Ambition is the germ from which all growth of nobleness proceeds.

I didn’t know what a stockbroker was when I was eight, but I would just tell everybody that’s what I was going to be.

It is no use saying, ‚We are doing our best.‘ You have got to succeed in doing what is necessary.

Be a player; don’t play yourself. And don’t play basketball. That’s not your sport, Jeb Bush.

It is our attitude at the beginning of a difficult task which, more than anything else, will affect its successful outcome.

The aphorism in which I am the first master among Germans, are the forms of ‚eternity‘; my ambition is to say in ten sentences what everyone else says in a book – what everyone else does not say in a book.

I don’t like looking back. I’m always constantly looking forward. I’m not the one to sort of sit and cry over spilt milk. I’m too busy looking for the next cow.

Once I’ve written something it does tend to run away from me. I don’t seem to have any part of it – it’s no longer my piece of writing.

Whenever you do something, people try to re-do it and do a better version, especially if they’re in another country.

The confessional is not a torture chamber, but the place in which the Lord’s mercy motivates us to do better.

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 you don’t know where you are going, every road will get you nowhere.

It’s like a muscle – if you stop going to the gym or stop running, you get weak. The military teaches you these great values, but we don’t keep up the discipline on our own, and we lose it. So wherever you go, keep that discipline up.

We all need people who will give us feedback. That’s how we improve.

The best workers, like the happiest livers, look upon their work as a kind of game: the harder they play the more enjoyable it becomes.

The artist alone sees spirits. But after he has told of their appearing to him, everybody sees them.

Nothing stops the man who desires to achieve. Every obstacle is simply a course to develop his achievement muscle. It’s a strengthening of his powers of accomplishment.

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

If you think you can do a thing or think you can’t do a thing, you’re right.

The future rewards those who press on. I don’t have time to feel sorry for myself. I don’t have time to complain. I’m going to press on.

Every artist was first an amateur.

In soloing – as in other activities – it is far easier to start something than it is to finish it.

Few enterprises of great labor or hazard would be undertaken if we had not the power of magnifying the advantages we expect from them.

I was lucky – I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents‘ garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years, Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees.

You have to stay faithful to what you’re working on.

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

Success is nothing more than a few simple disciplines, practiced every day.

I’m convinced of this: Good done anywhere is good done everywhere. For a change, start by speaking to people rather than walking by them like they’re stones that don’t matter. As long as you’re breathing, it’s never too late to do some good.

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

Aim above morality. Be not simply good, be good for something.

I tried acting, liked it, and stuck with it. I saw it as the way I would keep that promise to myself of getting back at those who had made my school life a misery.

To see things in the seed, that is genius.

The reason that I’m here at all is because of my relationship with my family and their encouragement of me to be a musician and to work hard. As long as I stay there in that space, I can do anything. That’s my truth.

Next to excellence is the appreciation of it.

No great genius has ever existed without some touch of madness.

Live your life, do your work, then take your hat.

Begin noticing and being careful about keeping your imagination free of thoughts that you do not wish to materialize. Instead, initiate a practice of filling your creative thoughts to overflow with ideas and wishes that you fully intend to manifest. Honor your imaginings regardless of others seeing them as crazy or impossible.

Anyone can have a good day, but you have to be able to perform on a bad day.

Everybody wants to be famous, but nobody wants to do the work. I live by that. You grind hard so you can play hard. At the end of the day, you put all the work in, and eventually it’ll pay off. It could be in a year, it could be in 30 years. Eventually, your hard work will pay off.

I never got into training to be an All-Ireland boxing champ or to win a belt. At the start, I just got into it to learn how to defend myself when I got into situations.

I believe that when you think of the negative, and you get up discouraged – ‚There’s nothing good in my future‘ – I really believe it almost ties the hands of God. God works where there’s an attitude of faith. I believe faith is all about hope.

Read the Bible. Work hard and honestly. And don’t complain.

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.

Knowledge of what is does not open the door directly to what should be.

No one lives long enough to learn everything they need to learn starting from scratch. To be successful, we absolutely, positively have to find people who have already paid the price to learn the things that we need to learn to achieve our goals.

Basketball is booming, and it’s not just an Under Armour standpoint: it’s about the game itself. Kids going out and playing and being inspired by what we do on the court.

Be not simply good – be good for something.

But man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated.

Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.

When I’m 40 and nobody wants to see me in a sparkly dress anymore, I’ll be like: ‚Cool, I’ll just go in the studio and write songs for kids.‘

Thomas Jefferson once said, ‚We should never judge a president by his age, only by his works.‘ And ever since he told me that, I stopped worrying.

Wow, I get to wake up again? Ok. You have to make good with what you’ve got.

It says nothing against the ripeness of a spirit that it has a few worms.

I have goals.

Actions are the seed of fate deeds grow into destiny.

No greater thing is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me that you desire a fig, I answer you that there must be time. Let it first blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen.

This is no time for ease and comfort. It is time to dare and endure.

I am a slow walker, but I never walk back.

I don’t tell people, ‚You’re okay the way that you are.‘ That’s not the right story. The right story is, ‚You’re way less than you could be.‘

We write for the same reason that we walk, talk, climb mountains or swim the oceans – because we can. We have some impulse within us that makes us want to explain ourselves to other human beings. That’s why we paint, that’s why we dare to love someone – because we have the impulse to explain who we are.

There is no security on this earth; there is only opportunity.