Abu Bakr Quotes

Even cynical, selfish people will realize, one way or the other, that it's not in their self-interest to act in self-destructive ways.

Everyone must correct his own self; this is something more difficult to cope with, but it is not impossible.

One of my worst fears is being a self-indulgent person.

We aren't, as human beings, very good at acting in our best interest.

In the matter of learning, the difference between the earnest and the careless student stands out clearly. The same holds true in the mastering of passion and the weaknesses to which our nature is subject, as in the acquiring of virtue.

Mature striving is linked to long-range goals. Thus, the process of becoming is largely a matter of organizing transitory impulses into a pattern of striving and interest in which the element of self-awareness plays a large part.

We benefit, intellectually and personally, from the interplay between different selves, from the balance between long-term contemplation and short-term impulse. We should be wary about tipping the scales too far. The community of selves shouldn't be a democracy, but it shouldn't be a dictatorship, either.

In the end, it's a mental maturity to let your best come out.

The whole point of a sacrifice is that you give up something you never really wanted in the first place. People are doing it around you all the time. They give up their careers, say - or their beliefs - or sex.

As a kid, I often figured it was good to be patient to a fault.

I have learned to watch myself and give myself constructive criticism. Although I have to cover my face and peek sometimes!

It is much easier to find fault with others, than to be faultless ourselves.

The preacher's sharpest and strongest preaching should be to himself. His most difficult, delicate, laborious, and thorough work must be with himself.

You can't please everybody all the time, but I think for the most part we tend to maintain a healthy level of self-reference to kind of make sure we continue to push things forward.

Patience is a virtue, and I'm learning patience. It's a tough lesson.

Everybody wants to be good, but not many are prepared to make the sacrifices it takes to be great. To many people, being nice in order to be liked is more important. There's equal merit in that, but you must not confuse being good with being liked.

You can never control other people. You can only control yourself. I have definitely learned that.

Look around the inhabited world; how few know their own good, or knowing it, pursue.

People need to be edited; life needs to be edited. I need to be edited.

My ego every day is more and more polite. I tame it.

I couldn't make sense of things. But then I began the process of civilising myself and trying to become a decent human being. I'm still working on it.

I am really looking forward as I get older and older, to being less and less nice.

Most of us actually stifle enough good impulses during the course of a day to change the current of our lives.

I can have incredible self-discipline. But see, I think it's obviously a form of stupidity.

I see bad stuff on the street all the time that I don't do anything about. I do bad stuff myself all the time. The goal is not to somehow be perfect - that's silly, that's naive. The goal is to just recognize there are choices in front of us, and to try to make better ones.