The quote database

An honest man’s pillow is his peace of mind, and when you lay down on the pillow at night, no matter who’s in our bed we all sleep alone.

We have created a fictitious ceiling, a roof, to our expectations of ourselves, a limit — where we think it’s all too good to be true.

I have never had any trouble turning the page in the book of my life.

One thing you can depend on people being…is people.

Happiness demands a certain outcome, it is result reliant.

If happiness is what you’re after, then you are going to be let down frequently and be unhappy much of your time.

Life is not a popularity contest. Be brave, take the hill but first, answer the question, “What is my hill?”

It’s just as important where we are not as it is where we are.

We give thanks for these things and that gratitude reciprocates, creating more to be thankful for. It’s simple, and it works.

Retire yourself into yourself, but first prepare yourself there to receive yourself: it were a folly to trust yourself in your own hands, if you cannot govern yourself.

Whoever expects punishment already suffers it, and whoever has deserved it expects it.

Moreover men commonly deceive themselves in respect of the love which they imagine others bear them, nor can ever be sure of it until they have put it to the proof.

Therefore, if he who rules a principality cannot recognize evils until they are upon him, he is not truly wise; and this insight is given to few.

Therefore it must be inferred that good counsels, whencesoever they come, are born of the wisdom of the prince, and not the wisdom of the prince from good counsels.

Every effort under compulsion demands a sacrifice of life-energy.

The ultimate effect of parasitism is always a paralysis of the will and an inability to compel oneself into any course of action for the moment unpleasurable and exhaustive.

The athlete trains for his race; and the mind must be put into training if one will win life's race.

Many of us imprison ourselves in the narrow limited poverty thought, and then, like caged eagles trying in vain to get free, we beat out our wings against the bars we have ourselves put up.

The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself

I don't want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them

For this reason there is no truth comparable to sorrow.

Whereas among real friends there is no rivalry or jealousy of one another, but they are satisfied and contented alike whether they are equal or one of them is superior.

It also makes for contentedness, when things happen against our wish, not to overlook our many advantages and comforts, but by looking at both good and bad to feel that the good preponderate.

Let us cleanse therefore the fountain of contentedness, which is within us, that so external things may turn out for our good, through our putting the best face on them.

Self-love is mainly to blame, making people fond of being first and aspiring in all matters, and insatiably desirous to engage in everything.