Founding a company is hard. Most of it isn’t smooth. You’ll have to make very hard decisions. You have to fire a few people. Therefore, if you don’t believe in your mission, giving up is easy. The majority of founders give up. But the best founders don’t give up.

Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities.

If you cannot understand that there is something in man which responds to the challenge of this mountain and goes out to meet it, that the struggle is the struggle of life itself upward and forever upward, then you won’t see why we go.

The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better. I, therefore, intend to oppose the effort to increase America’s debt.

I understood that with the swipe of my pen as a prosecutor, I would have the decision in my pen to make a decision about someone’s life.

A well adjusted person is one who makes the same mistake twice without getting nervous.

I felt we must separate political responsibility. The Dalai Lama should not carry that burden. So that is my selfish reason – to protect the old Dalai Lama tradition. It is safer without political involvement.

It is even better to act quickly and err than to hesitate until the time of action is past.

‚Tis better to bear the ills we have than fly to others that we know not of.

I speak directly to the people, and I know that the people of California want to have better leadership. They want to have great leadership. They want to have somebody that will represent them. And it doesn’t matter if you’re a Democrat or a Republican, young or old.

All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.

It is a paradox that every dictator has climbed to power on the ladder of free speech. Immediately on attaining power each dictator has suppressed all free speech except his own.

It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both.

Self-centered leaders manipulate when they move people for personal benefit. Mature leaders motivate by moving people for mutual benefit.

Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another, but let him work diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built.

Only he can take great resolves who has indomitable faith in God and has fear of God.

One thing Britons have always been celebrated for, and that is being able to stick it out in a tight place.

Groups that rose from poverty to prosperity seldom did so by having their own racial or ethnic leaders to follow.

We must not sit still and look for miracles; up and doing, and the Lord will be with thee. Prayer and pains, through faith in Christ Jesus, will do anything.

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.

The nose of a mob is its imagination. By this, at any time, it can be quietly led.

I love those who can smile in trouble, who can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. ‚Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but they whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves their conduct, will pursue their principles unto death.

In business, success often depends upon the relative age of your ideas.

Racing, competing, it’s in my blood. It’s part of me, it’s part of my life; I have been doing it all my life and it stands out above everything else.

Those who cannot think or take responsibility for themselves need, and clamor for, a leader.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep.

Every morning I jump out of bed and step on a landmine. The landmine is me. After the explosion, I spent the rest of the day putting the pieces together.

Be willing to have it so. Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune.

Begin – to begin is half the work, let half still remain; again begin this, and thou wilt have finished.

Being a good listener is absolutely critical to being a good leader; you have to listen to the people who are on the front line.

The thing most people don’t pick up when they become an entrepreneur is that it never ends. It’s 24/7.

The difficulties you meet will resolve themselves as you advance. Proceed, and light will dawn, and shine with increasing clearness on your path.

What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lives within us.

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

When I was into my 30s, I became increasingly depressed by rejection letters. I had had the feeling that by the time I was 30, I would be established. But I was not at all. By the time of ‚Lives of Girls and Women,‘ I was into my 40s and I had become more thin-skinned.

I have always believed in evolving a consensus before taking any major decision.

In college, a loss is pretty devastating. That feeling kind of goes away in an 82-game season. You hate to lose, but you also have a lot more games to make up for it.

A good model of how to ‚work with the enemy‘ internally is presented by the Dalai Lama, in his endless caretaking of his soul as he confronts the Chinese government that invaded Tibet.

I didn’t work hard to sit down and not work.

My attitude has always been, if you fall flat on your face, at least you’re moving forward. All you have to do is get back up and try again.

You can kill ten of our men for every one we kill of yours. But even at those odds, you will lose and we will win.

When I was running training, we would fire a couple of leaders from every SEAL team because they couldn’t lead. And 99.9% of the time, it wasn’t a question of their ability – it was a question of their ability to listen.

The men who have succeeded are men who have chosen one line and stuck to it.

When the best leader’s work is done the people say, ‚We did it ourselves.‘

There is nothing happens to any person but what was in his power to go through with.

Even when we have physical hardships, we can be very happy.

A person will sometimes devote all his life to the development of one part of his body – the wishbone.

The years between fifty and seventy are the hardest. You are always being asked to do things, and yet you are not decrepit enough to turn them down.

When you see something that is technically sweet, you go ahead and do it and you argue about what to do about it only after you have had your technical success. That is the way it was with the atomic bomb.

I can’t jump the highest. I’m obviously not the biggest, not the strongest.

It’s not fun to get out of bed early in the morning. When the alarm goes off, it doesn’t sing you a song: it hits you in the head with a baseball bat. So how do you respond to that? Do you crawl underneath your covers and hide? Or do you get up, get aggressive, and attack the day?

Imagination decides everything.

My parents pretty much realized that I would do whatever I wanted, and that was it, really.

A wise ruler ought never to keep faith when by doing so it would be against his interests.

Thinking isn’t agreeing or disagreeing. That’s voting.

This nuclear option is ultimately an example of the arrogance of power.

William Gladstone has not a single redeeming defect.

The effect of liberty to individuals is that they may do what they please: we ought to see what it will please them to do, before we risk congratulations.

I was willing to accept what I couldn’t change.

When the negative thoughts come – and they will; they come to all of us – it’s not enough to just not dwell on it… You’ve got to replace it with a positive thought.

Take care to get what you like or you will be forced to like what you get.