If you focus on the reason why you should reach your goal you will put yourself in a more confident mindset.

If you radiate a genuine confidence in your actions, others tend to believe in your goals as well. If you don't believe in your desired outcome, why should the rest of the world ?

A good way to empower yourself before a big moment is to write down 10 reasons why a person would want to say yes to your suggestion or ideas.

Meditation lowers the stress level and also strengthens your mental strength and focus, creativity and memory, qualities which are crucial to good conversations and building relationships.

If your thoughts, words and actions are congruent you come off to others as authentic and self-assured. Others will respond to you as you truly are.

Most people fail to be congruent because they don't want to show weakness. But typically best friends know your worst and most unattractive moments.

If you do what you are really passionate about you will be attractive to others.

Stop looking for validation from others. If you do things because you genuinely want them you free yourself up to pursue interests and hobbies that you may never have considered before.

Take back control of your self-image by worrying less about what others think of you and more about who you really are and how much you are enjoying life.

Everyone loves to talk - but few have perfected the art of listening.

Most people are eager to make a connection and talk too much, however it's in listening that you come to truly understand a person and what makes them tick.

Listening opens your mind, strengthens your sense of empathy and develops your ability to connect.

Your most important and long-lasting relationship is the one that you have with yourself.

To accept the fact that not everyone will like you can be tremendously freeing. Rejection is rarely about your defects more often two persons simply don't mesh well. Then it's better to put time and energy into other relationships.

It makes her instantly feel something It’s easy to respond to It’s creative and/or humorous

Gnosticism was stamped out completely and its remnants are so badly mangled that special study is needed to get any insight at all into its inner meaning.

Martin Luther King, Jr., would have been the last person to have wanted his iconization and his heroism. He was an enormously guilt-laden man. He was drenched in a sense of shame about his being featured as the preeminent leader of African-American culture and the civil rights movement.

I had this notion of what I called a democratic way of looking around, that nothing was more important or less important.

And whatever my weight, I've always been skinny from the waist up.

The difficulty of writing a second novel is directly proportional to how successful the first novel was, it seems.

Modern culture is constantly growing more objective. Its tissues grow more and more out of impersonal energies, and absorb less and less the subjective entirety of the individual.

I am not a diva: I am a Jones. 'Diva' is so overused. Diva, icons, the whole thing, legends... To be a diva, what is that?

Even if it was a difficult operation to copy a song, it only takes one person to do it. After that the spread of the song via the Internet or other means of propagation is only limited by the honesty of the users.

Like an opera singer, I am able to sing out my song in paint.

Impact investing has become a broad umbrella that includes all investing with a focus on both financial return and social impact, but in its best form, impact investing prioritizes impact over returns and achieves outcomes that traditional investing cannot.

A novel is often a longer process in handling self-doubt.

I absolutely love the fact that they are looking out for me and it's not really even just Charles and Dave. Out on the road, I'm one of very few girls out here. There's a lot of pseudo big brothers who are keeping an eye out on me.

To outsiders it probably seems like splitting hairs, but to me, Bright Eyes is a simply the collaboration between myself and Mike Mogis and Nate Walcott. What you hear is definitely the sum of all our ideas and represents all three of us. But I still write the songs myself.

Darwin investigated the numerous facts obtained by naturalists in living nature and analysed them through the prism of practical experience.

I have a whole 'Halo' corner in my house. One time, when I went to Bungie, they gave me this awesome 'Halo: Reach' backpack. Usually, when you get stuff like that, it either ends up in the garage or going to charity. But I walk around with that 'Halo: Reach' backpack all the time, and I drink out of my 'Halo: Reach' bottle every day.

The dark side of social media is that, within seconds, anything can be blown out of proportion and taken out of context. And it's very difficult not to get swept up in it all.

I've definitely seen that Texas is certainly a right-wing area politically. I think if you talk to the average Texan, some people may still think that alternative energy is some sort of hippie mumbo-jumbo, you know. I think there's still a strong movement to continue to drill and continue to find these other sources of oil within the country.

One of the best ways to make yourself happy in the present is to recall happy times from the past. Photos are a great memory-prompt, and because we tend to take photos of happy occasions, they weight our memories to the good.

I write about people who are usually damaged or neglected by society finding each other and forming relationships that are quite extraordinary and in some cases life-saving. I've had a few of those relationships, which I value highly.

When I was playing Gandalf, I didn't think, 'Oh my dear, I'm playing a 7,000 year old wizard,' because I've never met one, and I don't know what they're like.

In Old Europe and Ancient Crete, women were respected for their roles in the discovery of agriculture and for inventing the arts of weaving and pottery making.

The truth in acting is that we are all hired help. We are a commodity. There is no difference between being an actor and pork bellies.

50 is the age when you look back and smile at what you have achieved, frown at those missed opportunities, and release a slight chuckle at those moments.

My family put a lot of emphasis on homework, so there weren't too many comic books or video games for me, when I was growing up.