At the age of six I wanted to be a cook. At seven I wanted to be Napoleon. And my ambition has been growing steadily ever since.

I tell everybody, I get so much because I give so much. I give freely, I give all my time, give all my money, give all of my soul. I try to motivate people. I try to inspire them.

I went through every emotion with tryna pursue what I’m doing, you know what I mean? And I think what’s gon‘ separate whoever’s gon go for something, that you ain’t gon‘ quit.

At the core, one of my original goals is to redefine what the streets expect.

If something can corrupt you, you’re corrupted already.

We are such stuff as dreams are made on; and our little life is rounded with a sleep.

There is no man living that can not do more than he thinks he can.

I was a grade B housewife, maybe a B minus. But when I got time to write, I would be unable to finish a sentence. I had anxiety attacks. Partly it was a way of personifying the situation because I couldn’t breathe. I was surrounded by people and by duties. I was a housewife and the children’s mother, and I was judged on how I performed those roles.

I already am a product.

Few of us have vitality enough to make any of our instincts imperious.

Alas, after a certain age every man is responsible for his face.

What we think, we become.

I have only one understanding of development and of making success, and that’s by going step by step.

Enlightened people seldom or never possess a sense of responsibility.

We have to abandon the idea that schooling is something restricted to youth. How can it be, in a world where half the things a man knows at 20 are no longer true at 40 – and half the things he knows at 40 hadn’t been discovered when he was 20?

I’m of the school of thought where, if you can’t sort something out for yourself, no one can help you. Rehab is great for some people but not others.

Learn to think continentally.

I think who you are in school really sticks with you.

We need to steer clear of this poverty of ambition, where people want to drive fancy cars and wear nice clothes and live in nice apartments but don’t want to work hard to accomplish these things. Everyone should try to realize their full potential.

You may be always victorious if you will never enter into any contest where the issue does not wholly depend upon yourself.

When you can whip any man in the world, you never know peace.

Whosoever desires constant success must change his conduct with the times.

Character is the result of two things: mental attitude and the way we spend our time.

Anything you put your mind to and add your imagination into can make your life a lot better and a lot more fun.

Before you start a goal – let’s take care of our insecurities because they are going to surface when you put yourself in the crucible and you’re suffering.

I’m hopeful. I know there is a lot of ambition in Washington, obviously. But I hope the ambitious realize that they are more likely to succeed with success as opposed to failure.

Knowledge will give you power, but character respect.

Dressing up is a bore. At a certain age, you decorate yourself to attract the opposite sex, and at a certain age, I did that. But I’m past that age.

We have to wake up. We have to refuse to be a clone.

My whole thing now is I know how to think properly to be successful in all aspects of my life. It’s not about ultra running or being a SEAL or pull-up records: it’s about if you want to be better you, have to change your perceived limitations and take the barriers down.

The key is taking responsibility and initiative, deciding what your life is about and prioritizing your life around the most important things.

I never sell a book. I sell myself. And the way to sell yourself is to be an instrument of love.

The final forming of a person’s character lies in their own hands.

Employ your time in improving yourself by other men’s writings, so that you shall gain easily what others have labored hard for.

You’re always learning. The problem is, sometimes you stop and think you understand the world. This is not correct. The world is always moving. You never reach the point you can stop making an effort.

You must take action now that will move you towards your goals. Develop a sense of urgency in your life.

We continue to recognize the greater ability of some to earn more than others. But we do assert that the ambition of the individual to obtain for him a proper security is an ambition to be preferred to the appetite for great wealth and great power.

People are like dirt. They can either nourish you and help you grow as a person or they can stunt your growth and make you wilt and die.

I want to put a ding in the universe.

Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings.

I have won this lottery. It’s a gigantic lottery, and it’s called Amazon.com. And I’m using my lottery winnings to push us a little further into space.

Being a housewife and a mother is the biggest job in the world, but if it doesn’t interest you, don’t do it – I would have made a terrible mother.

Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.

I was convinced that the only thing I wanted to do ever – was write novels.

As a kid, we would drive up and down 77 North – that’s our highway – there would be office buildings on the side of the highway and I’d be like, that’s what my house is going to look like when I get older. I’m going to start making my house look like this.

Next to excellence is the appreciation of it.

Cultivation to the mind is as necessary as food to the body.

I’ve learned through my own relationship with God that He’s not expecting me to be perfect; He wants me to do my best to be in His will and take steps of faith as He leads me, through His Word and the promptings He speaks to my heart.

Take care to get what you like or you will be forced to like what you get.

I am not solicitous to examine particularly everything here, which indeed could not be done in fifty years, because my desire is to make all possible discoveries, and return to your Highnesses, if it please our Lord, in April.

Inside of every problem lies an opportunity.

For me, I don’t want to cheat the game by saying, or kind of doing lip service by saying, I want to be the greatest ever. I want to be able to show it.

Whatever is begun in anger ends in shame.

Being too good is apt to be uninteresting.

There is no real limit to how much better a person who really commits to getting better can get. Every manager has the potential to become an excellent manager for the rest of his or her career.

Be above it! Make the world serve your purpose, but do not serve it.

Never find fault with the absent.

Tomorrow, every Fault is to be amended; but that Tomorrow never comes.

No man ever achieved worth-while success who did not, at one time or other, find himself with at least one foot hanging well over the brink of failure.

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.

I have wasted my hours.