Difficulties should act as a tonic. They should spur us to greater exertion.

When life is too easy for us, we must beware or we may not be ready to meet the blows which sooner or later come to everyone, rich or poor.

What starts the process, really, are laughs and slights and snubs when you are a kid. If your anger is deep enough and strong enough, you learn that you can change those attitudes by excellence, personal gut performance.

I played a great horse yesterday! It took seven horses to beat him.

I remember, when I was a young guy in the SEAL teams, I was very afraid of making mistakes and looking stupid or doing dumb things and getting a bad reputation.

Whoever is winning at the moment will always seem to be invincible.

Chaotic action is preferable to orderly inaction.

You sort of start thinking anything’s possible if you’ve got enough nerve.

However happy people say they are, nobody is satisfied: we always have to be with the prettiest woman, buy a bigger house, change cars, desire what we do not have.

By indignities men come to dignities.

Against the assault of laughter, nothing can stand.

Motivation is the art of getting people to do what you want them to do because they want to do it.

It’s stasis that kills you off in the end, not ambition.

But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.

I’m one of the world’s most self-conscious people. I really have to struggle.

The best preparation for good work tomorrow is to do good work today.

Motivation is simple. You eliminate those who are not motivated.

Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.

People who are unable to motivate themselves must be content with mediocrity, no matter how impressive their other talents.

The companies that work are the ones that people really care about and have a vision for the world so do something you like.

I wrote some of the worst poetry west from the Mississippi River, but I wrote. And I finally sometimes got it right.

Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.

Around every corner, always protect the engine that powers you.

I hate pain, despite my ability to tolerate it beyond all known parameters, which is not necessarily a good thing.

It’s the repetition of affirmations that leads to belief. And once that belief becomes a deep conviction, things begin to happen.

I can’t tell anybody else how to run their life or their business, but I really believe I’ve got a good bead on myself.

One always has time enough, if one will apply it well.

The fight is won or lost far away from witnesses – behind the lines, in the gym, and out there on the road, long before I dance under those lights.

It takes as much energy to wish as it does to plan.

And above all things, never think that you’re not good enough yourself. A man should never think that. My belief is that in life people will take you at your own reckoning.

We must build dikes of courage to hold back the flood of fear.

Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together.

I think if I keep working in the way that I am, from the heart and from passion and with love, well, the fruits of that will keep coming.

Knowledge about life is one thing; effective occupation of a place in life, with its dynamic currents passing through your being, is another.

Running taught me valuable lessons. In cross-country competition, training counted more than intrinsic ability, and I could compensate for a lack of natural aptitude with diligence and discipline. I applied this in everything I did.

Good luck has its storms.

The most important thing is to read as much as you can, like I did. It will give you an understanding of what makes good writing and it will enlarge your vocabulary.

I had so many people try to talk me out of starting a rocket company, it was crazy.

I haven’t been faithful to my own advice in the past. I will in the future.

Once I realized that right thinking is vital to victorious living, I got more serious about thinking about what I was thinking about, and choosing my thoughts carefully.

We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.

Impossible is a word to be found only in the dictionary of fools.

I claim to be a simple individual liable to err like any other fellow mortal. I own, however, that I have humility enough in me to confess my errors and to retrace my steps.

I know how to swim through backlash. I can tread water through backlash… If anything, that’s all giving me power.

By any accepted standard, I have had more than nine lives. I counted them up once, and there were 13 times I almost and maybe should have died.

At United, there are great traditions, which you can’t buy in one or two years. They are created by victories. You need to prove again and again that you are better than the others. Manchester United have always done this, and are still doing it, so they are the best.

Character is destiny.

I will do this job as long as I feel that I can do it full steam.

We all have a tendency to avoid our weaknesses. When we do that, we never progress or get any better.

It were a real increase of human happiness, could all young men from the age of nineteen be covered under barrels, or rendered otherwise invisible; and there left to follow their lawful studies and callings, till they emerged, sadder and wiser, at the age of twenty-five.

I think a big test we all face in life on a regular basis is that discouragement test. Life’s not always fair, but I believe if you keep doing the right thing, God will get you to where you are.

All the breaks you need in life wait within your imagination, Imagination is the workshop of your mind, capable of turning mind energy into accomplishment and wealth.

Fame is ultimately about the cycles of desire and how to do away with them or manage them well.

My moms always told me, ‚How long you gonna play the victim?‘ I can say I’m mad and I hate everything, but nothing really changes until I change myself.

Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat.

Do we not realize that self respect comes with self reliance?

Whatever is making you so angry, it’s time for you to give it to God and get over it.

Trouble has no necessary connection with discouragement. Discouragement has a germ of its own, as different from trouble as arthritis is different from a stiff joint.

I’m not this horrible, evil person.

If you don’t stand your ground, then all that happens is people push you backwards.

I’m a religious woman. And I feel I have responsibility. I have no modesty at all. I’m even afraid of it – it’s a learned affectation and it’s just stuck on me like decals. Now I pray for humility because that comes from inside out.