“If you make a mistake, celebrate.”

My job [is] to awaken possibility in other people. If their eyes are shining, you know you’re doing it. If they’re not shining you get to ask this question: “Who am I being that my children’s eyes are not shining?”

Throw yourself into life as someone who makes a difference, accepting that you may not understand how or why.

It is the tuning of the universe… It’s as if at the beginning of the symphony God turns up the volume just a tiny bit.

I have a definition of success.

The conductor of an orchestra doesn’t make a sound. He depends, for his power, on his ability to make other people powerful.

This is the moment — this is the most important moment right now. Which is: We are about contribution. That’s what our job is. It’s not about impressing people. It’s not about getting the next job. It’s about contributing something.

Who am I being that my players’ eyes are not shining?

The job of the leader is to speak to the possibility.

I make myself a relentless architect of the possibilities of human beings.

We can replace the narratives that hold us back by inventing wiser stories, free from childish fears, and, in doing so, disperse long-held psychological stumbling blocks.

how absurd human beings are and how magnificent.

Look at their eyes. If their eyes are shining, you know you’re doing it.

How often do we stand convinced of the truth of our early memories, forgetting that they are assessments made by a child?

Everybody loves classical music they just don’t know about it yet.

It’s one of the characteristics of a leader that he not doubt for one moment the capacity of the people he’s leading to realize whatever he’s dreaming. Imagine if Martin Luther King had said, ‘I have a dream. Of course, I’m not sure they’ll be up to it.

Live the rest of your life in possibility

When I was a kid, my father used to tell me that everybody was celebrating my birthday. That’s what the trees are all about.

Artists, celebrated for their humanity, they turn out to be scarcely human at all.

Anyone who has ever walked upright has loved beer, celebrated over it, told talks over it, hatched plots over it, courted over it.

After my varied and celebrated career in television, movies, publishing, and the lucrative world of corporate speaking, being a fellow at Harvard seemed, frankly, like a step down.

It is remarkable that in such countries people do not feel very free. The second kind of freedom, freedom from desires, is celebrated only in some religious communities. It celebrates contentment, peace that is free from desires.

Then we don’t have to celebrate it or let anybody know about it, simply let the mind have firm confidence in the goodness and keep going like this.

This is your court and you possess the force to celebrate the trial and convict me on the basis of your lists of accusations.

Often in winter the end of the day is like the final metaphor in a poem celebrating death: there is no way out.