I love those who can smile in trouble, who can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. ‚Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but they whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves their conduct, will pursue their principles unto death.

It was one of those evenings when men feel that truth, goodness and beauty are one. In the morning, when they commit their discovery to paper, when others read it written there, it looks wholly ridiculous.

Glory lies in the attempt to reach one’s goal and not in reaching it.

Republicans are for both the man and the dollar, but in case of conflict the man before the dollar.

Character is the result of two things: mental attitude and the way we spend our time.

We learned about honesty and integrity – that the truth matters… that you don’t take shortcuts or play by your own set of rules… and success doesn’t count unless you earn it fair and square.

It took me 40 years to write my first book. When I was a child, I was encouraged to go to school. I was not encouraged to follow the career of a writer because my parents thought that I was going to starve to death.

Boot camp sucks – SEAL training sucks – but you know what? That’s what makes you good.

I have always believed, and I still believe, that whatever good or bad fortune may come our way we can always give it meaning and transform it into something of value.

Choosing to be positive and having a grateful attitude is going to determine how you’re going to live your life.

Every time I plant a seed, He say kill it before it grow, he say kill it before they grow.

Take things as they are. Punch when you have to punch. Kick when you have to kick.

The best augury of a man’s success in his profession is that he thinks it the finest in the world.

Always take hold of things by the smooth handle.

How many a man has thrown up his hands at a time when a little more effort, a little more patience would have achieved success.

There have been times that I’ve wept as I’ve gone from city to city and I’ve seen how far people have wandered from God.

How few there are who have courage enough to own their faults, or resolution enough to mend them.

Our care should not be to have lived long as to have lived enough.

If a person gets his attitude toward money straight, it will help straighten out almost every other area in his life.

The way of the Creative works through change and transformation, so that each thing receives its true nature and destiny and comes into permanent accord with the Great Harmony: this is what furthers and what perseveres.

One travels more usefully when alone, because he reflects more.

The finest steel has to go through the hottest fire.

In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility – I welcome it.

If there is something to pardon in everything, there is also something to condemn.

I seated ugliness on my knee, and almost immediately grew tired of it.

It takes a long time to bring the past up to the present.

Every time you think the problem is ‚out there,‘ that very thought is the problem.

Is it ignorance or apathy? Hey, I don’t know and I don’t care.

Remember your dreams and fight for them. You must know what you want from life. There is just one thing that makes your dream become impossible: the fear of failure.

We might as well die as to go on living like this.

It is better to have your head in the clouds, and know where you are… than to breathe the clearer atmosphere below them, and think that you are in paradise.

Some people feel that the world owes them a living.

If you are the kind of person who is waiting for the ‚right‘ thing to happen, you might wait for a long time. It’s like waiting for all the traffic lights to be green for five miles before starting the trip.

It is comforting to reflect that the disproportion of things in the world seems to be only arithmetical.

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.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep.

An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered.

Those who believe that they are exclusively in the right are generally those who achieve something.

People often speak of God being even-handed. God is not even-handed. God is biased, in favor of the weak, of the despised.

I vividly remember a conversation I had many years ago in 1974, which marked a turning point in my leadership journey. I was sitting at a Holiday Inn with my friend, Kurt Campmeyer, when he asked me if I had a personal growth plan. I didn’t. In fact, I didn’t even know you were supposed to have one.

I never saw a contradiction between the ideas that sustain me and the ideas of that symbol, of that extraordinary figure, Jesus Christ.

We didn’t crumble after 9/11. We didn’t falter after the Boston Marathon. But we’re America. Americans will never, ever stand down. We endure. We overcome. We own the finish line.

Didn’t get promoted? Good. More time to get better.

Begin – to begin is half the work, let half still remain; again begin this, and thou wilt have finished.

Living at risk is jumping off the cliff and building your wings on the way down.

At one point he decided enough was enough.

A pessimist is one who makes difficulties of his opportunities and an optimist is one who makes opportunities of his difficulties.

It doesn’t matter if the water is cold or warm if you’re going to have to wade through it anyway.

Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young.

A feeble body weakens the mind.

I’m not going to stop having problems.

Trouble has no necessary connection with discouragement. Discouragement has a germ of its own, as different from trouble as arthritis is different from a stiff joint.

Win as if you were used to it, lose as if you enjoyed it for a change.

I’m intimidated by the fear of being average.

A man must be big enough to admit his mistakes, smart enough to profit from them, and strong enough to correct them.

You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‚I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.‘

The men who learn endurance, are they who call the whole world, brother.

Whatever you do, do with all your might.

He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying.

If my world were to cave in tomorrow, I would look back on all the pleasures, excitements and worthwhilenesses I have been lucky enough to have had. Not the sadness, not my miscarriages or my father leaving home, but the joy of everything else. It will have been enough.

I believe that God has put gifts and talents and ability on the inside of every one of us. When you develop that and you believe in yourself and you believe that you’re a person of influence and a person of purpose, I believe you can rise up out of any situation.