“Self-confidence is not taught or learned; it is earned by surpassing your own self-limitations.”

“Historical consciousness therefore leaves you, as does maturity itself, with a simultaneous sense of your own significance and insignificance. Like Friedrich's wanderer, you dominate a landscape even as you're diminished by it. You're suspended between sensibilities that are at odds with one another, but it's precisely within that suspension that your own identity--whether as a person or a historian--tends to reside. Self-doubt must always precede self-confidence. It should never, however, cease to accompany, challenge, and by these means discipline self-confidence.”

“The essence of successful discipline is not technique; rather, it is self-confidence.”

“Your private self must become the same as your public self.”

“Hell, in my opinion, is never finding your true self and never living your own life or knowing who you are.”

“The really wonderful moments of joy in this world are not the moments of self-satisfaction, but self-forgetfulness. Standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon and contemplating your own greatness is pathological. At such moments we are made for a magnificent joy that comes from outside ourselves.”

“Developing self-confidence is always the preliminary to becoming a leader. but don't let it become overconfidence, the first station on the track leading to arrogance”