One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.

The knowledge of oneself will preserve that person from vanity.

Doing nothing is happiness for children and misery for old men.

Everything we do is infused with the energy with which we do it. If we're frantic, life will be frantic. If we're peaceful, life will be peaceful. And so our goal in any situation becomes inner peace.

We make up horrors to help us cope with the real ones.

Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons.

Fortune cannot aid those who do nothing.

Life has a certain flavour for those who have fought and risked all that the sheltered and protected can never experience.

Wrinkles should merely indicate where the smiles have been.

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.

Breathe. Let go. And remind yourself that this very moment is the only one you know you have for sure.

I am an American; free born and free bred, where I acknowledge no man as my superior, except for his own worth, or as my inferior, except for his own demerit.

Every person who ever thought he had a right to assert, and went boldly and asserted it, himself, or jointly with others that shared his convictions, was a direct actionist.

Life is a difficult game. You can win it only by retaining your birthright to be a person.

Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood.

All my life I have tried to pluck a thistle and plant a flower wherever the flower would grow in thought and mind.

You can give in to the failure messages and be a bitter deadbeat of excuses. Or you can choose to be happy and positive and excited about life.

Each person must live their life as a model for others.

I always like to look on the optimistic side of life, but I am realistic enough to know that life is a complex matter.

Mastery of the emotions is fundamental to a virtuous life.

If you've been playing poker for half an hour and you still don't know who the patsy is, you're the patsy.