We must do our work for its own sake, not for fortune or attention or applause.

Rule of thumb: The more important a call or action is to our soul's evolution, the Resistance we will feel toward pursuing it.

The most important thing about art is to work. Nothing else matters except sitting down every day and trying.

Nothing is as empowering as real-world validation, even if it's for failure.

The professional learns to recognize envy-driven criticism and to take it for what it is: the supreme compliment. The critic hates most that which he would have done himself if he had had the guts.

To yield to Resistance deforms our spirit. It stunts us and makes us less than we are and were born to be.

...she (the artist, the writer) doesn't wait for inspiration, she acts in the anticipation of its apparition.

The professional has learned that success, like happiness, comes as a by-product of work. The professional concentrates on the work and allows rewards to come or not come, whatever they like.

The sign of the amateur is overglorification of and preoccupation with the mystery. The professional shuts up. She doesn't talk about it. She does her work.

The awakening an artist must be ruthless, not only with herself but with others.

Next morning I went over to Paul’s for coffee and told him I had finished. “Good for you, ” he said without looking up. “Start the next one today.

Preventing war is the work of politicians, establishing peace is the work of educationists.

If God wanted humans to play chess, he would have made us black or white.

Money confers the power to command the labor of others. Love of money is love of power. And love of power is the root of evil.

When people forget themselves, they usually do things others remember.

I am a farmer singing at the plow

Sometimes the best way to learn is to return to the fundamentals.

Hocus was an old cunning attorney. The words of consecration, "Hoc est corpus," were travestied into a nickname for jugglery, as "Hocus-pocus."

Knowing others is wisdom; Knowing the self is enlightenment; Mastering others requires force; Mastering the self needs strength.

Some games are fun even when you lose. Even when you know you're going to lose before you start. It's fun just playing them.

Painting is at once a form of meditation and an utter, complete personal engagement with life.