Once I realized that right thinking is vital to victorious living, I got more serious about thinking about what I was thinking about, and choosing my thoughts carefully.

If boyhood and youth are but vanity, must it not be our ambition to become men?

Fear keeps us focused on the past or worried about the future. If we can acknowledge our fear, we can realize that right now we are okay. Right now, today, we are still alive, and our bodies are working marvelously. Our eyes can still see the beautiful sky. Our ears can still hear the voices of our loved ones.

One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.

We must, all of us, learn actually not to have enemies, but only confused adversaries who are ourselves in disguise.

I didn’t get trained by the school system like other kids, and when I did concentrate on learning, my mind was cluttered and locked by the programming of the system.

This is a world of action, and not for moping and droning in.

Mastery passes often for egotism.

Nearly all the things I do that are of any merit at all start off just being good fun, and I think I’m sort of building up to doing something else quite soon.

When I look back over my life it’s almost as if there was a plan laid out for me – from the little girl who was so passionate about animals who longed to go to Africa and whose family couldn’t afford to put her through college. Everyone laughed at my dreams. I was supposed to be a secretary in Bournemouth.

No one is laughable who laughs at himself.

Pessimism leads to weakness, optimism to power.

Happiness doesn’t come from being rich, nor merely from being successful in your career, nor by self-indulgence. One step towards happiness is to make yourself healthy and strong while you are a boy so that you can be useful and so you can enjoy life when you are a man.

When you take your attention into the present moment, a certain alertness arises. You become more conscious of what’s around you, but also, strangely, a sense of presence that is both within and without.

Action may not always bring happiness; but there is no happiness without action.

I’m happy being myself, which I’ve never been before. I always hid in other people, or tried to find myself through the characters, or live out their lives, but I didn’t have those things in mine.

You have to develop ways so that you can take up for yourself, and then you take up for someone else. And so sooner or later, you have enough courage to really stand up for the human race and say, ‚I’m a representative.‘

Life is a series of experiences, each one of which makes us bigger, even though sometimes it is hard to realize this. For the world was built to develop character, and we must learn that the setbacks and grieves which we endure help us in our marching onward.

My lighter, more superficial side will always steal a march on the deeper side and therefore always win. You can’t imagine how often I’ve tried to push away this Anne, which is only half of what is known as Anne – to beat her down, hide her.

What you are comes to you.

To be great is to be misunderstood.

We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.

I always want to listen to people and receive good criticism, but I just don’t have to answer to them; I have to answer to God.

I even found it difficult to watch myself playing on TV because I couldn’t identify with the person on the screen. I couldn’t get to grips with it. It was as if it was all happening to someone else.

So much of what we do every single day is the result of habits that we have formed over time.

Most ignorance is vincible ignorance. We don’t know because we don’t want to know.

I brought myself down. I impeached myself by resigning.

The presence of passion within you is the greatest gift you can receive. Treat it as a miracle.

Absolutely not. I have no problem with commitment. In fact, I love having someone in my life.

Live your life as though your every act were to become a universal law.

I use a stream-of-consciousness approach; if you don’t censor yourself, you end up with what you’re most concerned about, but you haven’t filtered it through your conscious mind. Then you craft it.

I write for no other purpose than to add to the beauty that now belongs to me. I write a book for no other reason than to add three or four hundred acres to my magnificent estate.

I’ve never been a boyfriend kind of girl.

I’m going to use all my tools, my God-given ability, and make the best life I can with it.

Sometimes I’m a bit under-aggressive and sometimes a bit over. But I think it’s good to have both.

Each day brings opportunity for decisions for eternity.

Without discipline, there’s no life at all.

You cannot push any one up a ladder unless he be willing to climb a little himself.

I don’t live in the past at all; I’m always wanting to do something new. I make a point of constantly trying to forget and get things out of my mind.

Each has his past shut in him like the leaves of a book known to him by his heart, and his friends can only read the title.

Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without.

There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.

You can never really live anyone else’s life, not even your child’s. The influence you exert is through your own life, and what you’ve become yourself.

A scholar who cherishes the love of comfort is not fit to be deemed a scholar.

Observe all men, thyself most.

The people of Northern Ireland have sorted out my whole life.

Success in its highest and noblest form calls for peace of mind and enjoyment and happiness which come only to the man who has found the work that he likes best.

I never do anything that I don’t want to do.

To build may have to be the slow and laborious task of years. To destroy can be the thoughtless act of a single day.

It’s normal for human beings to identify with their own separate self. The problem is that we get caught in that notion of ourself as a separate individual and caught in that individual self’s agenda.

Around every corner, always protect the engine that powers you.

Sometimes you must suffer through something to defeat your fear of it.

If one is lucky, a solitary fantasy can totally transform one million realities.

The only real progress lies in learning to be wrong all alone.

There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that’s your own self.

I never hold a grudge.

Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.

Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value.

Humility is not something that comes naturally. But it is a cardinal virtue that should be pursued more than any other.

I have learned to know God. I have recast my social belief… All my admirers are married; most of my friends are dead; and I stand with all the world before me, where to choose a path to make in it.

A little philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men’s minds about to religion.