that’s the realm in which we should be playing.

Without electricity, the air would rot.

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

Mastery passes often for egotism.

I look forward to a great future for America – a future in which our country will match its military strength with our moral restraint, its wealth with our wisdom, its power with our purpose.

You can hold yourself back from the sufferings of the world, that is something you are free to do and it accords with your nature, but perhaps this very holding back is the one suffering you could avoid.

I’m not a bad person.

You must never be satisfied with losing. You must get angry, terribly angry, about losing. But the mark of the good loser is that he takes his anger out on himself and not his victorious opponents or on his teammates.

I can’t tell anybody else how to run their life or their business, but I really believe I’ve got a good bead on myself.

Productivity is being able to do things that you were never able to do before.

Make bold choices and make mistakes. It’s all those things that add up to the person you become.

It is for us to pray not for tasks equal to our powers, but for powers equal to our tasks, to go forward with a great desire forever beating at the door of our hearts as we travel toward our distant goal.

The true cost to the world of a burger is far greater than the money you hand over to buy it.

Sometimes you have to take two steps back to take ten forward.

Wisdom allows nothing to be good that will not be so forever; no man to be happy but he that needs no other happiness than what he has within himself; no man to be great or powerful that is not master of himself.

I am always wary of decisions made hastily. I am always wary of the first decision, that is, the first thing that comes to my mind if I have to make a decision. This is usually the wrong thing. I have to wait and assess, looking deep into myself, taking the necessary time.

I’m very, very serious – I’m serious enough not to take myself too seriously. That means I can be completely wedded to the moment. But when I leave that moment, I want to be completely wedded to the next moment.

A man must be big enough to admit his mistakes, smart enough to profit from them, and strong enough to correct them.

Every human being is under construction from conception to death.

You can’t learn in school what the world is going to do next year.

Precepts or maxims are of great weight; and a few useful ones on hand do more to produce a happy life than the volumes we can’t find.

I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. It is never of any use to oneself.

We have to wake up. We have to refuse to be a clone.

Science and mindfulness complement each other in helping people to eat well and maintain their health and well-being.

Forgiveness says you are given another chance to make a new beginning.

There’s something about death that is comforting. The thought that you could die tomorrow frees you to appreciate your life now.

Morality is not the doctrine of how we may make ourselves happy, but how we may make ourselves worthy of happiness.

Coaching wouldn’t be for me. No, certainly not.

Do not look for approval except for the consciousness of doing your best.

Vanity is great motivation, to be fair.

There’s room for role models who make mistakes.

On a spiritual level, it’s as though with my sighted eye I see what’s before me, and with my unsighted eye I see what’s hidden. It’s illuminated life more than darkened it.

True self is non-self, the awareness that the self is made only of non-self elements. There’s no separation between self and other, and everything is interconnected. Once you are aware of that you are no longer caught in the idea that you are a separate entity.

The best measure of a man’s honesty isn’t his income tax return. It’s the zero adjust on his bathroom scale.

There are more things to alarm us than to harm us, and we suffer more often in apprehension than reality.

Never mistake motion for action.

The young think that failure is the Siberian end of the line, banishment from all the living, and tend to do what I then did – which was to hide.

Take time to gather up the past so that you will be able to draw from your experience and invest them in the future.

To us also, through every star, through every blade of grass, is not God made visible if we will open our minds and our eyes.

There is a sufficiency in the world for man’s need but not for man’s greed.

Idleness is the beginning of all vice, the crown of all virtues.

Resist the need to be ‚right‘ all the time or to always have the last word.