“Genius is the capacity of avoiding hard work.”

Be yourself and think for yourself, and while your conclusions may not be infallible they will be nearer right than the inclusions forced upon you by those who have a personal interest in keeping you in ignorance.

It is easy to get everything you want, provided you first learn to do without the things you cannot get.

Reason: The arithmetic of the emotions.

We will not be dictated to by men with less intelligence, energy, initiative and ambition than we ourselves possess.

What we call God’s justice is only man’s idea of what he would do if he were God.

If you have health, you probably will be happy, and if you have health and happiness, you have all the wealth you need, even if it is not all you want.

He who does not understand your silence will probably not understand your words.

If you can’t answer a man’s arguments, all is not lost; you can still call him vile names.

The secret of success is this: there is no secret of success.

The man who knows it can’t be done counts the risk, not the reward.

Formal religion was organized for slaves: it offered them consolation which earth did not provide.

All success consists in this: You are doing something for somebody – benefiting humanity – and the feeling of success comes from the consciousness of this.

Faith is the effort to believe what your common sense tells you is not true.

Of all the mental and physical polluters of life, nothing exercises such a poisonous effect as fear.

Anyone who idolizes you is going to hate you when he discovers that you are fallible. He never forgives. He has deceived himself, and he blames you for it.

A failure is a man who has blundered, but is not able to cash in the experience.

Make yourself a “capacity” and I will make myself a “torrent.”

Every mind has a horizon in respect to its present intellectual capacity but not in respect to its future intellectual capacity.

Make your own decision, based on your deepest intuitive wisdom and knowledge. You may make the right decision or the wrong one, but whatever happens, it is your best shot, and you will strengthen your capacity for future action.

Paying attention and awareness are universal capacities of human beings.

We fear discovering that we are more than we think we are… That we actually have the guts, the perserverance, the capacity… because, if it’s true, then we become estranged from all we know.

To the composition of novels and romances, nothing is necessary but paper, pens, and ink, with the manual capacity of using them.

Leadership is the capacity to influence others through inspiration motivated by passion, generated by vision, produced by a conviction, ignited by a purpose.

It is strange that the years teach us patience; that the shorter our time, the greater our capacity for waiting.