You’re not a product of your nature. That is your genetic makeup or your nurture, the things that have happened to you. Of course those things affect you powerfully, but they do not determine you.

The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes.

Whenever things go a bit sour in a job I’m doing, I always tell myself, ‚You can do better than this.‘

They say somebody’s ‚street smart.‘ I feel like, if I got intelligence, it’s just a country smart.

Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character.

The highest activity a human being can attain is learning for understanding, because to understand is to be free.

Over the years I’ve seen people lose a spouse and then withdraw and lose interest in life, and I believe we need to resist that.

The experience of pain or loss can be a formidably motivating force.

Invest three percent of your income in yourself (self-development) in order to guarantee your future.

I stopped doing drugs when I was 20. I was finished with drugs before Nirvana even started.

I just do the best I can and write something interesting, to tell stories in an interesting way and move forward from there.

Look within. Within is the fountain of good, and it will ever bubble up, if thou wilt ever dig.

I’m pretty positive, optimistic, so I always expect the best.

When I was writing ‚Kitchen Confidential,‘ I was in my 40s, I had never paid rent on time, I was 10 years behind on my taxes, I had never owned my own furniture or a car.

The fatal metaphor of progress, which means leaving things behind us, has utterly obscured the real idea of growth, which means leaving things inside us.

Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.

Between stimulus and response, there is a space where we choose our response.

The worst days are when you feel foggy in the head – chemo-brain they call it. It’s awful because you feel boring. As well as bored. And stupid. And resigned.

Think twice before you speak, because your words and influence will plant the seed of either success or failure in the mind of another.

To err is human; to forgive, divine.

I do the very best I know how – the very best I can; and I mean to keep on doing so until the end.

Life can be boring unless you put some effort into it.

The key is taking responsibility and initiative, deciding what your life is about and prioritizing your life around the most important things.

It is the nature of every person to error, but only the fool perseveres in error.

I used to feel unsafe right in the moment of an accomplishment – I felt the ground fall from under my feet because this could be the end. And even now, while everyone is celebrating, I’m on to the next thing. I don’t want to get lost in this big cushion of success.

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.

For a young person, it is almost a sin, or at least a danger, to be too preoccupied with himself; but for the ageing person, it is a duty and a necessity to devote serious attention to himself.

I have always had this view about the modern education system: we pay attention to brain development, but the development of warmheartedness we take for granted.

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.

A Scout smiles and whistles under all circumstances.

Intelligent people should learn from their experiences. With people on the street, the bad experience has beaten them.

The best advice comes from people who don’t give advice.

When you are learning about a martial art, it is about respect.

All my big mistakes are when I try to second-guess or please an audience. My work is always stronger when I get very selfish about it.

The nobler a man, the harder it is for him to suspect inferiority in others.

I’m only going to stand before God and give an account for my life, not for somebody else’s life. If I have a bad attitude, then I need to say there’s no point in me blaming you for what’s wrong in my life.

Don’t bring your need to the marketplace, bring your skill. If you don’t feel well, tell your doctor, but not the marketplace. If you need money, go to the bank, but not the marketplace.

If you choose to do something, attack it. You can hate me, but there’s one thing you can’t say about me – that I didn’t attack it.

When people are very damaged, they can often meet the world with a kind of defiance.

We are the creative force of our life, and through our own decisions rather than our conditions, if we carefully learn to do certain things, we can accomplish those goals.

Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.

Keep in mind that no matter how perfectly you get your life in order, you will never be rid of all your problems. Problems are a way of life, always have been, always will be. But how you elect to view those problems is all up to you.

Even if you have a terminal disease, you don’t have to sit down and mope. Enjoy life and challenge the illness that you have.

When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate.

When things are going bad, don’t get all bummed out. Don’t get startled; don’t get frustrated. If you can say the word ‚good,‘ guess what? It means you’re still alive. It means you’re still breathing.

I never had a policy; I have just tried to do my very best each and every day.

Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change.

Should you find yourself in a chronically leaking boat, energy devoted to changing vessels is likely to be more productive than energy devoted to patching leaks.

It’s like a muscle – if you stop going to the gym or stop running, you get weak. The military teaches you these great values, but we don’t keep up the discipline on our own, and we lose it. So wherever you go, keep that discipline up.

Few things can help an individual more than to place responsibility on him, and to let him know that you trust him.

Doing the box set is one of those things where you get to rewrite your own history to some extent. We could take out some of the songs that we felt weren’t as strong as some of the others, so you look better.

I’ve always been really, really aware of my insecurities – really, really aware. I never developed that thick skin that keeps you from letting things get to you.

Imperfection clings to a person, and if they wait till they are brushed off entirely, they would spin for ever on their axis, advancing nowhere.

A child-like man is not a man whose development has been arrested; on the contrary, he is a man who has given himself a chance of continuing to develop long after most adults have muffled themselves in the cocoon of middle-aged habit and convention.

Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point.

Understand this law and you will then know, beyond room for the slightest doubt, that you are constantly punishing yourself for every wrong you commit and rewarding yourself for every act of constructive conduct in which you indulge.

Even when we have physical hardships, we can be very happy.

I think you can have 10,000 explanations for failure, but no good explanation for success.

Any of us can be happy and have a good attitude when everything is going our way. But I believe it’s the real test of your character and of your faith to say, ‚Things are not going our way, but I’m still being good to people; I’m still attending church; I still have a good attitude.‘

If there’s one thing that’s certain in business, it’s uncertainty.

The true cost to the world of a burger is far greater than the money you hand over to buy it.