“A long while ago, a great warrior faced a situation which made it necessary for him to make a decision which insured his success on the battlefield. He was about to send his armies against a powerful foe, whose men outnumbered his own. He loaded his soldiers into boats, sailed to the enemy’s country, unloaded soldiers and equipment, then gave the order to burn the ships that had carried them. Addressing his men before the first battle, he said, “You see the boats going up in smoke. That means that we cannot leave these shores alive unless we win! We now have no choice—we win, or we perish! They won.”

“The thought that you will become a master in something after the first attempt is neither here nor there. You don't get master's degree by attending school on the first day of your life! Time will tell, so you got to persist!”

“An addiction is something that controls people—something they feel they cannot do without or something they do to alleviate pain or pressure. It is what people run to when they are hurting or feel lonely. It comes in many varieties, such as drugs, alcohol, gambling, sex, shopping, eating, work—and yes, even approval. Like any addict, insecure people look for a “fix” when they get shaky. They need someone to reaffirm them and assure them everything is all right and they are acceptable. When a person has an addiction the things they are addicted to are on their mind most of the time. Therefore, if a person is an approval addict, he or she will have an abnormal concern and an abundance of thoughts about what people think of them

“What began as an apparently harmless pastime has ended up as a frightening, overpowering addiction or obsession.”

“The quest of the Inner Ring will break your hearts unless you break it. But if you break it, a surprising result will follow. If in your working hours you make the work your end, you will presently find yourself all unawares inside the only circle in your profession that really matters. You will be one of the sound craftsmen, and other sound craftsmen will know it. This group of craftsmen will by no means coincide with the Inner Ring or the Important People or the People in the Know. It will not shape that professional policy or work up that professional influence which fights for the profession as a whole against the public: nor will it lead to those periodic scandals and crises which the Inner Ring produces. But it will do those things which that profession exists to do and will in the long run be responsible for all the respect which that profession in fact enjoys and which the speeches and advertisements cannot maintain. And if in your spare time you consort simply with the people you like, you will again find that you have come unawares to a real inside: that you are indeed snug and safe at the center of something which, seen from without, would look exactly like an Inner Ring. But the difference is that its secrecy is accidental, and its exclusiveness a by-product, and no one was led thither by the lure of the esoteric: for it is only four or five people who like one another meeting to do things that they like. This is friendship. Aristotle placed it among the virtues. It causes perhaps half of all the happiness in the world, and no Inner Ring can ever have it.”

“It’s great to feel happy. Go, do what makes you feel happy. Do it shabbily and get shallow happiness; Do it hard and feel the hardest happiness!”

“She's the sort of woman who lives for others - you can tell the others by their hunted expression.”

“But that had been grief--this was joy. Yet that grief and this joy were alike outside all the ordinary conditions of life; they were loopholes, as it were, in that ordinary life through which there came glimpses of something sublime. And in the contemplation of this sublime something the soul was exalted to inconceivable heights of which it had before had no conception, while reason lagged behind, unable to keep up with it.”

“If you're fighting moodiness and depression you don't want to hang around a bunch of other moody and depressed people.”

“Tis better people think you a fool, then open your mouth and erase all doubt.”

“I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty, than those attending too small a degree of it.”

“Life is like a combination lock; your job is to find the numbers, in the right orders, so you can have anything you want.”

“Don’t allow feelings of any kind to dominate you, but instead remember that feelings are fickle. They are ever-changing. The bad ones are there when you wish they weren’t, and the good ones disappear when you need them most.”

“When you trip over love, it is easy to get up. But when you fall in love, it is impossible to stand again.”

“You can't hit a target you cannot see, and you cannot see a target you do not have.”