The best lightning rod for your protection is your own spine.

Accept the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events. Great men have always done so.

Your genuine action will explain itself, and will explain your other genuine actions. Your conformity explains nothing.

Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles. 

A person is the product of their dreams. So make sure to dream great dreams. And then try to live your dream.

Dare to let your dreams reach beyond you.

Do that which is assigned you, and you cannot hope too much or dare too much.

Its not where your dreams take you, its where you take your dreams.

If you have only one smile in you, give it to the people you love. Don't be surly at home, then go out in the street and start grinning 'Good morning' at total strangers.

I believe talent is like electricity. We don't understand electricity. We use it. You can plug into it and light up a lamp, keep a heart pump going, light a cathedral, or you can electrocute a person with it. Electricity will do all that. It makes no judgment. I think talent is like that. I believe every person is born with talent.

Give and it shall be given you.

The truth is you never can leave home. You take it with you everywhere you go. It's under your skin. It moves the tongue or slows it, colors the thinking, impedes upon the logic.

Make the most of yourself for that is all there is of you.

Without defeats, how do you really know who the hell you are? If you never had to stand up to something - to get up, to be knocked down, and to get up again - life can walk over you wearing football cleats. But each time you do get up, you're bigger, taller, finer, more beautiful, more kind, more understanding, more loving. Each time you get up, you're more inclusive. More people can stand under your umbrella.

At one time, you could sit on the Rue de la Paix in Paris or at the Habima Theater in Tel Aviv or in Medina and you could see a person come in, black, white, it didn't matter. You said, 'That's an American' because there's a readiness to smile and to talk to people.

When you learn, teach, when you get, give.

I'm grateful to intelligent people. That doesn't mean educated. That doesn't mean intellectual. I mean really intelligent. What black old people used to call 'mother wit' means intelligence that you had in your mother's womb. That's what you rely on. You know what's right to do.

If you want what you're saying heard, then take your time and say it so that the listener will actually hear it. You might save somebody's life. Your own, first.

You can only become truly accomplished at something you love. Don’t make money your goal. Instead pursue the things you love doing and then do them so well that people can’t take their eyes off of you.

Anything that works against you can also work for you once you understand the Principle of Reverse.

Ask for what you want and be prepared to get it!

When you know better you do better.

You can never be great at anything unless you love it.

You can't use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.