When I look back on my life nowadays, which I sometimes do, what strikes me most forcibly about it is that what seemed at the time most significant and seductive, seems now most futile and absurd. For instance, success in all of its various guises; being known and being praised; ostensible pleasures, like acquiring money or seducing women, or traveling, going to and fro in the world and up and down in it, explaining and experiencing whatever Vanity Fair has to offer. In retrospect, all these experiences in self-gratification seem pure fantasy. --Stephen Covey (in When I Look Back)

I'm a speck, an atom. Everything physical is an illusion, but it's there to guide us or test us or deter us. Our job is to navigate through this world while understanding the only thing that matters is the state of our soul, and that's very hard because I'm in the entertainment business, which is completely based on illusion and physical things. Any success I have is a manifestation of God. It's my ego that wants to claim ownership. It's hubris, arrogance and greed. --Madonna (in Untitled)

Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it. --Maya Angelou (in 3 Ways You Can Find More Happiness at Work)