You may think it was a very little thing, and in these days it seems to me like a trifle, but it was a most important incident in my life. I could scarcely credit that I, the poor boy, had earned a dollar in less than a day; that by honest work, I had earned a dollar. I was a more hopeful and thoughtful boy from that time.

Even if you have nothing to write, write and say so.

If you cannot understand that there is something in man which responds to the challenge of this mountain and goes out to meet it, that the struggle is the struggle of life itself upward and forever upward, then you won’t see why we go.

A game is like a mirror that allows you to look at yourself.

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

The smart thing in the art world is to have one good idea and never have another.

Wood burns because it has the proper stuff in it; and a man becomes famous because he has the proper stuff in him.

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.

Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.

We all have done something unethical.

It is through gratitude for the present moment that the spiritual dimension of life opens up.

I don’t know how to live good. I only know how to suffer.

Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.

You don’t choose your family. They are God’s gift to you, as you are to them.

Fear is stupid. So are regrets.

I think Himalayan climbers tend to mature fairly late. I think most of the successful Himalayan climbers have ranged from 28 to just over 40, really.

Why don’t you start believing that no matter what you have or haven’t done, that your best days are still out in front of you.

When a team takes ownership of its problems, the problem gets solved. It is true on the battlefield, it is true in business, and it is true in life.

A man’s felicity consists not in the outward and visible blessing of fortune, but in the inward and unseen perfections and riches of the mind.

An individual step in character training is to put responsibility on the individual.

Don’t worry when you are not recognized, but strive to be worthy of recognition.

Nobody can hurt me without my permission.

I never saw myself as a folk singer.

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.

Be happy with being you. Love your flaws. Own your quirks. And know that you are just as perfect as anyone else, exactly as you are.

Live out of your imagination, not your history.

I don’t know what drives me to succeed.

‚They‘ is… stay away from them, please. There is so many different definitions of ‚they.‘ You might have a personal ‚they.‘ They against you; they want you broken and miserable. They don’t like winners; they don’t like people who’s blessed. So everybody’s got a different ‚they.‘

It is what you read when you don’t have to that determines what you will be when you can’t help it.

Our mind is capable of passing beyond the dividing line we have drawn for it. Beyond the pairs of opposites of which the world consists, other, new insights begin.

I was raised on, ‚You go get a nine-to-five job, earn your pay and work your way up.‘

Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.

Through perseverance many people win success out of what seemed destined to be certain failure.

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.

The beginning is the most important part of the work.

He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper.

For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged, by better information or fuller consideration, to change opinions, even on important subjects, which I once thought right but found to be otherwise.

No matter what your mission is, have some notion in your head. Forget the model, whether it’s government or nonprofit or profit. Ask yourself the more important question: Is my mission improving the world? Are you sure about it? Seek to disconfirm that all the time. And if you can, change your mission.

Wisdom allows nothing to be good that will not be so forever; no man to be happy but he that needs no other happiness than what he has within himself; no man to be great or powerful that is not master of himself.

There is no waste of time in life like that of making explanations.

I don’t go to bed at 1 A.M. and wake up at 5 A.M. and say, ‚Let’s see if I can get this done today.‘

One of my big goals as a human being is to continue to write what’s really happening to me, even if it’s a tough pill to swallow for people around me… I do fear that if I ever were to have someone in my life who mattered, I would second-guess every one of my lyrics.

Desire is the starting point of all achievement, not a hope, not a wish, but a keen pulsating desire which transcends everything.

We all have two lives: an inner life and an outer life. Your inner life is your soul life, which includes your mind, will and emotions. Your outer life is your physical life. And while God cares about every detail of your life, He is more concerned with your inner life than your outer life.

When I understand myself, I understand you, and out of that understanding comes love.

To know oneself is to study oneself in action with another person.

When you are aspiring to the highest place, it is honorable to reach the second or even the third rank.

A goal is a dream with a deadline.

Everything is my demon muse. I have a muse which whispers in my ear and says, ‚Do this, do that,‘ but it’s my demon who provokes me.

The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.

Always be yourself, express yourself, have faith in yourself, do not go out and look for a successful personality and duplicate it.

The only real failure in life is not to be true to the best one knows.

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.

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

I’m just glad I play for Coach Belichick.

The final proof of greatness lies in being able to endure criticism without resentment.

Israel was not created in order to disappear – Israel will endure and flourish. It is the child of hope and the home of the brave. It can neither be broken by adversity nor demoralized by success. It carries the shield of democracy and it honors the sword of freedom.

You can’t die with an unfinished book.

Every man who has at last succeeded, after long effort, in calling up the divinity which lies hidden in a woman’s heart, is startled to find that he must obey the God he summoned.

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.

Natural ability without education has more often raised a man to glory and virtue than education without natural ability.