The gods offer no rewards for intellect. There was never one yet that showed any interest in it.
Morality is not the doctrine of how we may make ourselves happy, but how we may make ourselves worthy of happiness.
Rules for Happiness: something to do, someone to love, something to hope for.
If you punish a child for being naughty, and reward him for being good, he will do right merely for the sake of the reward; and when he goes out into the world and finds that goodness is not always rewarded, nor wickedness always punished, he will grow into a man who only thinks about how he may get on in the world, and does right or wrong according as he finds advantage to himself.
We are not rich by what we possess but by what we can do without.
Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the oftener and more steadily we reflect on them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.
Enlightenment is man's leaving his self-caused immaturity. Immaturity is the incapacity to use one's intelligence without the guidance of another. Such immaturity is self-caused if it is not caused by lack of intelligence, but by lack of determination and courage to use one's intelligence without being guided by another. Sapere Aude! Have the courage to use your own intelligence! is therefore the motto of the enlightenment.
We are Americans first, Americans last, and Americans always.
People are mostly hot to have a discussion when you're not.
I'm a perfectionist. . . So to me, if I had my way, a song is never perfect, never finished.
You are the absolute creator of what happens to you. This means now. [. . . ] There is awesome power in knowing this fact. As long as there is even one tiny part of you that thinks the world is doing it to you, the world is going to do it to you. When you know 100% that you create it, you will start influencing the world around you in a much bigger and more positive way.