My experiences in life are getting bigger and better. The more stuff I do, the more stuff I talk about – having kids, traveling, going through relationship problems, dealing with things in my own family. All that stuff builds character.

I believe a marriage is between a man and a woman.

The person you consider ignorant and insignificant is the one who came from God, that he might learn bliss from grief and knowledge from gloom.

It may happen sometimes that a long debate becomes the cause of a longer friendship. Commonly, those who dispute with one another at last agree.

I think a big test we all face in life on a regular basis is that discouragement test. Life’s not always fair, but I believe if you keep doing the right thing, God will get you to where you are.

I want someone who can trust that my big hands are going to take care of them.

Thirty was so strange for me. I’ve really had to come to terms with the fact that I am now a walking and talking adult.

Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.

I wish they would only take me as I am.

Until 1914 I loved to travel; I often went to Italy and once spent a few months in India. Since then I have almost entirely abandoned travelling, and I have not been outside of Switzerland for over ten years.

Every single one of us has a few months here or there that feel like dark months.

Neither of my parents went to church, but they did everything that you needed to do to be Christian. That’s something a Quaker would call an intimation of the divine.

I was raised to be independent.

For a long time, I had the idea that I would do a certain amount of work the best I could, and then I would reach a comfort zone, and I wouldn’t be pushed to write more. I would become a different person. It’s a surprise to me that this hasn’t happened. Your body ages, but your mind is the same.

Stay active. Read the Word. Worship with other believers. Continue to give. Keep learning and growing. Your faith will be unleashed!

I vividly remember a conversation I had many years ago in 1974, which marked a turning point in my leadership journey. I was sitting at a Holiday Inn with my friend, Kurt Campmeyer, when he asked me if I had a personal growth plan. I didn’t. In fact, I didn’t even know you were supposed to have one.

If I can give you one strong piece of advice, when you go away for that romantic weekend, whatever you do, do not accept or take the upgrade to the honeymoon suite.

Usually, people have a tendency to be caught in the worries concerning the future or in the regret concerning the past. There is some kind of energy that is pushing them to run, and they are not able to establish themselves in the present moment.

I didn’t think it was special to be able to sing.

I’m sick of the tabloids‘ saying I obsess over guys. Why would you obsess over guys? They don’t like it.

People who work for me know that family comes first. And I’m fortunate to have a family that is very supportive of the work I do, so I don’t have to live two separate lives.

A noble person attracts noble people, and knows how to hold on to them.

My family, frankly, they weren’t folks who went to church every week. My mother was one of the most spiritual people I knew but she didn’t raise me in the church, so I came to my Christian faith later in life and it was because the precepts of Jesus Christ spoke to me in terms of the kind of life that I would want to lead.

It is a true rule that love is ever rewarded, either with the reciproque or with an inward and secret contempt.

You start to become successful, and everybody starts to drive your money train to the bank, and they’re not thinking anymore about what you want as an artist or if any of that even matters to you. It genuinely upsets people in my life that I don’t care about money, and that’s not my problem.

No man is regular in his attendance at the House of Commons until he is married.

I just want my family to be safe. Because I am sometimes polarizing, I fear for their safety.

Really showing love requires more than just words.

At the end of the day, when it comes time to make that decision, as president, all you have to guide you are your values, and your vision, and the life experiences that make you who you are.

My future is righteousness.

First ask yourself: What is the worst that can happen? Then prepare to accept it. Then proceed to improve on the worst.

I’ve never been to New Zealand before. But one of my role models, Xena, the warrior princess, comes from there.

Try and leave this world a little better than you found it, and when your turn comes to die, you can die happy in feeling that at any rate, you have not wasted your time but have done your best.

I did have two dads; one was a socialist, and one was a capitalist. I really decided I would rather be a capitalist.

Remember that life’s big changes rarely give advance warning.

I undertake the same project as Montaigne, but with an aim contrary to his own: for he wrote his Essays only for others, and I write my reveries only for myself.

I really want to love somebody. I do. I just don’t know if it’s possible forever and ever.

The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends.

Boys do cry, but I don’t think I shed a tear for a good chunk of my teenage years.

Really, who you are is defined by the people who you know – not even the people that you know, but the people you spend time with and the people that you love and the people that you work with. I guess we show your friends in your profile, but that’s kind of different from the information you put in your profile.

America is the student who defies the odds to become the first in a family to go to college – the citizen who defies the cynics and goes out there and votes – the young person who comes out of the shadows to demand the right to dream. That’s what America is about.

Time was when they that feared the Lord spake often to one another; I am afraid that now they more often speak one against another.

I’m drawn to bad romances.

Transformation literally means going beyond your form.

Back in Oakland, we have a lot of food in the locker room, but on the road, it’s mostly just fruit. So we have to prepare differently. But really, once you get to the gym, everything on the road is pretty much the same.

I will praise any man that will praise me.

A wise man is cured of ambition by ambition itself; his aim is so exalted that riches, office, fortune and favour cannot satisfy him.

If you dream the proper dreams, and share the myths with people, they will want to grow up to be like you.

One who deceives will always find those who allow themselves to be deceived.

Don’t get older just to get wiser. If you get older, you will be wiser, I believe that – if you dare. But get older because it’s fun!

My most brilliant achievement was my ability to be able to persuade my wife to marry me.

Hawaii is paradise. It sounds cheesy to say it, but there’s music in the air there.

Let go of offence. Let go of fear. Let go of revenge. Don’t live angry, let go now!

When a child is locked in the bathroom with water running and he says he’s doing nothing but the dog is barking, call 911.

I am confident I will set foot again in Tibet in my lifetime.

If you want to go somewhere, it is best to find someone who has already been there.

I am never satisfied with myself and that is what keeps me going – I have no post-satisfaction.

Fame is ultimately about the cycles of desire and how to do away with them or manage them well.

Work aside, we come to New York for the possibility of interaction and inspiration.

Adventure is not outside man; it is within.

Morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people whom we personally dislike.