Thoughts are fine when you don’t confuse them with who you are, and then thoughts are not a problem. Thinking is a wonderful tool to create things in this world. It only becomes problematic and a source of suffering when you confuse thinking with who you are.

Having a mind that is open to everything and attached to nothing seems to me to be one of the most basic principles that you can adopt to contribute to individual and world peace.

While you’re saving your face, you’re losing your ass.

This above all; to thine own self be true.

One thing about me is I try to be honest.

I talk to myself all the time. Just make sure you answer.

Marriage is a school itself. Also, having children. Becoming a father changed my whole life. It taught me as if by revelation.

One ought to hold on to one’s heart; for if one lets it go, one soon loses control of the head too.

When we give ourselves the chance to let go of all our tension, the body’s natural capacity to heal itself can begin to work.

Self-actualized people are independent of the good opinion of others.

You cannot see the changes that you’re dreaming about, because they’re internal.

People need hard times and oppression to develop psychic muscles.

Every mind must make its choice between truth and repose. It cannot have both.

A man who views the world the same at fifty as he did at twenty has wasted thirty years of his life.

I’m not claiming divinity. I’ve never claimed purity of soul. I’ve never claimed to have the answers to life. I only put out songs and answer questions as honestly as I can… But I still believe in peace, love and understanding.

Love is a state of being.

Thinking: the talking of the soul with itself.

I am what time, circumstance, history, have made of me, certainly, but I am also, much more than that. So are we all.

You have to be willing to go to war with yourself and create a whole new identity.

The greatest day in your life and mine is when we take total responsibility for our attitudes. That’s the day we truly grow up.

To me, a leader is someone who holds her- or himself accountable for finding potential in people and processes. And so what I think is really important is sustainability.

There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow men. True nobility lies in being superior to your former self.

I think women want freedom. They want to be empowered. They want hope. They want love; they want all the things that I want, and I’m not afraid to say those things and act on them, and I think that’s why they identify with me.

She never envisioned a legal career for me, but she did think it was very important that I be able to support myself, and I think she would be pleased to see what has become of me.

Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.

Our will is always for our own good, but we do not always see what that is.

I’m afraid that people who know me as I usually am will discover I have another side, a better and finer side. I’m afraid they’ll mock me, think I’m ridiculous and sentimental and not take me seriously. I’m used to not being taken seriously, but only the ‚light-hearted‘ Anne is used to it and can put up with it; the ‚deeper‘ Anne is too weak.

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

Perhaps people like us cannot love. Ordinary people can – that is their secret.

Anyone who has declared someone else to be an idiot, a bad apple, is annoyed when it turns out in the end that he isn’t.

I was ironing my own clothes when I was 11 years old. My mental strength goes back to those days.

I want it said of me by those who knew me best, that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow.

Every man must do two things alone; he must do his own believing and his own dying.

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

My father probably thought the capital of the world was wherever he was at the time. It couldn’t possibly be anyplace else. Where he and his wife were in their own home, that, for them, was the capital of the world.

That is my wish, hope, instruction for all of you: Take your education seriously, okay? Always do that. Because I wouldn’t be here today if it weren’t for my education.

I never knew a more presumptuous person than myself. The fact that I say that shows that what I say is true.

Whenever you’re going through a tough time, generally, you become more compassionate, you become softer, you become more thoughtful, kinder. These are all spiritual qualities that will help you to align yourself with God and God consciousness rather than with a split fear-based consciousness.

I brought myself down. I impeached myself by resigning.

Overnight stardom can be harmful to your mental health. Yeah. It has ruined a lot of people.

Let us fill our hearts with our own compassion – towards ourselves and towards all living beings.

Everything negative – pressure, challenges – is all an opportunity for me to rise.

The Sisters of Notre Dame at St. Aloysius Grade School influenced my life tremendously. This was due to the fact that they encouraged you always to make sure that God is the focus of your life, and they didn’t allow you to do anything except to the very best of your ability.

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

Whatever one of us blames in another, each one will find in his own heart.

We judge people in areas where we’re vulnerable to shame, especially picking folks who are doing worse than we’re doing.

Most of us aren’t defeated in one decisive battle. We are defeated one tiny, seemingly insignificant surrender at a time that chips away at who we should really be.

Experience does not err. Only your judgments err by expecting from her what is not in her power.

The greatest and most important problems of life are all fundamentally insoluble. They can never be solved but only outgrown.

All honor’s wounds are self-inflicted.

The world is a looking glass and gives back to every man the reflection of his own face.

I think being able to age gracefully is a very important talent. It is too late for me.

To know anything well involves a profound sensation of ignorance.

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.

The poetry you read has been written for you, each of you – black, white, Hispanic, man, woman, gay, straight.

Do the best you can, and don’t take life too serious.

The best thing I did was to choose the right heroes.

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.

Stop acting as if life is a rehearsal. Live this day as if it were your last. The past is over and gone. The future is not guaranteed.

Anyone who thinks must think of the next war as they would of suicide.

In one day, I have times where I’m feeling great, I feel like I love my life, and then 2:30 rolls around and I’m the angriest man alive. My wife sees it.