When you are content to be simply yourself and don’t compare or compete, everybody will respect you.

Friendship with ones self is all important, because without it one cannot be friends with anyone else in the world.

When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.

I’m just going to say it: I’m pro-guilt. Guilt is good. Guilt helps us stay on track because it’s about our behavior. It occurs when we compare something we’ve done – or failed to do – with our personal values.

Success is like reaching an important birthday and finding you’re exactly the same.

I have met 18 million youth, and each wants to be unique.

I have learned that as long as I hold fast to my beliefs and values – and follow my own moral compass – then the only expectations I need to live up to are my own.

I think, a lot of times when you meet someone, you feel like you need to appear like you’re not interested in them so that they’ll be more interested in you. But what happens when you start showing him that you actually like him? What’s he gonna do then? Play the tape forward; how do you keep a guy like that? I don’t want to sign up for that.

I used to get the feeling, and sometimes I still get it, that sometimes I was fooling somebody; I don’t know who or what, maybe myself.

You can’t have it all, all at once. Who – man or woman – has it all, all at once? Over my lifespan, I think I have had it all. But in different periods of time, things were rough. And if you have a caring life partner, you help the other person when that person needs it.

Meditation is to be aware of every thought and of every feeling, never to say it is right or wrong, but just to watch it and move with it. In that watching, you begin to understand the whole movement of thought and feeling. And out of this awareness comes silence.

I’ve seen firsthand that being president doesn’t change who you are. It reveals who you are.

What is needed, rather than running away or controlling or suppressing or any other resistance, is understanding fear; that means, watch it, learn about it, come directly into contact with it. We are to learn about fear, not how to escape from it.

We human beings are strange creatures and still reserve the right to think for ourselves.

Jealousy is both reasonable and belongs to reasonable men, while envy is base and belongs to the base, for the one makes himself get good things by jealousy, while the other does not allow his neighbour to have them through envy.

I tried acting, liked it, and stuck with it. I saw it as the way I would keep that promise to myself of getting back at those who had made my school life a misery.

I love playing ego and insecurity combined.

More compassionate mind, more sense of concern for other’s well-being, is source of happiness.

I criticize by creation – not by finding fault.

I got the stern end of the stick. It was kind of that iron fist. I am who I am today because of my mother.

Bottom line is, I didn’t return to Apple to make a fortune. I’ve been very lucky in my life and already have one. When I was 25, my net worth was $100 million or so. I decided then that I wasn’t going to let it ruin my life. There’s no way you could ever spend it all, and I don’t view wealth as something that validates my intelligence.

The world is put back by the death of every one who has to sacrifice the development of his or her peculiar gifts to conventionality.

Remind yourself that the greatest technique for bringing peace into your life is to always choose being kind when you have a choice between being right or being kind.

Send forth the child and childish man together, and blush for the pride that libels our own old happy state, and gives its title to an ugly and distorted image.

I think and that is all that I am.

Men must know their limitations.

I put a lot of pressure on myself. I think something’s not good enough, and I won’t stop until I feel like I’ve made it. I’m never satisfied.

My crown is called content, a crown that seldom kings enjoy.

I feel you’re in charge of your own situation.

Especially for those of us who lived in single cells, you had the time to sit down and think, and we discovered that sitting down just to think is one of the best ways of keeping yourself fresh and able, to be able to address the problems facing you, and you had the opportunity, also, of examining your past.

The Bible tells us to be perfect. This is likely a scary thought for many people. It used to scare me. I didn’t think I could ever get there, no matter how hard I tried.

Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your position falls, your ego goes with it.

I’m here to spread a message of hope. Follow your heart. Don’t follow what you’ve been told you’re supposed to do.

We rarely confide in those who are better than we are.

I’ve never been an intellectual but I have this look.

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

Employ thy time well, if thou meanest to gain leisure.

In the long run, we shape our lives, and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility.

The confessional is not a torture chamber, but the place in which the Lord’s mercy motivates us to do better.

I have spent many years of my life in opposition, and I rather like the role.

There is nothing your highest self wants more than peace. This peace makes you feel worthy of all of the richest blessings of the universe, and when you radiate this out into the world, it is returned to you without fail.

People are like dirt. They can either nourish you and help you grow as a person or they can stunt your growth and make you wilt and die.

I’m aware that, whatever the circumstances, there will always be speculation about me.

In the Raphael Room, the secret turned out to be that only some of the paintings were made by the great master; the rest were made by students. I had liked the ones by Raphael. This was a big jab for my self-confidence in my ability to appreciate art.

Doubt in my tradition is something that is very helpful. Because of doubt, you can thirst more and you will get a higher kind of proof.

So much of what we do every single day is the result of habits that we have formed over time.

I don’t have all the answers.

Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.

You cannot hope to sweep someone else away by the force of your writing until it has been done to you.

Man is the only creature that refuses to be what he is.

There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow men. True nobility lies in being superior to your former self.

Money and time are the heaviest burdens of life, and… the unhappiest of all mortals are those who have more of either than they know how to use.

I have never regarded myself as a hero, but Tenzing undoubtedly was.

Knowing others is wisdom, knowing yourself is Enlightenment.

I know I do not exaggerate, unconsciously and unintentionally, the scantiness of my resources and the difficulty of my life… I know that, but for the mercy of God, I might easily have been, for any care that was taken of me, a little robber or a vagabond.

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.

Often, little situations trigger enormous reactions. Be there, present for it. Your partner will find it easier to see it in you, and you will find it easier to see it in them.

Nobody looks like they did when they were 20, so why not take advantage of the fact that you’re changing, emotionally as well as physically?

As for accomplishments, I just did what I had to do as things came along.

He who learns but does not think, is lost! He who thinks but does not learn is in great danger.

I periodically realize every few years that the only person whose taste I really trust is me.