Before beginning, plan carefully.

It was a favorite expression of Theophrastus that time was the most valuable thing that a man could spend.

I have rooms full of little dongly things and don’t want any more. Half the little dongly things I’ve got, I don’t even know what gizmo they’re for. More importantly, half the gizmos I’ve got, I don’t know where their little dongly thing is.

The only way to be sure of catching a train is to miss the one before it.

I believe you never get tired by doing work. You get tired when you don’t work. When you clean your house, you don’t get tired; it gives you satisfaction.

I’m very much into making lists and breaking things apart into categories.

Once someone has spent enough time cultivating bad habits and biding their time, they are much diminished. Much of what they could have been has dissipated.

The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.

One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man.

That’s one of the biggest things. Never being home, always traveling, having different interests and focusing on different things, just the time aspect of going back home and seeing them, you don’t have that at all. It was a big sacrifice but, at the end of the day, it was worth it.

A creation of importance can only be produced when its author isolates himself, it is a child of solitude.

There is a great discovery still to be made in literature, that of paying literary men by the quantity they do not write.

It’s not the daily increase but daily decrease. Hack away at the unessential.

Time is the least thing we have of.

It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?

Times and conditions change so rapidly that we must keep our aim constantly focused on the future.

Good management consists in showing average people how to do the work of superior people.

Truth, being limitless, unconditioned, unapproachable by any path whatsoever, cannot be organized; nor should any organization be formed to lead or to coerce people along any particular path. If you first understand that, then you will see how impossible it is to organize a belief.

Time is money.

Studies have identified a significant ‚skills gap‘ between what students are currently being taught and the skills employers are seeking in today’s global economy. Our children must be better prepared than they are now to meet the future challenges of our ever-changing world.

Your life must be a progression towards ownership – first mentally of your independence, and then physically of your work, owning what you produce.

On the ‚Star,‘ you were forced to learn to write a simple declarative sentence. This is useful to anyone. Newspaper work will not harm a young writer and could help him if he gets out of it in time.

There is no reason why good cannot triumph as often as evil. The triumph of anything is a matter of organization. If there are such things as angels, I hope that they are organized along the lines of the Mafia.

Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.

A big man has no time really to do anything but just sit and be big.

Some people have a hard time getting rid of stuff. If that’s you, pray for God to give you the courage to get rid of things you don’t really need or things He wants you to give away. This will help keep your surroundings organized and clutter-free.

If you’re going to wake up early all the time, and you’re working hard, and you’re working out, sometimes you’re going to get tired. It’s OK. It’s acceptable – somewhat. We’re all human, unfortunately.

Don’t think in the morning. That’s a big mistake that people make. They wake up in the morning and they start thinking. Don’t think. Just execute the plan. The plan is the alarm clock goes off, you get up, you go work out. Get some.

I have a theory that the truth is never told during the nine-to-five hours.

It’s not fun to get out of bed early in the morning. When the alarm goes off, it doesn’t sing you a song: it hits you in the head with a baseball bat. So how do you respond to that? Do you crawl underneath your covers and hide? Or do you get up, get aggressive, and attack the day?

Three o’clock is always too late or too early for anything you want to do.

When you play, play hard; when you work, don’t play at all.

Try and leave this world a little better than you found it, and when your turn comes to die, you can die happy in feeling that at any rate, you have not wasted your time but have done your best.

If you have to stand and fight, you train yourself so that you’re able to do it.

Ambition has become a dirty word, and I believe it is a great evolutionary force for the positive. If people fail or go astray in their ambition I can live with it but not with people lowering their expectations, wasting time, slacking off and glorifying failure and stupidity.

That nice, soft pillow and the warm blanket, and it’s all comfortable, and no one wants to leave that comfort – but if you can wake up early in the morning, get a head start on everyone else that’s still sleeping, get productive time doing things that you need to do – that’s a huge piece to moving your life forward.

I don’t spend my time pontificating about high-concept things; I spend my time solving engineering and manufacturing problems.

A little simplification would be the first step toward rational living, I think.

If you love life, don’t waste time, for time is what life is made up of.

There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.

I have made this letter longer than usual, only because I have not had the time to make it shorter.

Why should I stop working? If I do, I’ll die and it’ll all be finished.

Some people die at 25 and aren’t buried until 75.

People who have time on their hands will inevitably waste the time of people who have work to do.

Time is precious, but truth is more precious than time.

The most valuable of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it has to be done, whether you like it or not.

I won’t belong to any organization that would have me as a member.

I’ve never been a hands-on dad. I’m not ashamed to admit it, but you can’t run a restaurant and be home for tea at 4:30 and bath and change nappies.

Gentleness doesn’t get work done unless you happen to be a hen laying eggs.

The beginning is the most important part of the work.

There is no time for cut-and-dried monotony. There is time for work. And time for love. That leaves no other time!

The thing about the 600 words, I mean some day, you can do a very, very, very hard day’s work and not write a word, just revising, or you would scribble a few words.

Never mistake motion for action.

When one has a great deal to put into it a day has a hundred pockets.

Labor gives birth to ideas.

Better never than late.

Don’t think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity. It’s self-conscious, and anything self-conscious is lousy. You can’t try to do things. You simply must do things.

It is unnatural for a majority to rule, for a majority can seldom be organized and united for specific action, and a minority can.

Luck is a matter of preparation meeting opportunity.

Oh, give us the man who sings at his work.

I have too many clothes, I have too many options.