The secret of success is doing things not merely because they are popular, but because you deeply believe in them.

Don't live to be unhappy, live to be happy. If you live to be happy you'll find the things that make you happy. And as you do that you find that sharing with others makes you much happier than taking from them.

Those who walk, run, or slide downhill eagerly would rather not think about the long, hard climb back up the hill again.

I know that everybody is seeking bliss. And they're all looking for it mostly in the wrong ways, and as a result of that, they err, but there's no reason to hate them; they just don't know any better. Jesus himself on the cross said, "Forgive them, for they know not what they do." And so people who hate you, that's their problem. It doesn't have to be your problem. I wish them well.

Trust life, even if you cannot trust people. For human nature is unreliable, but life itself is ruled by immutable law. Right action leads always, in the end, to victory.

The churches had left me cold, but I thought there's got to be a God. I remember going out, this is in Charleston, South Carolina, and my desire then was to be a playwright, and I was studying theater, and I went out one night, late at night, and I asked, "What can God be if there is a God?" I wasn't sure there was a God, but if there is a God, what must he be? Well, he can't be a judge, who's up there just waiting for us to make a mistake so he can clap us into hell. There's got to be something more than that.

We've got to be long distance runners on the spiritual path. We want to run as fast as we can, but at the same time realize that if God isn't at the end of that 100 yards, we don't fall flat of exhaustion. We've got to have whatever rhythm it takes to be able to go on for incarnations until we find that state of perfection we've been seeking.