When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions.

Imagine your family finally making it from nothing to something, and finally getting things going, and finally buying a beautiful house and taking care of your children – and the next day, it’s completely all gone. Zero. Boom. Flat broke. So that’s when I had to man up.

A person with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds.

And I love that even in the toughest moments, when we’re all sweating it – when we’re worried that the bill won’t pass, and it seems like all is lost – Barack never lets himself get distracted by the chatter and the noise. Just like his grandmother, he just keeps getting up and moving forward… with patience and wisdom, and courage and grace.

True nobility is exempt from fear.

I’ve made money, and I’ve been ripped off. I’ve had creative freedom, and I’ve been pressured to make hits. I have dealt with diva behavior from crazy musicians, and I have seen genius records by wonderful artists get completely ignored. I love music. I always will.

If the leader is filled with high ambition and if he pursues his aims with audacity and strength of will, he will reach them in spite of all obstacles.

When we trust God more than our feelings, it confuses the devil. I mean, when he throws you his best shot and he can’t budge you from believing God, he won’t know what to do with you anymore.

God tries you in certain, certain ways. Some people are rich, and they believe in God. They lose the money, things get hard, they get weak and quit going to church. Quit serving God like they did.

Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.

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.

To hold a man down, you have to stay down with him.

I feel real good because it’s about representing the young world and how to uplift each other and how to push us to be greater and make sure we don’t fall or get trapped or get in trouble, you know what I mean. Stay focused, you know what I mean.

When a person is going through hell, and she encounters someone who went through hellish hell and survived, then she can say, ‚Mine is not so bad as all that. She came through, and so can I.‘

Most people never run far enough on their first wind to find out they’ve got a second.

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.

Being president is like being a jackass in a hailstorm. There’s nothing to do but to stand there and take it.

Failure is not a single, cataclysmic event. You don’t fail overnight. Instead, failure is a few errors in judgement, repeated every day.

I don’t mind people hating me, because it pushes me.

I used to have a real problem with self-pity. Every time the devil would throw a pity party, I would attend.

Self-belief and hard work will always earn you success.

No one is ever successful at everything that they do.

The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.

A gem cannot be polished without friction, nor a man perfected without trials.

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.

Where the willingness is great, the difficulties cannot be great.

Exceeds man’s might: that dwells with the gods above.

Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees the others.

If you don’t stand your ground, then all that happens is people push you backwards.

A good indignation brings out all one’s powers.

I’ve been studying the Bible for a long time. I remember that after the first five years or so of diligently studying the Word, I didn’t feel like I had made any progress. There were a lot of things in my life that were out of order, and I didn’t feel like I was getting anywhere.

Diligence is the mother of good luck.

I don’t think about the end game. I’ve got lots to occupy my mind. It’s the rage that keeps me going.

I’ve always been an underdog. I feel like I beat the odds.

Do not go gentle into that good night but rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Do not be embarrassed by your failures, learn from them and start again.

Only a man who knows what it is like to be defeated can reach down to the bottom of his soul and come up with the extra ounce of power it takes to win when the match is even.

In spite of everything I shall rise again: I will take up my pencil, which I have forsaken in my great discouragement, and I will go on with my drawing.

Through perseverance many people win success out of what seemed destined to be certain failure.

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.

Nobody is as powerful as we make them out to be.

If you want to shine like a sun, first burn like a sun.

How hard, how bitter it is to become a man!

The vegetable life does not content itself with casting from the flower or the tree a single seed, but it fills the air and earth with a prodigality of seeds, that, if thousands perish, thousands may plant themselves, that hundreds may come up, that tens may live to maturity; that, at least one may replace the parent.

Simulated disorder postulates perfect discipline; simulated fear postulates courage; simulated weakness postulates strength.

Even the securest financial plan and the finest health coverage aren’t enough to hold us steady when the challenges come… We need something more, something deeper and unshakeable, something that will see us through life’s hard times.

I need music. It’s like my heartbeat, so to speak. It keeps me going no matter what’s going on – bad games, press, whatever!

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.

I grew up in the east side of Detroit in an area where there was very little, except for a lot of scarcity, poverty and hunger. I never woke up saying, ‚I’m an orphan again today, isn’t this terrible? Poor me.‘

Not to go back is somewhat to advance, and men must walk, at least, before they dance.

The size of your success is measured by the strength of your desire; the size of your dream; and how you handle disappointment along the way.

‚Tis one thing to be tempted, another thing to fall.

To have a comeback, you have to have a setback.

What matters in the Sun-tzu universe are not positions of strength and power, but situations in which you have options, full of potential force.

When I do something, I do it full steam ahead.

While they were saying among themselves it cannot be done, it was done.

Remorse sleeps during prosperity but awakes bitter consciousness during adversity.

When facing a difficult task, act as though it is impossible to fail. If you are going after Moby Dick, take along the tartar sauce.

I try to make it look easy, but the behind-the-scenes stuff is the challenge.

There is nothing in the world so much admired as a man who knows how to bear unhappiness with courage.

Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow. It empties today of its strength.