When people are very damaged, they can often meet the world with a kind of defiance.

The devil ain’t got no power over me. The devil come, and me shake hands with the devil. Devil have his part to play. Devil’s a good friend, too… because when you don’t know him, that’s the time he can mosh you down.

Meditation is not following any system; it is not constant repetition and imitation. Meditation is not concentration.

I always tried to turn every disaster into an opportunity.

Many of my fans often tell me that they listen to my songs to get through things. And therefore, obviously, I hope that they can picture being in a place where things are better… I hope my songs can bring people to a calm place.

Our fatigue is often caused not by work, but by worry, frustration and resentment.

I can hear you, the rest of the world can hear you and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon.

Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result.

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 was born in a very poor family. I used to sell tea in a railway coach as a child. My mother used to wash utensils and do lowly household work in the houses of others to earn a livelihood. I have seen poverty very closely. I have lived in poverty. As a child, my entire childhood was steeped in poverty.

Difficulties should act as a tonic. They should spur us to greater exertion.

You can see neurosis from below – as a sickness – as most psychiatrists see it. Or you can understand it as a compassionate man might: respecting the neurosis as a fumbling and inefficient effort toward good ends.

I was called really horrible, profane names very loudly in front of huge crowds of people, and my schoolwork suffered at one point.

Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears.

People have so much going on in their heads. I’m like, If you could write a song, you’d feel so much better!

Mentally, the only players who survive in the pros are the ones able to manage all their responsibilities. Everybody struggles in different ways.

I wanted to write when I was young, but people said it was impossible. Then my parents locked me in a mental institution – they said I was crazy and would never make a living from writing.

Ain’t nothing like a good cry.

Drunkenness is temporary suicide.

I’ve often felt depressed; everyone feels depressed.

This lady is not for turning.

During bad circumstances, which is the human inheritance, you must decide not to be reduced. You have your humanity, and you must not allow anything to reduce that. We are obliged to know we are global citizens. Disasters remind us we are world citizens, whether we like it or not.

No untroubled day has ever dawned for me.

I’ve tried everything. I’ve done therapy, I’ve done colonics. I went to a psychic who had me running around town buying pieces of ribbon to fill the colors in my aura. Did the Prozac thing.

We begin to see, therefore, the importance of selecting our environment with the greatest of care, because environment is the mental feeding ground out of which the food that goes into our minds is extracted.

Sometimes God will deliver you from the fire, and other times God will make you fireproof.

Americans never quit.

What starts the process, really, are laughs and slights and snubs when you are a kid. If your anger is deep enough and strong enough, you learn that you can change those attitudes by excellence, personal gut performance.

When the negative thoughts come – and they will; they come to all of us – it’s not enough to just not dwell on it… You’ve got to replace it with a positive thought.

I used to have a real problem with self-pity. Every time the devil would throw a pity party, I would attend.

Be willing to have it so. Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune.

The mind of America is seized by a fatal dry rot – and it’s only a question of time before all that the mind controls will run amuck in a frenzy of stupid, impotent fear.

The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is.

This above all, to refuse to be a victim.

Live as brave men; and if fortune is adverse, front its blows with brave hearts.

As fire when thrown into water is cooled down and put out, so also a false accusation when brought against a man of the purest and holiest character, boils over and is at once dissipated, and vanishes and threats of heaven and sea, himself standing unmoved.

I’ve had some dark nights of the soul, of course, but giving in to depression would be a sellout, a defeat.

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.

Critics only make you stronger. You have to look at what they are saying as feedback. Sometimes the feedback helps, and other times, it’s just noise that can be a distraction.

Yes, I’m still going to misbehave!

Let the people on both sides keep their self-possession, and just as other clouds have cleared away in due time, so will this, and this great nation shall continue to prosper as before.

You can’t stop everything from happening. But we’ve gotten to a point where we’re certainly trying. If a car doesn’t have four hundred air bags in it, then it’s no good.

I love those who can smile in trouble, who can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. ‚Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but they whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves their conduct, will pursue their principles unto death.

I believe that everyone experiences depression to some degree at some time in their lives. And there are probably millions of people who live with a low level of sadness and heaviness day in and day out.

When you’re in hell, you forget how great you really are because you’re suffering and you forget the great things you’ve done.

In a disordered mind, as in a disordered body, soundness of health is impossible.

Solitary trees, if they grow at all, grow strong.

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

The story with anorexic girls – nobody works with anorexic girls. That has nothing to do with fashion.

What’s coming will come and we’ll just have to meet it when it does.

There is nothing that wastes the body like worry, and one who has any faith in God should be ashamed to worry about anything whatsoever.

Under Clinton, the defiance of world order has become so extreme as to be of concern even to hawkish policy analysts.

A great hallmark of mental wellness is the ability to be in the present moment, fully and with no thoughts of being elsewhere.

I suffer from deep depression, so my only release is music.

Nine men in ten are would be suicides.

I calculate that I took 20,000 punches, but I earned millions and kept a lot of it. I may talk slow, but my mind is OK.

Success is due to our stretching to the challenges of life. Failure comes when we shrink from them.

We have an obligation to help people that cannot help themselves. The mentally retarded, the physically retarded, et cetera.

I’m proof against that word failure. I’ve seen behind it. The only failure a man ought to fear is failure of cleaving to the purpose he sees to be best.

The vegetable life does not content itself with casting from the flower or the tree a single seed, but it fills the air and earth with a prodigality of seeds, that, if thousands perish, thousands may plant themselves, that hundreds may come up, that tens may live to maturity; that, at least one may replace the parent.

In other words, don’t expect to always be great. Disappointments, failures and setbacks are a normal part of the lifecycle of a unit or a company and what the leader has to do is constantly be up and say ‚we have a problem, let’s go and get it‘.