You know, it’s not the world that was my oppressor, because what the world does to you, if the world does it to you long enough and effectively enough, you begin to do to yourself.

People just overshoot trying to find God. They’re going outside and trying everything. They don’t realize that it’s right inside themselves.

I am easily satisfied with the very best.

If every choice you make comes from an honest place, you’re solid, and nothing anybody can say about you can rock you or change your opinion.

I have made a few mistakes early on that I admit myself, and there have been times when I have gone over the top and done things that you shouldn’t do in international cricket, but that’s how you learn.

I’m not good at talking about myself.

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.

I think that God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated his ability.

It seems to me that terrestrial beings, as they become more autonomous, psychologically richer, shut themselves up in a way against one another, and at the same time gradually become strangers to the cosmic environment and currents, impenetrable to one another, and incapable of exteriorizing themselves.

Just because something didn’t work out your way, or somebody disappointed you, that does not change who you are.

Talking much about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself.

Marriage destroyed my relationship with two wonderful men.

People disparage knowing and the intellectual life, and urge doing. I am content with knowing, if only I could know.

We do not yet possess ourselves, and we know at the same time that we are much more.

Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.

For most of us, wisdom is acquired in the thicket of experience and usually meets us somewhere along the way if we live long enough. But sooner is better than later.

Know that any and all thoughts that you have regarding your own skills, interests, and inclinations are valid. To reinforce the validity of your thoughts, keep them private. Tell yourself that they’re between you and God.

Nobody can give you wiser advice than yourself.

Truthfully, without over-egging it, as I often do, the library and journalism, those things made me who I am.

I’ve never been a jealous person, and I’ve never felt built up by someone else’s failure – that’s a cheap thrill.

Ambition has become a dirty word, and I believe it is a great evolutionary force for the positive. If people fail or go astray in their ambition I can live with it but not with people lowering their expectations, wasting time, slacking off and glorifying failure and stupidity.

Writing in a diary is a really strange experience for someone like me. Not only because I’ve never written anything before, but also because it seems to me that later on neither I nor anyone else will be interested in the musings of a thirteen-year-old schoolgirl.

I don’t like it when people who are young act like they’re 40. That’s taking too much on. Putting up a shield and trying to act like you’re so mature or whatever – I don’t try to act mature. Some people might say I’m mature for my age, but it’s not something I’m trying to do, you know? I’m just me.

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

People should not make me out to be like Jesus; I don’t walk on water.

One always dies too soon or too late. And yet, life is there, finished: the line is drawn, and it must all be added up. You are nothing other than your life.

It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.

It is important for you to know who you are and who you may become. It is more important than what you do, even as vital as your work is and will be.

The greatest magnifying glasses in the world are a man’s own eyes when they look upon his own person.

These things bring you to reality as to how fragile you are; at the same moment you are doing something that nobody else is able to do. The same moment that you are seen as the best, the fastest and somebody that cannot be touched, you are enormously fragile.

I always had music growing up, but music was also like a journal. It was like my personal diary or personal journal. A lot of the things I couldn’t express to an individual, I would express them in my music.

Life is a matter of really tough choices.

Age wrinkles the body. Quitting wrinkles the soul.

A noble man compares and estimates himself by an idea which is higher than himself; and a mean man, by one lower than himself. The one produces aspiration; the other ambition, which is the way in which a vulgar man aspires.

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.

Behavior is the mirror in which everyone shows their image.

Some people can just let things go, but I can’t, especially if there’s something that worries me or makes me sad.

If in our daily life we can smile, if we can be peaceful and happy, not only we, but everyone will profit from it. This is the most basic kind of peace work.

Buddhism teaches us not to try to run away from suffering. You have to confront suffering. You have to look deeply into the nature of suffering in order to recognize its cause, the making of the suffering.

We are never further from what we wish than when we believe that we have what we wished for.

I like criticism. It makes you strong.

Basically you have to suppress your own ambitions in order to be who you need to be.

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.

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 don’t know who I touch and who I don’t. I work hard trying to make people laugh. I try to do the kind of stuff that made me laugh growing up. I don’t have any secrets. I don’t know the reasons I’ve been so well received.

I’m not a complete psychopath. Am I partially? Sure. I’ll accept that. But I’m not a complete psychopath.

It’s hard to be humble, when you’re as great as I am.

This happiness consisted of nothing else but the harmony of the few things around me with my own existence, a feeling of contentment and well-being that needed no changes and no intensification.

Keeping score is for games, not friendships.

Because of its phantom nature, and despite elaborate defense mechanisms, the ego is very vulnerable and insecure, and it sees itself as constantly under threat. This, by the way, is the case even if the ego is outwardly very confident.

When your higher self is present, it always promotes peace.

It is impossible to underrate human intelligence – beginning with one’s own.

The advice I’ve been giving to people all my life – that you may not be interested in the dialectic but the dialectic is interested in you; you can’t give up politics, it won’t give you up – was the advice I should have been taking myself.

Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance.

Indeed, it is as important to learn how to receive a blessing as it is to be willing to give one.

Sometimes the hardest thing to do is to trust your team. It’s a lesson I’ve had to relearn quite a few times.

My problem was my inability to spend much time at home. I thought my family was secure, so I went running around everyplace else. I guess I had more of an effect on other people’s kids than I did my own.

Enemies are so stimulating.

Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.

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.

It is not fair to ask of others what you are not willing to do yourself.