“That which you most need to find will be found where you least wish to look.”

Sometimes it seems the only people willing to give advice in a realistic society are those with the least to offer.

Alongside our wish to be free of rules, we all search for structure.

There’s a worthy and noble ambition: strength in the face of adversity. That is very different from the wish for a life free of trouble.

We are increasingly falling prey to the desperation of meaninglessness.

That the soul of the individual eternally hungers for the heroism of genuine being.

The better ambitions have to do with the development of character and ability, rather than status and power. The status you can lose. You carry character with you wherever you go, and it allows you to prevail against adversity.

You should never sacrifice what you could be for what you are.

We require routine and tradition. That’s order. Order can become excessive, and that’s not good, but chaos can swamp us, so we drown – and that is also not good. We need to stay on the straight and narrow path.

Don’t ever underestimate the destructive power of sins of omission.

There’s some real utility in gratitude. It’s also good protection against the dangers of victimhood and resentment.

It is far better to render beings in your care competent than to protect them.

It is far better to render beings in your car competent than to protect them.

Old age and treachery can always overcome youth and skill.

You cannot be protected from the things that frighten you and hurt you, but if you identify with the part of your being that is responsible for transformation, then you are always the equal, or more than the equal of the things that frighten you.

Pet a cat when you encounter one on the street.

So, listen, to yourself and to those with whom you are speaking. Your wisdom then consists not of the knowledge you already have, but the continual search for knowledge, which is the highest form of wisdom.

I believe it is possible that I shall make other creeds, and change this one, or add to it, from time to time, as new light may come to me.

I believe many a man is praying to God to fill him, when he is full already with something else. Before we pray that God would fill us, I believe we ought to pray Him to empty us.

I haven’t retired from international football – I still believe I have a part to play in the future of England.

The main enemy of the open society, I believe, is no longer the communist but the capitalist threat.

But when you really believe-in yourself, in your dream-you just have to do everything you possibly can to take control and make your vision a reality. No great achievement happens by luck.

What is essential, therefore, is not that you no longer believe, but that God continues to believe in you.

I don’t have stylistic loyalty. That’s why people perceive me changing all the time. But there is a real continuity in my subject matter. As an artist of artifice, I do believe I have more integrity than any one of my contemporaries.

We, and all others who believe in freedom as deeply as we do, would rather die on our feet than live on our knees.