“A stumbling block to the pessimist is a stepping-stone to the optimist.”

You always admire what you really don’t understand.

The most unhappy people in the world are those who face the days without knowing what to do with their time.

Never be bored, and you will never be boring.

One’s philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes.

Freedom makes a huge requirement of every human being.

I cannot go to bed tonight without a word to you.

No matter how plain a woman may be, if truth and honesty are written across her face, she will be beautiful.

Never allow a person to tell you no who doesn’t have the power to say yes.

It’s your life-but only if you make it so.

When you stop learning you stop living in any vital and meaningful sense.

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

Each time you learn something new you must readjust the whole framework of your knowledge

Do one thing every day that scares you.

The giving of love is an education in itself.

Effort: You must do the thing you think you cannot do.

You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face.

The future is merely a shadow which blocks out the joys of the present and emphasizes the miseries of the past.

They told me to take a streetcar named Desire and then transfer to one called Cemeteries and ride six blocks and get off at – Elysian Fields!

In my clinical experience, the greatest block to a person’s development is his having to take on a way of life which is not rooted in his own powers.

And it was about then, about that time, that I began to find life unsatisfactory as an explanation of itself and was forced to adopt the method of the artist of not explaining but putting the blocks together in some other way that seems more significant to him. Which is a rather fancy way of saying I started writing.

Success is blocked by concentrating on it and planning for it… Success is shy – it won’t come out while you’re watching.

Of course I lie to people. But I lie altruistically – for our mutual good. The lie is the basic building block of good manners. That may seem mildly shocking to a moralist – but then what isn’t?

You hit road blocks in life, but I’m living proof that you can overcome those road blocks and become what you want to become.

The idea is not to block every shot. The idea is to make your opponent believe that you might block every shot.