When I look back over my life it’s almost as if there was a plan laid out for me – from the little girl who was so passionate about animals who longed to go to Africa and whose family couldn’t afford to put her through college. Everyone laughed at my dreams. I was supposed to be a secretary in Bournemouth.

When you are offended at any man’s fault, turn to yourself and study your own failings. Then you will forget your anger.

I vividly remember a conversation I had many years ago in 1974, which marked a turning point in my leadership journey. I was sitting at a Holiday Inn with my friend, Kurt Campmeyer, when he asked me if I had a personal growth plan. I didn’t. In fact, I didn’t even know you were supposed to have one.

I’m not generally a sensitive person, but I tend to be more sensitive toward others and what they’re going through. I don’t know if that’s the healthiest thing, but it’s the truth.

You have to just make the choices you make in life. I made the choices I made because I believed they were right for me.

There are two things a person should never be angry at, what they can help, and what they cannot.

This is certain, that a man that studieth revenge keeps his wounds green, which otherwise would heal and do well.

I was bullied as a boy – lots of kids are, but hopefully most of us get on with our lives and grow up.

I’ve lived a very colorful life, and I’ve said some things, But not once have I taken them back, and I’ve never apologized for them – and I won’t.

Where the willingness is great, the difficulties cannot be great.

Whenever I’m around some who is modest, I think, ‚Run like hell and all of fire.‘ You don’t want modesty, you want humility.

I let people fill in the blanks on their own. If they want to think about their ex, that’s fine. If they want to think about maybe who one of my exes is, then that’s fine. And it might not be right, because I’m the only one who knows what these songs are really about. It’s the one shred of privacy I have in the matter.

This has always been my life and no one else’s, and that’s how it’s always been since the day I came in it.

The more I see the less I know for sure.

I’ve discovered that when we take time to renew our minds with God’s Word, we learn how to think like God thinks, say what God says, and act like He wants us to act.

I didn’t want to be a fashion designer, and for a good half of my career I didn’t like it. I always wanted to do other things.

As I got older, I guess I became more mellow and more forgiving and more loving.

Responsibility is the price of freedom.

Ordinary people seem not to realize that those who really apply themselves in the right way to philosophy are directly and of their own accord preparing themselves for dying and death.

What comes out when life squeezes you? When someone hurts or offends you? If anger, pain and fear come out of you, it’s because that’s what’s inside.

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

To go beyond is as wrong as to fall short.

The day you stop doing the small things is the day you think you’re above everybody else.

If you live only in one culture for the first 20 years of your life, you become conditioned without knowing it.

The worst thing one can do is not to try, to be aware of what one wants and not give in to it, to spend years in silent hurt wondering if something could have materialized – never knowing.

People who truly understand what is meant by self-reliance know they must live their lives by ethics rather than rules.

Man is an idea, and a precious small idea once he turns his back on love.

I have never been able to renounce the light, the pleasure of being, and the freedom in which I grew up.

Usually, people have a tendency to be caught in the worries concerning the future or in the regret concerning the past. There is some kind of energy that is pushing them to run, and they are not able to establish themselves in the present moment.

But by reading them again and again finally I was able to grasp the essential part. What emotion, enthusiasm, enlightenment and confidence they communicated to me! I wept for joy.

If I love you, what business is it of yours?

If you have a particular faith or religion, that is good. But you can survive without it.

I was set free because my greatest fear had been realized, and I still had a daughter who I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became a solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.

I liked his ability to deal with a lot of the negativity that surrounded him. Even though he was in a world that he didn’t want to be in, he still saw the bigger picture.

It’s hard to practice compassion when we’re struggling with our authenticity or when our own worthiness is off-balance.

Now that I understand that I’m an addict, I definitely have compassion for my mother. I get it.

I’m inconsistent, even to myself.

Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.

Freedom from effort in the present merely means that there has been effort stored up in the past.

It’s not the daily increase but daily decrease. Hack away at the unessential.

I know I’m a good professional, I know that no one’s harder on me than myself and that’s never going to change, under any circumstances.

I am being frank about myself in this book. I tell of my first mistake on page 850.

Always first draw fresh breath after outbursts of vanity and complacency.

A wise man should consider that health is the greatest of human blessings, and learn how by his own thought to derive benefit from his illnesses.

Timidity makes a person modest. It makes him or her say, ‚I’m not worthy of being written up in the record of deeds in heaven or on earth.‘ Timidity keeps people from their good. They are afraid to say, ‚Yes, I deserve it.‘

I’m reflective only in the sense that I learn to move forward. I reflect with a purpose.

I got my love of animals from the Dr. Doolittle books and my love of Africa from the Tarzan novels. I remember my mum taking me to the first Tarzan film, which starred Johnny Weissmuller, and bursting into tears. It wasn’t what I had imagined at all.

Life becomes harder for us when we live for others, but it also becomes richer and happier.

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

Anyone who has declared someone else to be an idiot, a bad apple, is annoyed when it turns out in the end that he isn’t.

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.

Fear? If I have gained anything by damning myself, it is that I no longer have anything to fear.

I will praise any man that will praise me.

You should never view your challenges as a disadvantage. Instead, it’s important for you to understand that your experience facing and overcoming adversity is actually one of your biggest advantages.

There is no coming to consciousness without pain.

God has his plans and his reasons. Sometimes we are supposed to go through things so that we learn lessons.

March on. Do not tarry. To go forward is to move toward perfection. March on, and fear not the thorns, or the sharp stones on life’s path.

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.

All the knowledge I possess everyone else can acquire, but my heart is all my own.

As for my own views, they’ve of course evolved over the years. This conception of ‚renouncing beliefs‘ is very odd, as if we’re in some kind of religious cult. I ‚renounce beliefs‘ practically every time I think about the topics or find out what someone else is thinking.

If you have the chance to be exposed to a loving, understanding environment where the seed of compassion, loving kindness, can be watered every day, then you become a more loving person.