Eradications are special. Zero is a magic number. You either do what it takes to get to zero and you’re glad you did it; or you get close, give up and it goes back to where it was before, in which case you wasted all that credibility, activity, money that could have been applied to other things.

If at first you don’t succeed, then skydiving definitely isn’t for you.

When I was nine years old, living on the south side of Chicago, my father was a minister and my mother used to scrub floors. I had seven brothers and four sisters. I told my mama, ‚One of these days I’m going to be big and strong and buy you a beautiful house.‘ That’s all I’ve ever wanted to do with my life, is to take care of my mother.

We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.

He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper.

Dignify and glorify common labor. It is at the bottom of life that we must begin, not at the top.

I can’t ever remember sitting around and saying, ‚gosh let’s hurry up and get these debates going, that’ll win it for me.‘ Nope.

Ever since I was a child I have had this instinctive urge for expansion and growth. To me, the function and duty of a quality human being is the sincere and honest development of one’s potential.

I hope not to define myself by suffering.

You have to be someone.

I’m not very ambitious at all.

I want to let you in on a little secret: I don’t always feel like I’m a success. That’s right. There are plenty of times when I feel like I’ve just totally messed up and failed to connect with the people I’m trying to communicate with.

All that spirits desire, spirits attain.

Enjoy the satisfaction that comes from doing little things well.

What is once well done is done forever.

Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake.

We spend our lives, all of us, waiting for the great day, the great battle, or the deed of power. But that external consummation is not given to many: nor is it necessary. So long as our being is tensed, directed with passion, towards that which is the spirit of all things, then that spirit will emerge from our own hidden, nameless effort.

Trust yourself. Create the kind of self that you will be happy to live with all your life. Make the most of yourself by fanning the tiny, inner sparks of possibility into flames of achievement.

Pessimism never won any battle.

Knowledge cultivates your seeds and does not sow in your seeds.

I’m not a bad person.

The day you stop doing the small things is the day you think you’re above everybody else.

By appreciation, we make excellence in others our own property.

Mental toughness is a lifestyle. It’s something that you live every single day of your life. When I was growing up, I was a lazy kid. I was a lazy kid, and everybody goes, ‚How did you get to where you’re at today? How did you get to where you’re running 200 miles at one time in 39 hours? Being so disciplined?‘

It’s one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself, to forgive. Forgive everybody.

A word of encouragement from a teacher to a child can change a life. A word of encouragement from a spouse can save a marriage. A word of encouragement from a leader can inspire a person to reach her potential.

My unpredictability is what separates me. If you move in so many ways, your opponent is not focused on what he’s doing. He’s focusing in on what you’re doing, and it freezes him. When they freeze and you hit, they shatter like glass.

Faith activates God – Fear activates the Enemy.

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.

The only way you gain mental toughness is to do things you’re not happy doing. If you continue doing things that you’re satisfied and make you happy, you’re not getting stronger. You’re staying where you’re at. Either you’re getting better, or you’re getting worse. You’re not staying the same.

If in our daily life we can smile, if we can be peaceful and happy, not only we, but everyone will profit from it. This is the most basic kind of peace work.

Just because I managed to do a little something, I don’t want anyone back home to think I got the big head.

I definitely wasn’t anything special when I first started but I think I adapted quite quickly into racing and it became a bit better slowly. All of cadets, the first four years of karting, I only won one proper race, one! Which was the British Open Championship at PFI and I started 21st and I won.

After climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb.

We’re constantly striving for success, fame and comfort when all we really need to be happy is someone or some thing to be enthusiastic about.

Sometimes it is better to light a flamethrower than curse the darkness.

I’m just an individual who doesn’t feel that I need to have somebody qualify my work in any particular way. I’m working for me.

The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.

I’ve been lucky. Opportunities don’t often come along. So, when they do, you have to grab them.

Especially for those of us who lived in single cells, you had the time to sit down and think, and we discovered that sitting down just to think is one of the best ways of keeping yourself fresh and able, to be able to address the problems facing you, and you had the opportunity, also, of examining your past.

I just do the best I can and write something interesting, to tell stories in an interesting way and move forward from there.

Kings are not born: they are made by artificial hallucination.

The balloons only have one life and the only way of finding out whether they work is to attempt to fly around the world.

‚Happiness‘ is a pointless goal.

Excellence is a continuous process and not an accident.

If you wish to succeed in life, make perseverance your bosom friend, experience your wise counselor, caution your elder brother, and hope your guardian genius.

The secret to success is to offend the greatest number of people.

I have short goals – to get better every day, to help my teammates every day – but my only ultimate goal is to win an NBA championship. It’s all that matters. I dream about it. I dream about it all the time, how it would look, how it would feel. It would be so amazing.

Desire is the essence of a man.

There is only one sort of discipline, perfect discipline.

Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, be fortified by it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it.

One thing is sure. We have to do something. We have to do the best we know how at the moment… If it doesn’t turn out right, we can modify it as we go along.

Those who lack the courage will always find a philosophy to justify it.

Once you start doing only what you’ve already proven you can do, you’re on the road to death.

Great acts are made up of small deeds.

I would like to be remembered as someone who did the best she could with the talent she had.

Life is a progress from want to want, not from enjoyment to enjoyment.

You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe deserve your love and affection.

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

It is extremely difficult to say how long the process actually took to finally achieve my fragrance, Boudoir, because there was a lot of time waiting around for other people.

You gotta water your plants. Nobody can water them for you.