California has a special relationship with the Internet. Many of the core technologies that power the Internet were invented here. Many of the most successful online entrepreneurs and content creators – in business, the arts, and countless other endeavors – got their start here.

What we figured out was that in order to get everyone in the world to have basic access to the Internet, that’s a problem that’s probably billions of dollars. Or maybe low tens of billions. With the right innovation, that’s actually within the range of affordability.

I’m often accused of being ahead of my time, but it’s simply not true. The truth is that everybody else is behind.

People will visit Mars, they will settle mars, and we should because it’s cool.

We should never lose an occasion. Opportunity is more powerful even than conquerors and prophets.

Because the Internet is so new, we still don’t really understand what it is. We mistake it for a type of publishing or broadcasting, because that’s what we’re used to. So people complain that there’s a lot of rubbish online, or that it’s dominated by Americans, or that you can’t necessarily trust what you read on the Web.

Energy innovation is not a nationalistic game.

Notre Dame is the one school that has a national recruiting base, from Florida to Texas to California.

Educate the masses, elevate their standard of intelligence, and you will certainly have a successful nation.

I’ve never wanted to use my age as a gimmick, as something that would get me ahead of other people. I’ve wanted the music to do that.

Everybody that’s successful lays a blueprint out.

Becoming famous was never what I wanted to do. There’s a lot of things that come with fame – it’s what people in the limelight have to do.

The Oklahoma City bombing was simple technology, horribly used. The problem is not technology. The problem is the person or persons using it.

Old age is like everything else. To make a success of it, you’ve got to start young.

The goal of Tesla is to accelerate sustainable energy, so we’re going to take a step back and think about what’s most likely to achieve that goal.

I can promise you that when I go to Sacramento, I will pump up Sacramento.

Opera happens because a large number of things amazingly fail to go wrong.

It’s time for the human race to enter the solar system.

If my businesses or my investments are not profitable, then I don’t eat. And I like to eat.

If you’re not failing every now and again, it’s a sign you’re not doing anything very innovative.

Generally, a writer of force is anywhere from 20 years to 200 years ahead of his generation.

I am results-oriented.

These technologies can make life easier, can let us touch people we might not otherwise. You may have a child with a birth defect and be able to get in touch with other parents and support groups, get medical information, the latest experimental drugs. These things can profoundly influence life. I’m not downplaying that.

If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help… Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business – you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.

Luck is a matter of preparation meeting opportunity.

We moved into the back, made it into a little 50s sitting room and started to sell the records. We had an immediate success. For one thing, these Teddy Boys were thrilled to buy the records.

No matter what, people grow. If you chose not to grow, you’re staying in a small box with a small mindset. People who win go outside of that box. It’s very simple when you look at it.

The highly functional infrastructure that surrounds us, particularly in the West, is a gift from our ancestors: the comparatively uncorrupt political and economic systems, the technology, the wealth, the lifespan, the freedom, the luxury, and the opportunity.

I’m convinced that no one can amount to a damn in the arts if he becomes sweetly reasonable, seeing all sides of a picture, forgiving all sins.

In this digital age, it doesn’t really matter if you are in Canary Wharf or the Caribbean; there are opportunities waiting to be grasped by entrepreneurs.

The success I have achieved in bodybuilding, motion pictures, and business would not have been possible without the generosity of the American people and the freedom here to pursue your dreams.

I’m a great believer that any tool that enhances communication has profound effects in terms of how people can learn from each other, and how they can achieve the kind of freedoms that they’re interested in.

Whether it’s Google or Apple or free software, we’ve got some fantastic competitors and it keeps us on our toes.

If you care enough for a result, you will most certainly attain it.

I would rather earn 1% off a 100 people’s efforts than 100% of my own efforts.

Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.

Success is not a stop sign.

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

Whether one welcomes or deplores it, nothing is more surely and exactly characteristic of modern times than the irresistible invasion of the human world by technology. Mechanism invading like a tide all the places of the earth and all forms of social activity.

I have brought myself, by long meditation, to the conviction that a human being with a settled purpose must accomplish it, and that nothing can resist a will which will stake even existence upon its fulfillment.

To succeed, jump as quickly at opportunities as you do at conclusions.

If you want to thrive in today’s economy, you must challenge the status quo and get the financial education necessary to succeed.

Those who believe that they are exclusively in the right are generally those who achieve something.

Winning, to me, is easy. Winning more is the challenge.

There is no failure except in no longer trying.

The moment the alarm goes off is the first test; it sets the tone for the rest of the day. The test is not a complex one: when the alarm goes off, do you get up out of bed, or do you lie there in comfort and fall back to sleep? If you have the discipline to get out of bed, you win – you pass the test.

Do not be in a hurry to succeed. What would you have to live for afterwards? Better make the horizon your goal; it will always be ahead of you.

Discipline is the soul of an army. It makes small numbers formidable; procures success to the weak, and esteem to all.

As much as it might look like, to someone else, that I’m successful, I never feel like I’m anywhere. The further I go, I still feel equally further from my eventual goal. Because as I grow, I get more goals. I’m never content.

Of all that is good, sublimity is supreme. Succeeding is the coming together of all that is beautiful. Furtherance is the agreement of all that is just. Perseverance is the foundation of all actions.

With Virgin, I’ve just loved creating things. And as a private company, I can get away with moving Virgin from records to airlines to train companies to space companies to whatever, without ever having to worry about analysts knocking the value of my stock.

We’re going to have to work. We’re going to have to play well. Nothing will be given to us.

Well, I think that California has had a history of always spending more money than it takes in.

The difference between us and them, between you and success, is not that you never fail, but it’s how you recover from those failures – is that you keep getting up time and time again. You figure out what you did wrong, and then you make it right. I say that to my kids every day.

People think because I’ve got some success, I’ve made it, but in my eyes it’s like, ‚How long has Jay Z been in the business? How many albums has he got?‘ Not that I’m trying to be Jay Z, but I am trying to be around for a long time.

The superior man understands what is right; the inferior man understands what will sell.

It seems that I have always been ahead of my time. I had to wait nineteen years before Niagara was harnessed by my system, fifteen years before the basic inventions for wireless which I gave to the world in 1893 were applied universally.

One of the most important things you learn from the Internet is that there is no ‚them‘ out there. It’s just an awful lot of ‚us.‘

If I’d been born ugly, you’d never have heard of Pele.

I’m an entrepreneur. I’m a young mogul. I’m blessed.

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.