I didn’t want to become a professor or get tenure or teach or anything. All I wanted to do was get a degree because Louis Leakey said I needed one, which was right, and once I succeeded I could get back to the field.

Ambition is a dream with a V8 engine.

If you are lucky enough to find something that you love, and you have a shot at being good at it, don’t stop, don’t put it down.

Kind words do not cost much. Yet they accomplish much.

It’s the philosophies of being an athlete that carry me today.

Think of yourself as on the threshold of unparalleled success. A whole, clear, glorious life lies before you. Achieve! Achieve!

Nothing builds self-esteem and self-confidence like accomplishment.

Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.

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.

No pressure, no diamonds.

There are more men ennobled by study than by nature.

You can do what you have to do, and sometimes you can do it even better than you think you can.

Do the best you can, and don’t take life too serious.

The reason we want to go on and on is because we live in an impoverished present.

Nothing is so strongly fortified that it cannot be taken by money.

Seeing much, suffering much, and studying much, are the three pillars of learning.

I grew up where, when a door closed, a window didn’t open. The only thing I had was cracks. I’d do everything to get through those cracks – scratch, claw, bite, push, bleed. Now the opportunity is here. The door is wide open, and it’s as big as a garage.

If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn’t sit for a month.

Better to fight for something than live for nothing.

Winners make a habit of manufacturing their own positive expectations in advance of the event.

The multitude of books is making us ignorant.

Studies have identified a significant ‚skills gap‘ between what students are currently being taught and the skills employers are seeking in today’s global economy. Our children must be better prepared than they are now to meet the future challenges of our ever-changing world.

Tomorrow, every Fault is to be amended; but that Tomorrow never comes.

When people are connected, we can just do some great things. They have the opportunity to get access to jobs, education, health, communications. We have the opportunity to bring the people we care about closer to us. It really makes a big difference.

Everyone, no doubt, remains first and foremost a man of his own country and continues to draw from it his motive force.

Necessity is the mother of taking chances.

It’s so easy to settle for less than God’s best for us because we don’t always feel like taking responsibility for our behavior or putting forth some effort to do what we need to do so we can accomplish great things for God and help people. But the cost of settling for less is actually harder than being completely obedient to God’s will.

Everyone has the potential to become an encourager. You don’t have to be rich. You don’t have to be a genius. You don’t have to have it all together. All you have to do is care about people and initiate.

Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither.

I’m gonna go hard no matter what because I gotta feed my family, and I gotta feed myself.

Academic qualifications are important and so is financial education. They’re both important and schools are forgetting one of them.

When it is obvious that the goals cannot be reached, don’t adjust the goals, adjust the action steps.

The one excellent thing that can be learned from a lion is that whatever a man intends doing should be done by him with a whole-hearted and strenuous effort.

Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.

I like to use the hard times in the past to motivate me today.

If a man has not discovered something that he will die for, he isn’t fit to live.

I can tell you, honest friend, what to believe: believe life; it teaches better that book or orator.

The worst thing one can do is not to try, to be aware of what one wants and not give in to it, to spend years in silent hurt wondering if something could have materialized – never knowing.

To have done anything just for money is to have been truly idle.

The world is full of willing people; some willing to work, the rest willing to let them.

I was never ignorant, as far as being experienced in classrooms and learning about different subjects and actually soaking it up, so I checked into college for a little bit. I took classes at a community college in West L.A. I took psychology, English, and philosophy.

From a certain point onward there is no longer any turning back. That is the point that must be reached.

After two years at UCLA, I decided to leave. I was convinced that no amount of education would help a black man get a job.

A lot of football success is in the mind. You must believe you are the best and then make sure that you are.

A boy carries out suggestions more wholeheartedly when he understands their aim.

I thought I couldn’t make a difference because I was too small.

When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.

The important thing is that men should have a purpose in life. It should be something useful, something good.

It’s not ‚can‘; it’s ‚will.‘ You have to will things into fruition.

The writer must believe that what he is doing is the most important thing in the world. And he must hold to this illusion even when he knows it is not true.

Don’t wish it were easier, wish you were better.

Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then, for a second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.

As is the case with most people in this game, I am driven by financial motives and creative motives; the question I had to answer is which motive I will give priority to?

Success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom.

We have an obligation and a responsibility to be investing in our students and our schools. We must make sure that people who have the grades, the desire and the will, but not the money, can still get the best education possible.

Next to excellence is the appreciation of it.

My parents were just constantly affirming me in everything that I did. Late at night, I’d wake up and hear my mother talking over my bed, saying, ‚You’re going to do great on this test. You can do anything you want.‘

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.

Most Africans don’t get to see these wild animals at all. Once they see and learn about them, they are much more likely to become involved in protecting the environment.

I was terrible in English. I couldn’t stand the subject. It seemed to me ridiculous to worry about whether you spelled something wrong or not, because English spelling is just a human convention – it has nothing to do with anything real, anything from nature.

Too often we act – ask our schools to be truant officers, our teachers to be truant officers, because we’re giving them children who have, you know, they’re not ready to learn. And if they’re not ready to learn by the third grade, they know they’re behind.