Diligence is the mother of good luck.

A goal is not always meant to be reached, it often serves simply as something to aim at.

I just was never into performing. It’s just hard work. It’s hard work.

The Creator has not thought proper to mark those in the forehead who are of stuff to make good generals. We are first, therefore, to seek them blindfold, and then let them learn the trade at the expense of great losses.

Black or white good parts are hard to come by. A good actor with a good opportunity has a shot; without the opportunity it doesn’t matter how good you are.

The first rule is not to lose. The second rule is not to forget the first rule.

If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants.

The best augury of a man’s success in his profession is that he thinks it the finest in the world.

Natural ability without education has more often raised a man to glory and virtue than education without natural ability.

You have to believe in your process. You have to believe in the things that you are doing to help the team win. I think you have to take the good with the bad.

Though lovers be lost, love shall not.

Let man live at a distance from God, and the universe remains neutral or hostile to him. But let man believe in God, and immediately all around him the elements, even the irksome, of the inevitable organize themselves into a friendly whole, ordered to the ultimate success of life.

Ability is what you’re capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it.

I tried acting, liked it, and stuck with it. I saw it as the way I would keep that promise to myself of getting back at those who had made my school life a misery.

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.

I get so excited when a song I wrote that’s very personal to me goes No. 1 and I look down and see people singing the words back to me.

Everything rises and falls on leadership.

In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.

I never thought of losing, but now that it‘ s happened, the only thing is to do it right. That’s my obligation to all the people who believe in me. We all have to take defeats in life.

Hollywood has a way of making everything seem like an overnight success.

If you want to shine like a sun, first burn like a sun.

I think music is something that can, and should, be used to get you into different things because eventually what goes up must come down – we’re not going to be the number one group in the world forever – so you have to have something else to fall back on.

It’s rule number one, really – beating your teammate.

I have worked hard since my childhood and worked as a labourer. I put my mind and heart into it.

Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it.

Too many people measure how successful they are by how much money they make or the people that they associate with. In my opinion, true success should be measured by how happy you are.

About the time we can make the ends meet, somebody moves the ends.

I’m sure like everyone else I’m not always the happiest if I don’t do a good job in quali or the race or whatever, so I think beating myself up sometimes makes me work harder.

The moment I said I’d finished a book, I knew what would happen. There would be a bidding war, and I would end up with someone who’d got the fattest wallet, who had bought it because I’d written Harry Potter. That would have been why.

The most talented do not always end up as celebrities, and those with less talent often do. Upsets are written into our history and occur around us every day.

This is the mark of a really admirable man: steadfastness in the face of trouble.

Always take hold of things by the smooth handle.

There is no easy walk to freedom anywhere, and many of us will have to pass through the valley of the shadow of death again and again before we reach the mountaintop of our desires.

The very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream.

With self-discipline most anything is possible.

If thou art a man, admire those who attempt great things, even though they fail.

Bad taste creates many more millionaires than good taste.

I want to go and go, and then drop dead in the middle of something I’m loving to do. And if that doesn’t happen, if I wind up sitting in a wheelchair, at least I’ll have my high heels on.

There is a soak-the-rich attitude in the air, a feeling that if you have a lot of money you must have got it by some ghastly means. I can quite happily say there was never any family money. All the money we got was mine, just from writing books.

The more centuries that I am able to score, the happier I will be.

We will be more successful in all our endeavors if we can let go of the habit of running all the time, and take little pauses to relax and re-center ourselves. And we’ll also have a lot more joy in living.

It is the nature of every person to error, but only the fool perseveres in error.

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

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

No sooner said than done – so acts your man of worth.

Success and failure are equally disastrous.

Great men are like eagles, and build their nest on some lofty solitude.

The farmer has to be an optimist or he wouldn’t still be a farmer.

In any court-like environment of power, you will inevitably find people who are drawn to those who are successful or powerful, not out of admiration, but out of secret envy.

The great secret of success is to go through life as a man who never gets used up.

I need music. It’s like my heartbeat, so to speak. It keeps me going no matter what’s going on – bad games, press, whatever!

When you’re finished changing, you’re finished.

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

When I started Virgin from a basement in west London, there was no great plan or strategy. I didn’t set out to build a business empire… For me, building a business is all about doing something to be proud of, bringing talented people together and creating something that’s going to make a real difference to other people’s lives.

Achievement brings its own anticlimax.

Never was anything great achieved without danger.

The man who has done his level best… is a success, even though the world may write him down a failure.

Well, I wouldn’t say that I was in the great class, but I had a great time while I was trying to be great.

Most of us aren’t defeated in one decisive battle. We are defeated one tiny, seemingly insignificant surrender at a time that chips away at who we should really be.

I’m not the sort of person who gives up on things. The first time we crossed the Atlantic in the balloon, it crashed, and we went on and did the Pacific. First time we crossed the Atlantic in a boat, it sank, and we went on and got the record. So, generally speaking, we will pick ourselves up, brush ourselves down, and carry on.

I’m hopeful. I know there is a lot of ambition in Washington, obviously. But I hope the ambitious realize that they are more likely to succeed with success as opposed to failure.