Carry the battle to them. Don’t let them bring it to you. Put them on the defensive and don’t ever apologize for anything.

He that cannot reason is a fool. He that will not is a bigot. He that dare not is a slave.

Don’t worry about motivation. Motivation is fickle. It comes and goes. It is unreliable – and when you are counting on motivation to get your goals accomplished, you will likely fall short.

I must follow the people. Am I not their leader?

Courage is like love; it must have hope for nourishment.

All ballplayers should quit when it starts to feel as if all the baselines run uphill.

Decisiveness is a characteristic of high-performing men and women. Almost any decision is better than no decision at all.

Move fast and break things. Unless you are breaking stuff, you are not moving fast enough.

The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.

I don’t do drugs. I am drugs.

Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall.

I just kind of wake up with a new idea and new dreams every day, and I follow that dream, as they say.

There are people out there who hate me and who say I’m arrogant, vain, and whatever. That’s all part of my success. I am made to be the best.

I want kids to know: Don’t wait for somebody to come along and tell you you’re special. Because that may never happen.

Rhetoric is a poor substitute for action, and we have trusted only to rhetoric. If we are really to be a great nation, we must not merely talk; we must act big.

Everything in war is very simple. But the simplest thing is difficult.

In my work and in myself I reflect black people, women and men, as I reflect others. One day even the most self-protective ones will look into the mirror I provide and not be afraid.

Business opportunities are like buses, there’s always another one coming.

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.

Some single mind must be master, else there will be no agreement in anything.

A rooster crows only when it sees the light. Put him in the dark and he’ll never crow. I have seen the light and I’m crowing.

Every man is said to have his peculiar ambition. Whether it be true or not, I can say, for one, that I have no other so great as that of being truly esteemed of my fellow-men, by rendering myself worthy of their esteem. How far I shall succeed in gratifying this ambition is yet to be developed.

The army teaches boys to think like men.

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.

Well I have a microphone and you don’t so you will listen to every damn word I have to say!

Positional leaders ignore the fact that every person has hopes, dreams, desires, and goals of his own. And leaders must bring their vision and the aspirations of the people they lead together in a way that benefits everyone.

Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.

I had a rough childhood coming up, and I just took all that negative energy and made it very positive for myself to drive me. I’m a very driven person. I have passion that almost scares people, just to be successful and make it no matter what.

The story of the human race is the story of men and women selling themselves short.

The question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be… The nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.

The right man is the one who seizes the moment.

I would say things like ‚I am the greatest! I’m pretty! If you talk jive, you’ll drop in five! I float like a butterfly, sting like a bee! I’m pretty!‘ When white people heard me talking like this, some said, ‚That black man talks too much. He’s bragging.‘

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.

Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.

The temptation to take the easy road is always there. It is as easy as staying in bed in the morning and sleeping in. But discipline is paramount to ultimate success and victory for any leader and any team.

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.

I wonder how many times people give up just before a breakthrough – when they are on the very brink of success.

You have to stay faithful to what you’re working on.

With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts.

Hence it comes about that all armed Prophets have been victorious, and all unarmed Prophets have been destroyed.

If an injury has to be done to a man it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared.

The most pitiful among men is he who turns his dreams into silver and gold.

I can live for two months on a good compliment.

I love to see a young girl go out and grab the world by the lapels.

I encourage people not to be passive consumers of music and of culture in general. And feeling like, yeah, you can enjoy the products of professionals, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have to completely give up the reins and give up every connection to music or whatever it happens to be.

We work to become, not to acquire.

A word is dead when it is said, some say. I say it just begins to live that day.

If you’re waiting for the perfect moment, you’ll never write a thing because it will never arrive. I have no routine. I have no foolproof anything. There’s nothing foolproof.

Everyone needs a coach. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a basketball player, a tennis player, a gymnast or a bridge player.

I’ve seen how the issues that come across a president’s desk are always the hard ones – the problems where no amount of data or numbers will get you to the right answer.

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

I’m always disappointed when people don’t live up to their potential. I know that a number of people look down on themselves and consequently on everybody who looks like them. But that, too, can change.

Let freedom reign. The sun never set on so glorious a human achievement.

I am mindful not only of preserving executive powers for myself, but for predecessors as well.

Nobody likes to fail. I want to succeed in everything I do, which isn’t much. But the things that I’m really passionate about, if I fail at those, if I’m not successful, what do I have?

Blacks, especially in America, have been raised with a slave mentality – they don’t feel that they have the right to speak as loud as possible.

Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence.

In all my work, I try to say – ‚You may be given a load of sour lemons, why not try to make a dozen lemon meringue pies?‘

Public opinion is the thermometer a monarch should constantly consult.

As President Nixon says, presidents can do almost anything, and President Nixon has done many things that nobody would have thought of doing.

You must capture and keep the heart of the original and supremely able man before his brain can do its best.