“Attitude. That is your tendency to evaluate things based on your perception. If you think you can't, that is a negative attitude parcel and opening it will reveal what you believe”

“A cigar is a sort of thing, not exactly a pleasure, but the crown and outward sign of pleasure.”

“It was only in South Africa that I got over this shyness, though I never completely overcame it. It was impossible for me to speak impromptu. I hesitated whenever I had to face strange audiences and avoided making a speech whenever I could. Even today I do not think I could or would even be inclined to keep a meeting of friends engaged in idle talk. I must say that, beyond occasionally exposing me to laughter, my constitutional shyness has been no disadvantage whatever. In fact I can see that, on the contrary, it has been all to my advantage. My hesitancy in speech, which was once an annoyance, is now a pleasure. Its greatest benefit has been that it has taught me the economy of words. I have naturally formed the habit of restraining my thoughts. And I can now give myself the certificate that a thoughtless word hardly ever escapes my tongue or pen. I do not recollect ever having had to regret anything in my speech or writing. I have thus been spared many a mishap and waste of time. Experience has taught me that silence is part of the spiritual discipline of a votary of truth. Proneness to exaggerate, to suppress or modify the truth, wittingly or unwittingly, is a natural weakness of man, and silence is necessary in order to surmount it. A man of few words will rarely be thoughtless in his speech; he will measure every word. We find so many people impatient to talk. There is no chairman of a meeting who is not pestered with notes for permission to speak. And whenever the permission is given the speaker generally exceeds the time-limit, asks for more time, and keeps on talking without permission. All this talking can hardly be said to be of any benefit to the world. It is so much waste of time. My shyness has been in reality my shield and buckler. It has allowed me to grow. It has helped me in my discernment of truth.”

“Be conscious of the global elements in your dreams. When starting local, dream of taking it global sooner.”

“You can have it all. Just not all at once.”

“You get to know who you really are in a crisis.” 

“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.”

“Determine that the thing can and shall be done and then... find the way.”

“Don’t be unwilling to take those little steps; in them are residing great journeys. Move on.”

“The only absolute knowledge attainable by man is that life is meaningless.”

“Anger is an agro-chemical that makes self-destruction to grow faster. Like a stone thrown upward, all angry people eventually fall down into the dirty ditch of sorrowful self-harm and a pathetic loss of real-self.”

“Good leaders always bring about transformation... Bad leaders only maintain and preserve long standing mediocrity!”

“When people at dinner parties ask me how I can possibly operate in the current political environment, with all the negative campaigning and personal attacks, I may mention Nelson Mandela, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, or some guy in a Chinese or Egyptian prison somewhere. In truth, being called names is not such a bad deal.”

“What do you despise? By this are you truly known. —”

“There are really only three kinds of people. Those who don’t succeed, those who achieve success temporarily, and those who become and remain successful. Character is the only way to sustain success.”