“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.”

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.

When existence reveals itself as existentially intolerable, thinking collapses in on itself. In such situations – in the depths—it’s noticing, not thinking, that does the trick.

Life is indistinguishable from effortful maintenance.

You’re not perfect just the way you are. You could be better!

Untruth corrupts the soul and the state alike, and one form of corruption feeds the other.

You’re going to pay a price for every bloody thing you do and everything you don’t do. You don’t get to choose to not pay a price. You get to choose which poison you’re going to take. That’s it.

Who cares if you are the prime minister of Canada when someone else is the president of the United States?

Every bit of learning is a little death. Every bit of new information challenges a previous conception, forcing it to dissolve into chaos before it can be reborn as something better. Sometimes such deaths virtually destroy us.

Good manners will open doors that the best education cannot.

I am an optimist by nature and I reserve the right to be wrong.

The man of character, sensitive to the meaning of what he is doing, will know how to discover the ethical paths in the maze of possible behavior.

I played a tomboy character in ‘Dohchay.’

Reputation is what men and women think of us; character is what God and angels know of us.

Acting has helped me understand people, not only because you are acting as a character, but also because you are watching other actors work. That really helps you identify in life when someone is acting, not being true.

Man is an animal that makes bargains: no other animal does this – no dog exchanges bones with another.

When values, thoughts, feelings, and actions are in alignment, a person becomes focused and character is strengthened.