However many holy words you read, however many you speak, what good will they do you if you do not act on upon them?

It is wise to persuade people to do things and make them think it was their own idea.

A business that makes nothing but money is a poor business. 

Anchor keeps the ship in one place. But that is not what ships are made for!

The miracle is not that we do this work, but that we are happy to do it.

My music fights against the system that teaches to live and die.

A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side.

We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think. When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves.

90 percent of my time is spent on 10 percent of the world.

The problems of victory are more agreeable than those of defeat, but they are no less difficult. 

I find my greatest pleasure, and so my reward, in the work that precedes what the world calls success.

The whole difference between construction and creation is exactly this: that a thing constructed can only be loved after it is constructed; but a thing created is loved before it exists.