Weak minds sink under prosperity as well as adversity; but strong and deep ones have two high tides.

Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune.

You cannot control what happens to you, but you can control your attitude toward what happens to you, and in that, you will be mastering change rather than allowing it to master you.

I have surrounded myself with very smart people.

You can’t go backward in life.

There is only one failure in life possible, and that is not to be true to the best one knows.

Comfort and prosperity have never enriched the world as much as adversity has.

Test a servant while in the discharge of his duty, a relative in difficulty, a friend in adversity, and a wife in misfortune.

Great thoughts speak only to the thoughtful mind, but great actions speak to all mankind.

The reason that I’m here at all is because of my relationship with my family and their encouragement of me to be a musician and to work hard. As long as I stay there in that space, I can do anything. That’s my truth.

Prepare for the unknown by studying how others in the past have coped with the unforeseeable and the unpredictable.

If you know me, and you call me Stefani, you don’t really know me at all.

An identity would seem to be arrived at by the way in which the person faces and uses his experience.

I went through every emotion with tryna pursue what I’m doing, you know what I mean? And I think what’s gon‘ separate whoever’s gon go for something, that you ain’t gon‘ quit.

My mother, I suppose, is still a main figure in my life because her life was so sad and unfair, and she so brave, but also because she was determined to make me into the Sunday-school-recitation little girl I was, from the age of seven or so, fighting not to be.

Sometimes in the past when I played something might make me lose focus, or I would go home after a game where I thought I could have played better and I would let it hang over my head for a long time when it shouldn’t.

No one gossips about other people’s secret virtues.

To make headway, improve your head.

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

For some reason I did something where I realized I could get a reaction. That was when I broke out of my shell at school, because I really didn’t have any friends or anything like that and I just kind of was going along, and then finally I did this zany thing, and all of a sudden I had tons of friends.

It were a real increase of human happiness, could all young men from the age of nineteen be covered under barrels, or rendered otherwise invisible; and there left to follow their lawful studies and callings, till they emerged, sadder and wiser, at the age of twenty-five.

Know thyself? If I knew myself I would run away.

And I love that even in the toughest moments, when we’re all sweating it – when we’re worried that the bill won’t pass, and it seems like all is lost – Barack never lets himself get distracted by the chatter and the noise. Just like his grandmother, he just keeps getting up and moving forward… with patience and wisdom, and courage and grace.

I am God’s vessel. But my greatest pain in life is that I will never be able to see myself perform live.

Invest three percent of your income in yourself (self-development) in order to guarantee your future.

Bottom line: God will not allow any person to keep you from your destiny. They may be bigger, stronger, or more powerful, but God knows how to shift things around and get you to where you’re supposed to be.

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

I am sure there’s going to be times when I do things wrong that no one’s going to like and everyone’s going to think I’m terrible and rubbish but I know I’m going to go through those times, and it’s just about understanding that that’s going to happen.

I had to come from something, come from a place that was negative and positive but the majority of it is a negative place.

We gain the strength of the temptation we resist.

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

I prefer to praise people and the world rather than criticize them and it.

Don’t let the incidents which take place in life bring you low. And certainly don’t whine. You can be brought low, that’s OK, but don’t be reduced by them. Just say, ‚That’s life.‘

I was raised to be independent.

The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.

Any idea, plan, or purpose may be placed in the mind through repetition of thought.

I never thought I would be such a family-oriented guy; I didn’t think that was part of my makeup. But somebody said that as you get older, you become the person you always should have been, and I feel that’s happening to me.

God has already done everything He’s going to do. The ball is now in your court. If you want success, if you want wisdom, if you want to be prosperous and healthy, you’re going to have to do more than meditate and believe; you must boldly declare words of faith and victory over yourself and your family.

I don’t know how to live good. I only know how to suffer.

Sweet are the uses of adversity which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, wears yet a precious jewel in his head.

Everything that enlarges the sphere of human powers, that shows man he can do what he thought he could not do, is valuable.

Personally I’m always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught.

I stopped doing drugs when I was 20. I was finished with drugs before Nirvana even started.

It doesn’t matter if the water is cold or warm if you’re going to have to wade through it anyway.

My secret to staying young… Having no sense of time.

It is really very important while you are young to live in an environment in which there is no fear. Most of us, as we grow older, become frightened; we are afraid of living, afraid of losing a job, afraid of tradition, afraid of what the neighbours, or what the wife or husband would say, afraid of death.

A book must be the ax for the frozen sea within us.

Live out of your imagination, not your history.

We should all be obliged to appear before a board every five years and justify our existence… on pain of liquidation.

I am who I am. That’s why my friends and peers respect and appreciate me. I don’t change or cater my actions to fit my surroundings. I’m myself 24/7. People appreciate that.

I was inspired to spend an entire year – my 65th year – reading, researching, and meditating on Lao-tzu’s messages, practicing them and ultimately writing down these insights as I felt Lao-tzu wanted us to know them.

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

If a person doesn’t change, there’s something really wrong with him.

I’m so tough and so bad, I can be humble and lift another guy up.

These times are so hard, and they’re getting even harder.

If we were not all so interested in ourselves, life would be so uninteresting that none of us would be able to endure it.

You can live to be a hundred if you give up all the things that make you want to live to be a hundred.

Women have always been the strong ones of the world. The men are always seeking from women a little pillow to put their heads down on. They are always longing for the mother who held them as infants.

When you love and accept yourself, when you know who really cares about you, and when you learn from your mistakes, then you stop caring about what people who don’t know you think.

Must is a hard nut to crack, but it has a sweet kernel.

I always knew from that moment, from the time I found myself at home in that little segregated library in the South, all the way up until I walked up the steps of the New York City library, I always felt, in any town, if I can get to a library, I’ll be OK. It really helped me as a child, and that never left me.