"I will offer one bit of useful state of mind which if one adopts it, makes everything much easier. Which is to accept reality as it is and to try not to regret the past, and to try to improve the situation. And the reason I say it is because it's so hard to adopt it. It's so easy to think oh, like some bad past decision or bad stroke of luck, something happened, something is unfair, and it's so easy to spend so much time thinking. It's just so much better and more productive to say, okay, things are the way they are. What's the next best step? But it's hard. It's hard. It's a constant struggle with one's emotion and that's why I mention it to you. This is a reminder to adopt this mindset as best as one can and also a reminder for myself. Constant struggle."
"The lion with gilded mane, in process of being trained and forced by weariness to endure the decoration, is sent into the arena in quite a different way from the wild lion whose spirit is unbroken; the latter, indeed, bold in his attack, as nature wished him to be, impressive because of his wild appearance—and it is his glory that none can look upon him without fear—is favoured in preference to the other lion, that languid and gilded brute."
"The primary indication, to my thinking, of a well-ordered mind is a man's ability to remain in one place and linger in his own company. Why do you wonder that globe-trotting does not help you, seeing that you always take yourself with you? The reason which set you wandering is ever at your heels."
"I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms."
"Charlie and I have no magic plan to add earnings except to dream big and to be prepared mentally and financially to act fast when opportunities present themselves. Every decade or so, dark clouds will fill the economic skies, and they will briefly rain gold. When downpours of that sort occur, it's imperative that we rush outdoors carrying washtubs, not teaspoons. And that we will do."