What life half gives a man, posterity gives entirely.

It has been my observation that most people get ahead during the time that others waste.

Our character is not so much the product of race and heredity as of those circumstances by which nature forms our habits, by which we are nurtured and live.

Desire is the starting point of all achievement, not a hope, not a wish, but a keen pulsating desire which transcends everything.

If a man or woman is born ten years sooner or later, their whole aspect and performance shall be different.

I bought a company in the mid-’90s called Dexter Shoe and paid $400 million for it. And it went to zero. And I gave about $400 million worth of Berkshire stock, which is probably now worth $400 billion. But I’ve made lots of dumb decisions. That’s part of the game.

Hold those things that tell your history and protect them. During slavery, who was able to read or write or keep anything? The ability to have somebody to tell your story to is so important. It says: ‚I was here. I may be sold tomorrow. But you know I was here.‘

There is no failure except in no longer trying.

Family and friendships are two of the greatest facilitators of happiness.

Life is not accumulation, it is about contribution.

We have a big appetite for putting people down but, at the heart of everyone, there’s enough room for all of us to succeed.

Bread without flesh is a good diet, as on many botanical excursions I have proved. Tea also may easily be ignored. Just bread and water and delightful toil is all I need – not unreasonably much, yet one ought to be trained and tempered to enjoy life in these brave wilds in full independence of any particular kind of nourishment.

Victory belongs to the most persevering.

My grandfather was smart and had a whole lot of pride. He didn’t speak a terrible amount, but you could tell there was a ton on his mind – like a quiet acceptance of how life had turned out.

For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight, His can’t be wrong whose life is in the right.

There are people out there who hate me and who say I’m arrogant, vain, and whatever. That’s all part of my success. I am made to be the best.

I don’t expect to live forever, but I do intend to hang on as long as possible.

I’m just a kid that defied the odds. I’m just a kid that ignored the doubt. I’m just a kid from a little place in Dublin, Ireland, that went all the way, and I’m going to continue to go all the way.

For a long time I was scared I’d find out I was like my mother.

I want you to feel happy and enjoy the theatre of my life the way that I do. No matter what happens with my music and wherever I go – that heart of that glamorous girl in New York will never be gone.

There’s a long way to fall when you pretend that you’re so far away from the earth, far away from reality, floating in a bubble that’s protected by fame or success. It’s scary, and it’s the thing I fear the most: to be swallowed up by that bubble. It can be poison to you, fame.

I think if we didn’t contradict ourselves, it would be awfully boring. It would be tedious to be alive.

Darn the wheel of the world! Why must it continually turn over? Where is the reverse gear?

In our home there was always prayer – aloud, proud and unapologetic.

Acting is just a way of making a living, the family is life.

It’s stasis that kills you off in the end, not ambition.

Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.

Old soldiers never die; they just fade away.

Why are our days numbered and not, say, lettered?

Irrespective of whether you have talent or not, one has to work hard. Just being talented doesn’t mean anything; you can end up wasting it before you realize.

That’s the most terrible thing about being an author – standing there at your mother’s funeral, but you don’t switch the author off. So your own innermost thoughts are grist for the mill. Who was it said – one of the famous lady novelists – ‚unhappy is the family that contains an author‘?

If you raise your children to feel that they can accomplish any goal or task they decide upon, you will have succeeded as a parent and you will have given your children the greatest of all blessings.

Yes, Mother. I can see you are flawed. You have not hidden it. That is your greatest gift to me.

You can’t imagine parlor ballads drifting out of high-rise multi-towered buildings. That kind of music existed in a more timeless state of life.

Whatever good things we build end up building us.

My fans saw me get engaged, saw me make that woman my wife, me having kids, me divorcing, me talking about divorce before the divorce, me talking about my kids‘ reaction to that divorce.

Of course, I do everything for money.

Success is not greedy, as people think, but insignificant. That is why it satisfies nobody.

Lil Wayne, that’s my brother. Birdman, that’s family.

In the successful organization, no detail is too small to escape close attention.

Natural ability without education has more often raised a man to glory and virtue than education without natural ability.

The best preparation for good work tomorrow is to do good work today.

It’s never crowded along the extra mile.

Happiness doesn’t come from being rich, nor merely from being successful in your career, nor by self-indulgence. One step towards happiness is to make yourself healthy and strong while you are a boy so that you can be useful and so you can enjoy life when you are a man.

If thou art a man, admire those who attempt great things, even though they fail.

Unbeing dead isn’t being alive.

Martyrdom is the only way a man can become famous without ability.

My mom and my dad were both very sociable, meeting lots of interesting people.

Old age is like a plane flying through a storm. Once you’re aboard, there’s nothing you can do.

Our inquiring friends and neighbors not of our faith can also catch the wave. We encourage them to keep all that is good and true in their lives. And we invite them to receive more, especially the glorious truth that through God’s eternal plan, families can be together forever.

My father had died, and very swiftly, too, of cancer of the esophagus. He was 79. I am 61. In whatever kind of a ‚race‘ life may be, I have very abruptly become a finalist.

Corruption is a cancer: a cancer that eats away at a citizen’s faith in democracy, diminishes the instinct for innovation and creativity; already-tight national budgets, crowding out important national investments. It wastes the talent of entire generations. It scares away investments and jobs.

Life is neither good or evil, but only a place for good and evil.

The feeling about a soldier is, when all is said and done, he wasn’t really going to do very much with his life anyway. The example usually is: he wasn’t going to compose Beethoven’s Fifth.

The art of living well and the art of dying well are one.

History has proven that each generation of Howard graduates will forge the way forward for our country and our world.

Success is like reaching an important birthday and finding you’re exactly the same.

Baseball is a universe as large as life itself, and therefore all things in life, whether good or bad, whether tragic or comic, fall within its domain.

I can do no other than be reverent before everything that is called life. I can do no other than to have compassion for all that is called life. That is the beginning and the foundation of all ethics.

Life was always a matter of waiting for the right moment to act.

Life belongs to the living, and he who lives must be prepared for changes.