Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me. Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful, that’s what matters to me.

An artist or a creative person of any kind goes about their work because it’s their path, it’s what excites them, it’s what aligns their soul with who they truly are, who they showed up to be.

I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don’t let anybody tell you different.

What Englishman will give his mind to politics as long as he can afford to keep a motor car?

I would rather be able to appreciate things I can not have than to have things I am not able to appreciate.

Whether you think that you can, or that you can’t, you are usually right.

In inner-city, low-income communities of color, there’s such a high correlation in terms of educational quality and success.

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

Everything the working class has been told to do, the rich do not do. That is my message.

Everybody wants to be somebody; nobody wants to grow.

The world is moving so fast these days that the man who says it can’t be done is generally interrupted by someone doing it.

My success comes in making fun of whatever you’re doing. That’s my way.

Success is not to be pursued; it is to be attracted by the person you become.

Things do not happen. Things are made to happen.

We only need so much to survive, but this world we live in tells us we need more stuff to be happy. We’re inundated with our televisions, the Internet and advertising that says in order to be happy you have to have these things. When you say, ‚Gimme, gimme, gimme,‘ you will always be in short supply.

Justice is the set and constant purpose which gives every man his due.

Winners make a habit of manufacturing their own positive expectations in advance of the event.

It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all, in which case you have failed by default.

Happiness does not lie in happiness, but in the achievement of it.

Without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement, and success have no meaning.

True happiness… is not attained through self-gratification, but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.

How great are the dangers I face to win a good name in Athens.

Sometimes I wonder why I’m a novelist right now. There is no definite career reason why I became a writer. Something happened, and I became a writer. And now I’m a successful writer.

I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I intended to be.

Great works are performed not by strength but by perseverance.

Great achievement is usually born of great sacrifice, and is never the result of selfishness.

I think, because I started Virgin when I was a teenager, it has become a part of me, like my family, and I am motivated by ambition for it, almost as if it were a child.

Think and grow rich.

All men are prepared to accomplish the incredible if their ideals are threatened.

I write for no other purpose than to add to the beauty that now belongs to me. I write a book for no other reason than to add three or four hundred acres to my magnificent estate.

The idea that there is one kind of African is, of course, ridiculous. Sometimes African entrepreneurs want to kill you because you are saying public health is the priority, not roads. Of course they are right to press for that issue, but so are we right, I believe, to argue, for example, that millions of children could and should be vaccinated.

Once we accept our limits, we go beyond them.

Business is never so healthy as when, like a chicken, it must do a certain amount of scratching around for what it gets.

Of course it would be nice for everybody and myself if we could win but we can still have a personal or a team win if we achieve a target that is effectively a win for us.

One of my goals from really early on was that if I was ever fortunate enough to be successful in music, I would want to stay the same person and the same songwriter.

You aren’t going to find anybody that’s going to be successful without making a sacrifice and without perseverance.

Daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward; they may be beaten, but they may start a winning game.

When it comes to our everyday habits, it’s important to ask: ‚Am I putting God first?‘

Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get.

Every noble work is at first impossible.

I wasn’t born a natural entrepreneur. I had to be trained.

For my name and memory I leave to men’s charitable speeches, and to foreign nations and the next ages.

My message, especially to young people is to have courage to think differently, courage to invent, to travel the unexplored path, courage to discover the impossible and to conquer the problems and succeed. These are great qualities that they must work towards. This is my message to the young people.

It needs time. Nobody wants to hear it, but that’s the truth: if you want to have success in the future, you have to be ready to work now.

Each generation goes further than the generation preceding it because it stands on the shoulders of that generation. You will have opportunities beyond anything we’ve ever known.

Great industries are never made from single companies. There is room in space for a lot of winners.

I guess that’s one of the things about growing up in the fifties – it never occurred to me that you wouldn’t be at least as successful as your parents.

There is no wealth but life.

Failures, repeated failures, are finger posts on the road to achievement. One fails forward toward success.

To spend life for something which outlasts it.

Well done is better than well said.

The thing I always say to people is this: ‚If you avoid failure, you also avoid success.‘

If you carefully consider what you want to be said of you in the funeral experience, you will find your definition of success.

We fear that this moment will end, that we won’t get what we need, that we will lose what we love, or that we will not be safe. Often, our biggest fear is the knowledge that one day our bodies will cease functioning. So even when we are surrounded by all the conditions for happiness, our joy is not complete.

I think life on Earth must be about more than just solving problems… It’s got to be something inspiring, even if it is vicarious.

The world turns aside to let any man pass who knows where he is going.

Fighting for one’s freedom, struggling towards being free, is like struggling to be a poet or a good Christian or a good Jew or a good Muslim or good Zen Buddhist. You work all day long and achieve some kind of level of success by nightfall, go to sleep and wake up the next morning with the job still to be done. So you start all over again.

As a producer, as a CEO of Hartbeat Productions, I am making deals to put my company in place to win, to put my staff to work so that while all this stuff is going on, they’re in the kitchen cooking. So it’s understanding the longevity of the entertainment business; you get out of it what you put into it.

I used to have nightmares that they would put ‚He played Ted‘ on my tombstone.

If you raise your children to feel that they can accomplish any goal or task they decide upon, you will have succeeded as a parent and you will have given your children the greatest of all blessings.

If you think nobody cares about you, try missing a couple of payments.