Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.

Life is an ongoing process of choosing between safety (out of fear and need for defense) and risk (for the sake of progress and growth). Make the growth choice a dozen times a day.

Don't let making a living prevent you from making a life.

Imagination does not become great until human beings, given the courage and the strength, use it to create.

Nature is not human-hearted.

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

Life does not need to mutilate itself in order to be pure.

Consistency is contrary to nature, contrary to life. The only completely consistent people are the dead.

I can't help thinking that there are only one or two ways of being brought into this world, but there are so many fucked-up ways of leaving it.

Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot.

Work harder on yourself than you do on your job.

Time is the best killer.

If you have zest and enthusiasm, you attract zest and enthusiasm. Life does give back in kind.

Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.

Every life has a measure of sorrow, and sometimes this is what awakens us.

The happiest is the person who suffers the least pain; the most miserable who enjoys the least pleasure.

Love is like an hourglass, with the heart filling up as the brain empties

Early in life I had to choose between honest arrogance and hypocritical humility. I chose the former and have seen no reason to change.

The gratification of wealth is not found in mere possession or in lavish expenditure, but in its wise application.

If it is worth doing, it is worth overdoing.

Of all the diversions of life, there is none so proper to fill up its empty spaces as the reading of useful and entertaining authors.