But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.

A failure is a man who has blundered, but is not able to cash in the experience.

So many people have this idea: I want to achieve something great or be somebody great. And they neglect the step that leads to greatness. They don’t honor this step at this moment because they have this idea of some future moment where they are going to be great.

My measure of success is whether I’m fulfilling my mission.

Excellence is to do a common thing in an uncommon way.

It take many a year, mon, and maybe some bloodshed must be, but righteousness someday prevail.

She never envisioned a legal career for me, but she did think it was very important that I be able to support myself, and I think she would be pleased to see what has become of me.

Pursue one great decisive aim with force and determination.

If my future were determined just by my performance on a standardized test, I wouldn’t be here. I guarantee you that.

I’ve had big record label presidents look me in the face and say, ‚Your music sucks, you don’t know who you are, your music is all over the place, and we don’t know how to market this stuff. Pick a lane and come back to us.‘

The most successful men in the end are those whose success is the result of steady accretion.

Ideas have a short shelf life. You must act on them before the expiration date.

Fame and power are the objects of all men. Even their partial fruition is gained by very few; and that, too, at the expense of social pleasure, health, conscience, life.

You can close more business in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get people interested in you.

The biggest risk is not taking any risk… In a world that is changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks.

I love people who make me laugh. I honestly think it’s the thing I like most, to laugh. It cures a multitude of ills. It’s probably the most important thing in a person.

Success is neither magical nor mysterious. Success is the natural consequence of consistently applying the basic fundamentals.

Every aspect of human technology has a dark side, including the bow and arrow.

The life so short, the craft so long to learn.

I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake.

Must is a hard nut to crack, but it has a sweet kernel.

Ambition has one heel nailed in well, though she stretch her fingers to touch the heavens.

But innovation comes from people meeting up in the hallways or calling each other at 10:30 at night with a new idea, or because they realized something that shoots holes in how we’ve been thinking about a problem.

Success is the result of perfection, hard work, learning from failure, loyalty, and persistence.

America had often been discovered before Columbus, but it had always been hushed up.

Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.

The greenhorn is the ultimate victor in everything; it is he that gets the most out of life.

When defeat comes, accept it as a signal that your plans are not sound, rebuild those plans, and set sail once more toward your coveted goal.

I think the high-tech industry is used to developing new things very quickly. It’s the Silicon Valley way of doing business: You either move very quickly and you work hard to improve your product technology, or you get destroyed by some other company.

If that’s there, I believe that technology will probably step up to their part of it.

You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it.

In business or in life, don’t follow the wagon tracks too closely.

Don’t spend time beating on a wall, hoping to transform it into a door.

I don’t measure my success anymore by the Grammys. I can’t because I’ll just end up crushed.

Giving up cannot be an option.

The secret to humor is surprise.

Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths. When you go through hardships and decide not to surrender, that is strength.

We never fail when we try to do our duty, we always fail when we neglect to do it.

There are a few other things that I built when I was at Harvard that were kind of smaller versions of Facebook. One such program was this program called Match. People could enter the different courses that they were taking, and see what other courses would be correlated with the courses they are taking.

See, ‚A Time to Kill‘ was the one I got famous off of. Big ka-boom, over one weekend. After that, I did films that I really wanted to do.

The potential financial reward for building the ‚next Windows‘ is so great that there will never be a shortage of new technologies seeking to challenge it.

You want to know whether we’re better off? I’ve got a little bumper sticker for you: Osama bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive. Osama bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive! Osama bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive!

People just don’t understand how obsessed I am with winning.

Success is getting what you want. Happiness is liking what you get.

Success is steady progress toward one’s personal goals.

We learned about gratitude and humility – that so many people had a hand in our success, from the teachers who inspired us to the janitors who kept our school clean… and we were taught to value everyone’s contribution and treat everyone with respect.

My understanding of racial discrimination as a child was highly distorted because the most prominent man in Archery was an African-American bishop. When he came home from up north, where he was in charge of A.M.E. churches in five states, it was front-page news. He was the most successful man in my life.

The more I see of deer, the more I admire them as mountaineers. They make their way into the heart of the roughest solitudes with smooth reserve of strength, through dense belts of brush and forest encumbered with fallen trees and boulder piles, across canons, roaring streams, and snow-fields, ever showing forth beauty and courage.

It is for us to pray not for tasks equal to our powers, but for powers equal to our tasks, to go forward with a great desire forever beating at the door of our hearts as we travel toward our distant goal.

If you are going to achieve excellence in big things, you develop the habit in little matters. Excellence is not an exception, it is a prevailing attitude.

It’s a rule to give all, and it can make the difference if you work more. If you don’t have to give all, and you still win, what’s this?

The rich are those who play to win. The middle class plays not to lose.

If you are born an artist, you have no choice but to fight to stay an artist.

The pace of progress on Mars depends upon the pace of progress of SpaceX.

Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings.

I owe my success to having listened respectfully to the very best advice, and then going away and doing the exact opposite.

Cutting the deficit by gutting our investments in innovation and education is like lightening an overloaded airplane by removing its engine. It may make you feel like you’re flying high at first, but it won’t take long before you feel the impact.

I believe in innovation and that the way you get innovation is you fund research and you learn the basic facts.

It’s no accident many accuse me of conducting public affairs with my heart instead of my head. Well, what if I do? Those who don’t know how to weep with their whole heart don’t know how to laugh either.

My life is a struggle.

The technology keeps moving forward, which makes it easier for the artists to tell their stories and paint the pictures they want.