private victories precede public victories, that making and keeping promises to ourselves precedes making and keeping promises to others. It says it is futile to put personality ahead of character, to try to improve relationships with others before improving ourselves.

Remember to keep working from the inside out and keep getting back on track when we blow it.

you want the secondary greatness of recognized talent, focus first on primary greatness of character.

Our ultimate freedom is the right and power to decide how anybody or anything outside ourselves will affect us. OBJECTIVE INTROSPECTION Until we see ourselves from the outside objectively, we will automatically project our motives onto other people.

Most people see effectiveness from the golden egg paradigm: the more you produce, the more you do, the more effective you are.

If you love peace, then hate injustice, hate tyranny, hate greed ? but hate these things in yourself, not in another.

Personal transformation can and does have global effects. As we go, so goes the world, for the world is us. The revolution that will save the world is ultimately a personal one.

The key to a successful career is realizing that it's not separate from the rest of your life, but is rather an extension of your most basic self. And your most basic self is love.

Don't compare yourself with other people, compare yourself with who you were yesterday.

You must make friends, therefore, with what you don't know, instead of what you know. You must remain awake to catch yourself in the act. You must remove the beam in your own eye, before you concern yourself with the mote in your brother's. And in this way, you strengthen your own spirit, so it can tolerate the burden of existence, and you rejuvenate the state.

The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.

There's nothing noble in being superior to your fellow men. True nobility is being superior to your former self.