As we begin to praise ourselves and our world, we begin to blossom in ways that are beautiful to behold.

If you reflect on your life, you may recall times when you couldn't see the value of some person and were tempted to brush him or her off. It takes hindsight to recognize that the very situation you may have seen as an irritating bother turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Wouldn't life be a much more enjoyable and meaningful experience if we decided to look at the difficult people and irritating situations as blessings in disguise? If we look deeply enough, we might see how these experiences as situations that motivate us to grow and change for the better.

In my 45-year career as an investment counselor, humility did show me the need for worldwide diversification to reduce risk. That career did help me to become more and more humble because statistics showed that when I advised a client to buy one stock to replace another, about one-third of the time the client would have done better to ignore my advice. In other endeavors, humility about how little I know has encouraged me to listen more carefully and more wisely.

If we become increasingly humble about how little we know, we may be more eager to search.

True peace is a quality you carry within yourself, regardless of external circumstances.

A flower is a miracle, but it does not have the sight or speech to describe us. And our own ability is no greater than that flower when we try to describe God. His infinity covers not only one planet, but the entire solar system and 100 billion suns. That doesn't mean he is limited in his ability to be part of you.

I never ask if the market is going to go up or down because I don't know, and besides it doesn't matter. I search nation after nation for stocks, asking: 'Where is the one that is lowest-priced in relation to what I believe it's worth?' Forty years of experience have taught me you can make money without ever knowing which way the market is going.