An ass may bray a good while before he shakes the stars down.

My parents shared not only an improbable love, they shared an abiding faith in the possibilities of this nation. They would give me an African name, Barack, or blessed, believing that in a tolerant America your name is no barrier to success.

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

To me, football is so much about mental toughness, it’s digging deep, it’s doing whatever you need to do to help a team win and that comes in a lot of shapes and forms.

Know what you want to do, hold the thought firmly, and do every day what should be done, and every sunset will see you that much nearer to your goal.

Truth cannot be brought down; rather, the individual must make the effort to ascend to it. You cannot bring the mountaintop to the valley. If you would attain to the mountaintop, you must pass through the valley, climb the steeps, unafraid of the dangerous precipices.

I love the name of honor, more than I fear death.

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.

Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.

I’m sure like everyone else I’m not always the happiest if I don’t do a good job in quali or the race or whatever, so I think beating myself up sometimes makes me work harder.

Get busy living, or get busy dying.

Well begun is half done.

I’ll never, ever be full. I’ll always be hungry. Obviously, I’m not talking about food. Growing up, I had nothing for such a long time. Someone told me a long time ago, and I’ve never forgotten it, ‚Once you’ve ever been hungry, really, really hungry, then you’ll never, ever be full.‘

Anytime someone tells me that I can’t do something, I want to do it more.

I pass my life in preventing the storm from blowing down the tent, and I drive in the pegs as fast as they are pulled up.

Without failure there is no achievement.

Behind every successful man is a woman, behind her is his wife.

I can’t keep somebody from being a star, and I can’t make somebody a star, and nobody can.

I had noticed that many of these successful people, historical and contemporary, shared certain common traits. They had a way of thinking that was exceptionally fluid; they could adapt to almost any circumstance; when confronted with problems, they could look at them from novel perspectives and solve them.

A man’s worth is no greater than his ambitions.

Start wide, expand further, and never look back.

To sit back hoping that someday, some way, someone will make things right is to go on feeding the crocodile, hoping he will eat you last – but eat you he will.

Only stupid people are changed by success.

I don’t think you get successful to brag and throw what you have in the world’s face. That’s all private.

Only by contending with challenges that seem to be beyond your strength to handle at the moment you can grow more surely toward the stars.

The first step on the way to victory is to recognize the enemy.

Success is steady progress toward one’s personal goals.

Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.

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.

The more nobly a man wills and acts, the more avid he becomes for great and sublime aims to pursue. He will no longer be content with family, country, and the remunerative aspect of his work. He will want wider organisations to create, new paths to blaze, causes to uphold, truths to discover, an ideal to cherish and defend.

I’m proof against that word failure. I’ve seen behind it. The only failure a man ought to fear is failure of cleaving to the purpose he sees to be best.

I suppose your security is your success and your key to success is your fine palate.

All I have to say is basically if performing, singing, acting, and dancing is what you want to do, then you just have to do it – no matter where it is.

I’m not the sort to back away from a fight. I don’t believe in shrinking from anything. It’s not my speed; I’m a guy who meets adversities head on.

The way of fortune is like the milkyway in the sky; which is a number of small stars, not seen asunder, but giving light together: so it is a number of little and scarce discerned virtues, or rather faculties and customs, that make men fortunate.

I will prepare and some day my chance will come.

When your dream is bigger than you are, you only have two choices: give up or get help.

What I admire most about Hillary is that she never buckles under pressure. She never takes the easy way out. And Hillary Clinton has never quit on anything in her life. And when I think about the kind of president that I want for my girls and all our children, that’s what I want.

I do the very best I know how – the very best I can; and I mean to keep on doing so until the end.

We learned about gratitude and humility – that so many people had a hand in our success, from the teachers who inspired us to the janitors who kept our school clean… and we were taught to value everyone’s contribution and treat everyone with respect.

My drive is other people’s success.

The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.

Basically, when you get to my age, you’ll really measure your success in life by how many of the people you want to have love you actually do love you.

Bottom line is, I didn’t return to Apple to make a fortune. I’ve been very lucky in my life and already have one. When I was 25, my net worth was $100 million or so. I decided then that I wasn’t going to let it ruin my life. There’s no way you could ever spend it all, and I don’t view wealth as something that validates my intelligence.

Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.

When I won the first Grammy, there was no other feeling like that feeling. It just made me feel like I came so far, like that was just a dream a few years before that, and then it was happening right then.

Strength and growth come only through continuous effort and struggle.

We should measure welfare’s success by how many people leave welfare, not by how many are added.

I will not be triumphed over.

Wisely, and slow. They stumble that run fast.

The resistance that you fight physically in the gym and the resistance that you fight in life can only build a strong character.

If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.

Confidence is always a good thing to have going into the weekend. Especially where it’s quite difficult to put the lap together.

The opportunities of America opened out to me the public schools. They carried me to the professional training of an American university. I began by working with my own hands for my daily bread.

I was a bit challenged when I was younger to stay on the right path.

Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but sometimes, playing a poor hand well.

With all the… success that I’ve been lucky enough to get? That doesn’t happen unless the home life is solid.

I was doing sold-out shows before I got radio play.

You know, when I have a bad game, it continues to humble me and know that, you know, you still have work to do and you still have a lot of people to impress.

The man who has done his level best… is a success, even though the world may write him down a failure.

Big results require big ambitions.