All men have their price.
As soon as a single [selfish] thought begins to stir, one must conquer it and cast it out. ... Do not indulge or accommodate it in any way. Do not harbor it, and do not allow it to escape.
In idle moments, one must search out and discover each and every selfish thought... One must resolve to pluck out and cast away the root of sickness, so that it can never arise again.
Flatter me, and I may not believe you. Criticize me, and I may not like you. Ignore me, and I may not forgive you. Encourage me, and I will not forget you.
The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.
When we seek to discover the best in others, we somehow bring out the best in ourselves.
Any man’s life will be filled with constant and unexpected encouragement if he makes up his mind to do his level best each day.
We must not allow the clock and the calendar to blind us to the fact that each moment of life is a miracle and mystery.
Familiar things happen, and mankind does not bother about them. It requires a very unusual mind to undertake the analysis of the obvious.
When I open my eyes in the morning, I am not confronted by a world, but by a million possible worlds.
Doing the best at this moment puts you in the best place for the next moment.
If you live in the past and allow the past to define who you are, then you never grow.
What I have learned in my life and work is that the more I am able to be myself, the more it enables other people to be themselves.
Assumptions are the termites of relationships.
The past is utterly indifferent to its worshipers.
When you improve a little each day, eventually big things occur. When you improve conditioning a little each day, eventually you have a big improvement in conditioning. Not tomorrow, not the next day, but eventually a big gain is made. Don’t look for the big, quick improvement. Seek the small improvement. Seek the small improvement one day at a time. That’s the only way it happens—and when it happens, it lasts.
Wisdom is ofttimes nearer when we stoop
Than when we soar.
…These two things, contradictory though they may seem, must go together—manly dependence and manly independence, manly reliance and manly self-reliance.
If we all worked on the assumption that what is accepted as true is really true, there would be little hope of advance.
The wrong sort of people are always in power because they would not be in power if they were not the wrong sort of people.