You’re looking at a middle-class guy. I am who I am.

To understand a name you must be acquainted with the particular of which it is a name.

The little man is still a man.

Adventuring can be for the ordinary person with ordinary qualities, such as I regard myself.

Why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me.

When you are angry or frustrated, what comes out? Whatever it is, it’s a good indication of what you’re made of.

I approach love differently now that I know it’s hard for it to work out.

Conscious of not being able to separate myself from my time, I have decided to become part of it.

Boredom, anger, sadness, or fear are not ‚yours,‘ not personal. They are conditions of the human mind. They come and go. Nothing that comes and goes is you.

You’re always learning. The problem is, sometimes you stop and think you understand the world. This is not correct. The world is always moving. You never reach the point you can stop making an effort.

Shall I not have intelligence with the earth? Am I not partly leaves and vegetable mould myself.

If you are against yourself, you will never reach your highest potential. And when you criticize yourself, you’re criticizing God.

I’m an emotional person.

Never be lucid, never state, if you would be regarded great.

It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.

I don’t have a problem with ageing – in fact, I embrace that aspect of it. And am able to and obviously am going to be able to quite easily… it doesn’t faze me at all.

You can only choose between rich and poor. The middle class is gone.

I kept a diary right after I was born. Day 1: Tired from the move. Day 2: Everyone thinks I’m an idiot.

Play not with paradoxes. That caustic which you handle in order to scorch others may happen to sear your own fingers and make them dead to the quality of things.

Egos are never nice. I have been a victim of it a lot of times in my career. Whenever I have used it, I have failed.

Some men never feel small, but these are the few men who are.

I’m considered wise, and sometimes I see myself as knowing. Most of the time, I see myself as wanting to know. And I see myself as a very interested person. I’ve never been bored in my life.

Acting is a nice childish profession – pretending you’re someone else and, at the same time, selling yourself.

To do the same thing over and over again is not only boredom: it is to be controlled by rather than to control what you do.

As a leader, the first person I need to lead is me. The first person that I should try to change is me.

I’m a whopping 5 foot 4 inches tall. I’m not going to get any taller.

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.

There is an innocence in admiration; it is found in those to whom it has never yet occurred that they, too, might be admired some day.

Everyone knows nowadays that people ‚have complexes‘. What is not so well known, though far more important theoretically, is that complexes can have us.

I sometimes ask people, ‚Can you be aware of your own presence? Not the thoughts that you’re having, not the emotions that you’re having, but the very presence of your very being?‘ You become aware of your own presence by sensing the entire energy field in your body that is alive. And that is the totality of your presence.

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

A daily portion is really all we need. We do not need tomorrow’s supply, for that day has not yet dawned, and its needs are still unborn.

You always have to remember that if you say something negative, it’s going to come back to haunt you.

The proper study of Man is anything but Man; and the most improper job of any man, even saints (who at any rate were at least unwilling to take it on), is bossing other men. Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity.

I never have really become accustomed to the ‚John.‘ Nobody ever really calls me John… I’ve always been Duke or Marion or John Wayne. It’s a name that goes well together, and it’s like one word – John Wayne.

Remember you are just an extra in everyone else’s play.

People think I’m a celebrity. I’m not a celebrity.

One thing I hope I’ll never be is drunk with my own power. And anybody who says I am will never work in this town again.

If a person doesn’t change, there’s something really wrong with him.

The stories are not autobiographical, but they’re personal in that way. I seem to know only the things that I’ve learned. Probably some things through observation, but what I feel I know surely is personal.

I think I am smart unless I am really, really in love, and then I am ridiculously stupid.

I can be a cruel person.

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

Every man has his own courage, and is betrayed because he seeks in himself the courage of other persons.

Man’s task is to become conscious of the contents that press upward from the unconscious.

The man who is dissatisfied with himself, what can he do?

To complain is always nonacceptance of what is. It invariably carries an unconscious negative charge. When you complain, you make yourself into a victim. When you speak out, you are in your power. So change the situation by taking action or by speaking out if necessary or possible; leave the situation or accept it. All else is madness.

If you’re embarrassed because you have some notion about how men are supposed to behave, and it doesn’t include weeping, then you have some personal work to do.

You carry Mother Earth within you. She is not outside of you. Mother Earth is not just your environment.

A man’s own judgment should be the final appeal in all that relates to himself.

You definitely want your kids to understand their heritage, but I don’t want my kids to just focus on being black. They are people. I don’t want them to judge other people or to be judged. I want them to be good people, so good people will treat them accordingly. I preach that to my kids and everything else falls into place.

In past generations, people would try to play younger than they really are. My trick is, I don’t try to play younger than I really am.

I am being frank about myself in this book. I tell of my first mistake on page 850.

I know my flaws before other people point them out to me.

India does not need to become anything else. India must become only India. This is a country that once upon a time was called the golden bird.

I tend to overthink things. I’m not the guy who screams ‚This is a world smash!‘ when I finish a song.

Most powerful is he who has himself in his own power.

You have to like the present; if not your life becomes secondhand, if you think it was better before. Or that it will be better in the future.

Our brains are either our greatest assets or our greatest liabilities.

Your timeless self does not age and has no fear of the future. Contemplate your physical self and all its possessions, and practice laughing peacefully at it all.

The paradox of education is precisely this – that as one begins to become conscious one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated.