When you cease to make a contribution, you begin to die.

My celebrity status allows me an opportunity, allows me a pulpit to preach and reach out to the people. Not even always preaching but just leading, motivating them by being a leader.

I am invariably late for appointments – sometimes as much as two hours. I’ve tried to change my ways but the things that make me late are too strong, and too pleasing.

It is best to rise from life as from a banquet, neither thirsty nor drunken.

In order to heal others, we first need to heal ourselves. And to heal ourselves, we need to know how to deal with ourselves.

The best way to sell yourself to others is first to sell the others to yourself.

The writer must believe that what he is doing is the most important thing in the world. And he must hold to this illusion even when he knows it is not true.

Never regret what you don’t write.

The fact that our task is exactly commensurate with our life gives it the appearance of being infinite.

The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places.

You cannot see the changes that you’re dreaming about, because they’re internal.

A man’s own manner and character is what most becomes him.

He shines in the second rank, who is eclipsed in the first.

If we’re going to bring out the best in people, we, too, need to sow seeds of encouragement.

A hero is born among a hundred, a wise man is found among a thousand, but an accomplished one might not be found even among a hundred thousand men.

I had never been in charge of anything. I’d always worked for someone. I worked for a furniture warehouse. I did masonry. I always had a boss yelling at me. So I’d never been in charge of an organization.

It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.

And so you touch this limit, something happens and you suddenly can go a little bit further. With your mind power, your determination, your instinct, and the experience as well, you can fly very high.

If a man had more than one life, I think a little hanging would not hurt this one; but after he is once dead, we cannot bring him back, no matter how sorry we may be; so the boy shall be pardoned.

The state comes into existence for the sake of life and continues to exist for the sake of good life.

A lot of my heartbreak songs are inspired by things my sisters are going through, or friends.

Men are moved by two levers only: fear and self interest.

If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.

I’ll promise to go easier on drinking and to get to bed earlier, but not for you, fifty thousand dollars, or two-hundred and fifty thousand dollars will I give up women. They’re too much fun.

And thou wilt give thyself relief, if thou doest every act of thy life as if it were the last.

There are risks and costs to action. But they are far less than the long range risks of comfortable inaction.

Things do not change; we change.

We proved that we are still a people capable of doing big things and tackling our biggest challenges.

Jesus lived a life that was full of joy and contradictions and fights, you know? If they were to paint a picture of Jesus without contradictions, the gospels would be fake, but the contradictions are a sign of authenticity.

No man ever achieved worth-while success who did not, at one time or other, find himself with at least one foot hanging well over the brink of failure.

The only time you really live fully is from thirty to sixty. The young are slaves to dreams; the old servants of regrets. Only the middle-aged have all their five senses in the keeping of their wits.

Experience is one thing you can’t get for nothing.

Learn to say ‚no‘ to the good so you can say ‚yes‘ to the best.

The ‚Maddox Jolie-Pitt‘ Foundation’s work is inspired by our children and their connections to particular countries.

I attribute my success to this – I never gave or took any excuse.

As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.

Today is life-the only life you are sure of. Make the most of today. Get interested in something. Shake yourself awake. Develop a hobby. Let the winds of enthusiasm sweep through you. Live today with gusto.

This soul, or life within us, by no means agrees with the life outside us. If one has the courage to ask her what she thinks, she is always saying the very opposite to what other people say.

If we don’t plant the right things, we will reap the wrong things. It goes without saying. And you don’t have to be, you know, a brilliant biochemist and you don’t have to have an IQ of 150. Just common sense tells you to be kind, ninny, fool. Be kind.

Civil disobedience’s main goal typically is to try to arouse and inspire others to join and do something. Well, sometimes that is a good tactic, sometimes not.

We can never learn too much of His will towards us, too much of His messages and His advice. The Bible is His word and its study gives at once the foundation for our faith and an inspiration to battle onward in the fight against the tempter.

That he delights in the misery of others no man will confess, and yet what other motive can make a father cruel?

If we are to be happy, we must first react against our tendency to follow the line of least resistance, a tendency that causes us either to remain as we are, or to look primarily to activities external to ourselves for what will provide new impetus to our lives.

Practice yourself, for heaven’s sake in little things, and then proceed to greater.

I do think there must be some kind of interaction between your living life and the life that goes on from here.

If I’ve got something do. I’m going to attack it. I’m going to attack that stress.

I can think of nothing less pleasurable than a life devoted to pleasure.

Do not quench your inspiration and your imagination; do not become the slave of your model.

If I were dropped out of a plane into the ocean and told the nearest land was a thousand miles away, I’d still swim. And I’d despise the one who gave up.

China is certainly an important player in the global economy, and a widespread AIDS epidemic would threaten that growth.

We clearly see in God’s Word that anything He tells us to do, He will give us the ability to do it. But do we really believe it? Do we want to believe it? It’s easier to come up with excuses for why we can’t do things that are hard or that we really don’t want to do.

Absence and death are the same – only that in death there is no suffering.

Character isn’t something you were born with and can’t change, like your fingerprints. It’s something you weren’t born with and must take responsibility for forming.

Whether you think that you can, or that you can’t, you are usually right.

I’ve never responded well to entrenched negative thinking.

No man was ever great by imitation.

It is better to offer no excuse than a bad one.

I don’t want to have lived in vain like most people. I want to be useful or bring enjoyment to all people, even those I’ve never met. I want to go on living even after my death!

Courage is knowing what not to fear.

It’s stasis that kills you off in the end, not ambition.

One of the wonderful things about Oprah: She teaches you to keep on stepping.