If you want special results, you have to feel special things and do special things together. You can speak about spirit, or you can live it.

There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow men. True nobility lies in being superior to your former self.

Writing makes you feel that there is a reason to go on living. If I couldn’t write, I would stop breathing.

I do not know anyone who has got to the top without hard work. That is the recipe. It will not always get you to the top, but should get you pretty near.

I can take it. The tougher it gets, the cooler I get.

Vanity is great motivation, to be fair.

Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.

I never woke up and thought, ‚I really want to live a bold life.‘

Excellence encourages one about life generally; it shows the spiritual wealth of the world.

If you’re going to be a winner in life, you have to constantly go beyond your best.

How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.

It is a no-fail, incontrovertible reality: If you get, give. If you learn, teach. You can’t do anything with that except do it.

It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.

The greatest mistake we make is living in constant fear that we will make one.

Better to fight for something than live for nothing.

I’m afraid to fail again.

A lot of football success is in the mind. You must believe you are the best and then make sure that you are.

Only you can control your future.

Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.

We will move forward, we will move upward, and yes, we will move onward.

There’s no point in starting a business unless you’re going to make a dramatic difference to other people’s lives. So if you’ve got an idea that’s gonna make a big difference to other people’s lives, then just get on and do it.

Instead of worrying about what people say of you, why not spend time trying to accomplish something they will admire.

I do not know what the spirit of a philosopher could more wish to be than a good dancer. For the dance is his ideal, also his fine art, finally also the only kind of piety he knows, his ‚divine service.‘

The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.

With public sentiment, nothing can fail. Without it, nothing can succeed.

Eighty percent of success is showing up.

A great secret of success is to go through life as a man who never gets used up.

Small aim is a crime.

We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aid, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn.

It was clear to me that if I could get through Princeton at the top of my class, I could do anything in the world.

I think, because I started Virgin when I was a teenager, it has become a part of me, like my family, and I am motivated by ambition for it, almost as if it were a child.

I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do.

If I can put one touch of rosy sunset into the life of any man or woman, I shall feel that I have worked with God.

From a certain point onward there is no longer any turning back. That is the point that must be reached.

The man who has done his level best… is a success, even though the world may write him down a failure.

Life must be lived and curiosity kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.

Before you start a goal – let’s take care of our insecurities because they are going to surface when you put yourself in the crucible and you’re suffering.

The only happiness a brave person ever troubles themselves in asking about, is happiness enough to get their work done.

One life is all we have and we live it as we believe in living it. But to sacrifice what you are and to live without belief, that is a fate more terrible than dying.

What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight – it’s the size of the fight in the dog.

We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten. Don’t let yourself be lulled into inaction.

There is a single light of science, and to brighten it anywhere is to brighten it everywhere.

Life is one grand, sweet song, so start the music.

I had so many people try to talk me out of starting a rocket company, it was crazy.

I strongly believe that missionaries make better products. They care more. For a missionary, it’s not just about the business. There has to be a business, and the business has to make sense, but that’s not why you do it. You do it because you have something meaningful that motivates you.

Don’t compare yourself with other people; compare yourself with who you were yesterday.

When I did have some success, it further emboldens you to be like, ‚No, I’m just going to write what I feel I should write.‘

I tell my fellow reggaetoneros, keep giving it your all and bring more creativity.

I fear that many a man’s good resolutions only need the ordinary fire of daily life to make them melt away. So, too, with fine professions and the boastings of perfection which abound in this age of shams.

To reach a port, we must sail – sail, not tie at anchor – sail, not drift.

Loving others always costs us something and requires effort. And you have to decide to do it on purpose. You can’t wait for a feeling to motivate you.

If you lose a big fight, it will worry you all of your life. It will plague you – until you get your revenge.

When you are asked if you can do a job, tell ‚em, ‚Certainly I can!‘ Then get busy and find out how to do it.

None of us will ever accomplish anything excellent or commanding except when he listens to this whisper which is heard by him alone.

The reward of a thing well done is having done it.

The best way out is always through.

If you cannot understand that there is something in man which responds to the challenge of this mountain and goes out to meet it, that the struggle is the struggle of life itself upward and forever upward, then you won’t see why we go.

The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles, but to irrigate deserts.

To become ‚unique,‘ the challenge is to fight the hardest battle which anyone can imagine until you reach your destination.

When you are enthusiastic about what you do, you feel this positive energy. It’s very simple.

Failure after long perseverance is much grander than never to have a striving good enough to be called a failure.