Dr Phil McGraw

Willpower is a myth. The problem with trying to use willpower to achieve and sustain a behavioral change is that it is fueled by emotion. And as we all know, our emotions are, at best, fickle. They come and go. When your emotions start running down — and they will — even your best-laid plans will fall flat.

I mean, look, teachers don’t do their job for the money, obviously, because we pay them ridiculously little amounts for what they put in. Most of them come out of their own pocket for materials and things to help the children and all that.

If you’ve gone into a marriage and you haven’t been clear about how you’re going to handle money, how you want to raise kids, who is going to work or stay home or what have you, then you’ve set yourself up for failure.

We all have a social mask, right? We put it on, we go out, put our best foot forward, our best image. But behind that social mask is a personal truth, what we really, really believe about who we are and what we’re capable of.

Your feelings? To hell with your feelings!

If someone out there doesn’t agree with me, then somewhere a village is missing their idiot.

The present method of producing milk is too laborious. I believe that we can make milk by scientific process, eliminating the cow.

When you allow a person’s words to upset you, you’re giving away your power.

I am determined to be cheerful and happy in whatever situation I may find myself. For I have learned that the greater part of our misery or unhappiness is determined not by our circumstance but by our disposition.

The quickest way to become troubled is to be concerned with what people say about your work.

What I have never been afraid of is to be a little silly, and you can engage people that way!

[On leaving Brooklyn] I left the day I graduated high school.

She had no need to ask why he had come. She knew as certainly as if he had told her that he was here to be where she was.

Greatest thing we can produce is character. Everything else can be taken from us, but not our character.

She wears her beauty as the sky wears the stars, infinitely deep and forever shining.

A celebrity is a person who works hard all his life to become well known, then wears dark glasses to avoid being recognized.

Improvements have been coming so quickly that the past is being lost to the rising generation, and it can be preserved only by putting it in a form where it may be seen and felt. That is the reason behind this collection.

A lot of people do have tragic childhoods. But you know what? Get over it.

You must learn that you do not have to be angry just because you have the right to be.

To kill a relative of whom you are tired is something. But to inherit his property afterwards, that is genuine pleasure.

Accept the past for what it was. Acknowledge the present for what it is. Anticipate the future for what it can become.