Quotes about Self-improvement

There are three methods to gaining wisdom. The first is reflection, which is the highest. The second is limitation, which is the easiest. The third is experience, which is the bitterest.

To be fond of learning is to be near to knowledge. To practice with vigor is to be near to magnanimity. To possess the feeling of shame is to be near to energy. He who knows these three things, knows how to cultivate his own character.

You cannot change what you do not confront.

Is there something that those who are closest to you have been trying to tell you? Maybe you have an addiction, a hang-up, a weakness, a blind spot. If more than one person who loves you has been trying to help you see something that needs to change, maybe it's time to listen.

This is the very perfection of a man, to find out his own imperfections.

We make ourselves a ladder out of our vices if we trample the vices themselves underfoot.

We make a ladder for ourselves of our vices, if we trample those same vices underfoot.

I've finally come to fully understand that you can't fix another person. You can't fix the past. You can only change your way of reacting to it. You have to wait for other people to fix themselves.

I have tried, at least most of the time, to set high objectives, to accept failures and disappointments with relative equanimity, to acknowledge and try to correct my mistakes and weaknesses, and then to set different and sometimes higher goals for the future.

You have to expect things of yourself before you can do them.

Success is something you attract by the person you become.

One of the most essential yet the hardest truths that I have had to learn, is that every person should be his own hardest task-master.