That’s been one of my mantras – focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.

I want to put a ding in the universe.

You don’t learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing, and by falling over.

There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.

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

Your success, or lack of success, is your responsibility. Even when you have a chain of command that you don’t like as well, its your responsibility to work with the up chain of command.

I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live by the light that I have. I must stand with anybody that stands right, and stand with him while he is right, and part with him when he goes wrong.

If I’m a star, then the people made me a star.

Action may not bring happiness but there is no happiness without action.

Before finding music, I didn’t have too many aspirations. I wanted to hang out, make a little money from whatever I had to do.

The difficulties you meet will resolve themselves as you advance. Proceed, and light will dawn, and shine with increasing clearness on your path.

Thousands of geniuses live and die undiscovered – either by themselves or by others.

Being self-made means never making an excuse as to why you can’t take steps toward whatever your goal is.

The temptation to take the easy road is always there. It is as easy as staying in bed in the morning and sleeping in. But discipline is paramount to ultimate success and victory for any leader and any team.

I go to assume a task more difficult than that which devolved upon Washington. Unless the great God, who assisted him, shall be with me and aid me, I must fail; but if the same omniscient mind and almighty arm that directed and protected him shall guide and support me, I shall not fail – I shall succeed.

Just do what must be done. This may not be happiness, but it is greatness.

The secret is not to give up hope. It’s very hard not to because if you’re really doing something worthwhile I think you will be pushed to the brink of hopelessness before you come through the other side.

The world is moving so fast these days that the man who says it can’t be done is generally interrupted by someone doing it.

Desperation is sometimes as powerful an inspirer as genius.

I don’t pity any man who does hard work worth doing. I admire him. I pity the creature who does not work, at whichever end of the social scale he may regard himself as being.

Great works are performed not by strength but by perseverance.

Do your damnedest in an ostentatious manner all the time.

Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing.

I’m an expert typist. I learned in high school. I would close my eyes and just type without worrying about mistakes. I tried to penetrate my heart, and as I let my thoughts drift, things bubbled up to the surface.

I do believe in self-help.

Don’t find fault, find a remedy.

If you deserve it, go get it.

Words are powerful; if you change your words, you can change your life.

Winning, to me, is easy. Winning more is the challenge.

If I were dropped out of a plane into the ocean and told the nearest land was a thousand miles away, I’d still swim. And I’d despise the one who gave up.

The most important thing is to try and inspire people so that they can be great in whatever they want to do.

I want people to draw strength from me.

In T20, you don’t have time to get distracted – it’s so quick, you have to run around in the field, and while batting, you don’t actually think about anything else.

I go on working for the same reason that a hen goes on laying eggs.

You want me to own a team and deal with these rich, spoiled stubborn athletes, and try to get them to perform? No thank you.

I remember talking with Arcade Fire after their first record, when they were getting all kinds of offers from major labels, and I don’t think I gave them any advice. They survived that whole onslaught pretty well anyway without me.

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!

To act is to be committed, and to be committed is to be in danger.

Our greatness has always come from people who expect nothing and take nothing for granted – folks who work hard for what they have, then reach back and help others after them.

We are not here to curse the darkness, but to light the candle that can guide us thru that darkness to a safe and sane future.

You just can’t beat the person who never gives up.

People who are unable to motivate themselves must be content with mediocrity, no matter how impressive their other talents.

If I waited for perfection… I would never write a word.

For unflagging interest and enjoyment, a household of children, if things go reasonably well, certainly all other forms of success and achievement lose their importance by comparison.

I say luck is when an opportunity comes along and you’re prepared for it.

To create something you must be something.

The fight is won or lost far away from witnesses – behind the lines, in the gym, and out there on the road, long before I dance under those lights.

It’s not because things are difficult that we dare not venture. It’s because we dare not venture that they are difficult.

The men I idolized built their bodies and became somebody – like Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger – and I thought, ‚That can be me.‘ So I started working out. The funny thing is I didn’t realize back then that I was having a defining moment.

You can fool some of the people all the time, and those are the ones you want to concentrate on.

You do things when the opportunities come along. I’ve had periods in my life when I’ve had a bundle of ideas come along, and I’ve had long dry spells. If I get an idea next week, I’ll do something. If not, I won’t do a damn thing.

For me, education has never been simply a policy issue – it’s personal. Neither of my parents and hardly anyone in the neighborhood where I grew up went to college. But thanks to a lot of hard work and plenty of financial aid, I had the opportunity to attend some of the finest universities in this country.

They say the world has become too complex for simple answers. They are wrong.

Writing is challenging work because it’s so easy to get consumed with how it’s going, what’s going to happen to it, who’s going to like or not like it. You want to get all of that stuff out of your head and just let the work flow.

I think my vice would be outdoing myself.

I do not love to be printed on every occasion, much less to be dunned and teased by foreigners about mathematical things or to be thought by our own people to be trifling away my time about them when I should be about the king’s business.

I didn’t work hard to sit down and not work.

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

Success is counted sweetest by those who never succeed.

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.

I kept writing not because I felt I was so good, but because I felt they were so bad, including Shakespeare, all those. The stilted formalism, like chewing cardboard.