If you’re bored with life – you don’t get up every morning with a burning desire to do things – you don’t have enough goals.

With audacity one can undertake anything, but not do everything.

We are all of us stars, and we deserve to twinkle.

I don’t lose any sleep at night over the potential for failure. I cannot even spell the word.

Do the duty which lies nearest to you, the second duty will then become clearer.

A goal is not always meant to be reached, it often serves simply as something to aim at.

When the water starts boiling it is foolish to turn off the heat.

I am quite serious when I say that I do not believe there are, on the whole earth besides, so many intensified bores as in these United States. No man can form an adequate idea of the real meaning of the word, without coming here.

Power is given only to those who dare to lower themselves and pick it up. Only one thing matters, one thing; to be able to dare!

‚Victory‘ is like, you won, so the question is, what? What did you win? I think that the songs go into that. It’s just about reaching a place in myself.

Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.

Fight with a happy heart.

So long as a man imagines that he cannot do this or that, so long as he is determined not to do it; and consequently so long as it is impossible to him that he should do it.

Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.

We will all fail in life, but nobody has to be a failure. Failing at a thing doesn’t make you a failure. You are only a failure when you quit trying.

An unused life is an early death.

We must all suffer one of two things: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret or disappointment.

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

Not how long, but how well you have lived is the main thing.

You’ve got to have faith in what you’re doing and not take no for an answer.

I explain the law of compensation like this: ‚Returns are minimal in spite of massive effort at the start, yet returns can be massive with minimal effort over time.

Since day one, since the first time I touched the pen, I wanted to be the best at what I do.

He that is of the opinion money will do everything may well be suspected of doing everything for money.

I’m always trying. Between every book, I think, ‚Well now, it’s time to get down to the serious stuff.‘

For a man to achieve all that is demanded of him he must regard himself as greater than he is.

The answer to all writing, to any career for that matter, is love.

Commit yourself to a mighty purpose.

Of all the things I’ve done, the most vital is coordinating those who work with me and aiming their efforts at a certain goal.

Success is often achieved by those who don’t know that failure is inevitable.

It is our duty as men and women to proceed as though the limits of our abilities do not exist.

I want to put a ding in the universe.

On the mountains of truth you can never climb in vain: either you will reach a point higher up today, or you will be training your powers so that you will be able to climb higher tomorrow.

What? You seek something? You wish to multiply yourself tenfold, a hundredfold? You seek followers? Seek zeros!

Competition gives me energy. It keeps me focused.

I don’t want to hear the word ‚can’t.‘

Nothing succeeds like success. Get a little success, and then just get a little more.

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

If you try to fight the course, it will beat you.

An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory.

I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies; for the hardest victory is over self.

He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper.

It’s so easy to settle for less than God’s best for us because we don’t always feel like taking responsibility for our behavior or putting forth some effort to do what we need to do so we can accomplish great things for God and help people. But the cost of settling for less is actually harder than being completely obedient to God’s will.

Every man is said to have his peculiar ambition. Whether it be true or not, I can say, for one, that I have no other so great as that of being truly esteemed of my fellow-men, by rendering myself worthy of their esteem. How far I shall succeed in gratifying this ambition is yet to be developed.

A lot of dreams can turn to nightmares… if you don’t really work them.

The greatest difficulty always comes right before the birth of a dream.

Someone is sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.

Create a definite plan for carrying out your desire and begin at once, whether you ready or not, to put this plan into action.

NASA has been one of the most successful public investments in motivating students to do well and achieve all they can achieve. It’s sad that we are turning the programme in a direction where it will reduce the amount of motivation and stimulation it provides to young people.

We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.

If you’ve got a plan, it’s not just like a pipe dream. You have a step-by-step list of things to do to get to your goal.

When I was nine years old, living on the south side of Chicago, my father was a minister and my mother used to scrub floors. I had seven brothers and four sisters. I told my mama, ‚One of these days I’m going to be big and strong and buy you a beautiful house.‘ That’s all I’ve ever wanted to do with my life, is to take care of my mother.

What lies behind you and what lies in front of you, pales in comparison to what lies inside of you.

We cannot be sure of having something to live for unless we are willing to die for it.

We must rekindle the fire of idealism in our society.

A book must be the ax for the frozen sea within us.

Americans never quit.

I think what motivates people is not great hate, but great love for other people.

The young think that failure is the Siberian end of the line, banishment from all the living, and tend to do what I then did – which was to hide.

Do the difficult things while they are easy and do the great things while they are small. A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.

As long as a man stands in his own way, everything seems to be in his way.

If your treat an individual… as if he were what he ought to be and could be, he will become what he ought to be and could be.