“At the prompting of some stray instinct or chance association, you will invent delightful or fearsome circumstances, identifying them, with the most shameful doubleness, with the real ones...you will burst into passionate eloquence, or pant in the direst predicament, all for the fun of it, or by virtue of a terrible inner compulsion; and this dream which is byplay, or play which is a waking dream, will exhibit your brooding soul, if not always to moral advantage or with much coherence, at least in its unsuspected ingenuities of invention. What brilliant images, what subtle emotions, what dramatic turns in the argument of a dream, and in the make-believe of children! You seem to dictate and compose your fiction deliberately, rejecting, foreseeing, feeling the oncoming revolution towards which circumstances must be addressed.”

“The Difficult is that which can be done immediately; the Impossible that which takes a little longer.”

“A man's feet must be planted in his country, but his eyes should survey the world.”

To be happy you must have taken the measure of your powers, tasted the fruits of your passion, and learned your place in the world.

Jump out the window if you are the object of passion. Flee it if you feel it. Passion goes, boredom remains.

There is no fire like passion, there is no shark like hatred, there is no snare like folly, there is no torrent like greed.

“Character is power.” 

Why struggle to open a door between us when the whole wall is an illusion?

Your task? To work with all the passion of your being to acquire an inner light.

It is possible to fail in many ways…while to succeed is possible only in one way.

It is not enough to be compassionate, we must act.

It is not enough to be compassionate. You must act.

We all have the power of thought – so what are you lacking? If you have willpower, then you can change anything.

If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.

Anger and hatred are signs of weakness, while compassion is a sure sign of strength.

Only the development of compassion and understanding for others can bring us the tranquility and happiness we all seek.

I have found that the greatest degree of inner tranquility comes from the development of love and compassion. The more we care for the happiness of others, the greater is our own sense of well-being. Cultivating a close, warmhearted feeling for others automatically puts the mind at ease. It is the ultimate source of success in life.

Where there’s a will there’s a way.

I no longer need to take part in the competition of the big brains. Participating [in the process] has always seem to me an awful type of slavery no less evil than the passion for money or power.

Nothing truly valuable arises from ambition or from a mere sense of duty; it stems rather from love and devotion toward men and toward objective things.

The most beautiful make-up of a woman is passion. But cosmetics are easier to buy.

Life has a tendency to just happen. But it happens because we make choices. The life you create and design for yourself is going to accumulate from the choices you make over time. Sure, there are unexpected things that can derail dreams. But we can control where we put our focus, and if we choose to put one dream ahead of another.

“To win big, you sometimes have to take big risks.”

“Life is not fair — get used to it!”