I don’t think about that. I wasn’t a kid growing up saying one day I’ll get an Oscar and make a speech. That wasn’t on my mind. So what I do is the best work I can do.

I never could have done what I have done without the habits of punctuality, order, and diligence, without the determination to concentrate myself on one subject at a time.

I don’t want to hear the word ‚can’t.‘

I believe you never get tired by doing work. You get tired when you don’t work. When you clean your house, you don’t get tired; it gives you satisfaction.

When fate hands you a lemon, make lemonade.

Pray that success will not come any faster than you are able to endure it.

Life is divided into the horrible and the miserable.

Success is getting what you want. Happiness is liking what you get.

A dream doesn’t become reality through magic; it takes sweat, determination and hard work.

I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet.

It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or by demons, heaven or hell.

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

No one has ever drowned in sweat.

Only a man who knows what it is like to be defeated can reach down to the bottom of his soul and come up with the extra ounce of power it takes to win when the match is even.

I will keep America moving forward, always forward, for a better America, for an endless enduring dream and a thousand Points of Light. This is my mission, and I will complete it.

I can understand how some people might resent me for having the audacity to continue playing music, but it’d take a lot more than that to stop me from doing it. I started Foo Fighters because I didn’t want to retreat.

I’ve learned that you shouldn’t go through life with a catcher’s mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw something back.

Ambition has become a dirty word, and I believe it is a great evolutionary force for the positive. If people fail or go astray in their ambition I can live with it but not with people lowering their expectations, wasting time, slacking off and glorifying failure and stupidity.

A man will fight harder for his interests than for his rights.

If you desire to be good, begin by believing that you are wicked.

Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me. Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful, that’s what matters to me.

If someone you know makes a bad decision or uses bad judgment, it doesn’t mean you have to allow that to alter your attitude. Why should you allow anyone else’s bad decisions to send you into a tailspin of misery?

If you realize that all things change, there is nothing you will try to hold on to. If you are not afraid of dying, there is nothing you cannot achieve.

If you can build a business up big enough, it’s respectable.

I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live by the light that I have. I must stand with anybody that stands right, and stand with him while he is right, and part with him when he goes wrong.

The greatest gift is the ability to forget – to forget the bad things and focus on the good.

In a lot of ways, success is much harder than I thought it would be. I figured that you’d get here and then everything would be happily ever after. But, it’s hard work, almost harder once you’re successful because you’ve got to maintain it.

I want to be part of that long list who have achieved great things with McLaren, won races and championships.

Maxim for life: You get treated in life the way you teach people to treat you.

What by a straight path cannot be reached by crooked ways is never won.

It’s the niceties that make the difference fate gives us the hand, and we play the cards.

Though men determine, the gods doo dispose: and oft times many things fall out betweene the cup and the lip.

Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young.

I am certainly not one of those who need to be prodded. In fact, if anything, I am the prod.

Win as if you were used to it, lose as if you enjoyed it for a change.

There is probably a perverse pride in my administration… that we were going to do the right thing, even if short-term it was unpopular. And I think anybody who’s occupied this office has to remember that success is determined by an intersection in policy and politics and that you can’t be neglecting of marketing and P.R. and public opinion.

We should work with the principle that a work that can be done at a lower level should never be escalated to a higher level.

Content makes poor men rich; discontent makes rich men poor.

Our patience will achieve more than our force.

My dad used to have an expression – ‚It is the lucky person who gets up in the morning, puts both feet on the floor, knows what they are about to do, and thinks it still matters.‘

I’m not the sort to back away from a fight. I don’t believe in shrinking from anything. It’s not my speed; I’m a guy who meets adversities head on.

And I love that even in the toughest moments, when we’re all sweating it – when we’re worried that the bill won’t pass, and it seems like all is lost – Barack never lets himself get distracted by the chatter and the noise. Just like his grandmother, he just keeps getting up and moving forward… with patience and wisdom, and courage and grace.

Oh, yes; you Virginians shed barrels of perspiration while standing off at a distance and superintending the work your slaves do for you. It is different with us. Here it is every fellow for himself, or he doesn’t get there.

A lot of times I find that people who are blessed with the most talent don’t ever develop that attitude, and the ones who aren’t blessed in that way are the most competitive and have the biggest heart.

To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but at what he aspires to.

I’d rather be optimistic and wrong than pessimistic and right.

The life which men praise and regard as successful is but one kind. Why should we exaggerate any one kind at the expense of the others?

There is no man living that can not do more than he thinks he can.

And while the law of competition may be sometimes hard for the individual, it is best for the race, because it ensures the survival of the fittest in every department.

If you carefully consider what you want to be said of you in the funeral experience, you will find your definition of success.

In reading the lives of great men, I found that the first victory they won was over themselves… self-discipline with all of them came first.

If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were precisely those who thought most of the next. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this.

The child who desires education will be bettered by it; the child who dislikes it disgraced.

To make America the greatest is my goal, so I beat the Russian and I beat the Pole. And for the U.S.A. won the medal of gold. The Greeks said, ‚You’re better than the Cassius of old.‘

I am an optimist. It does not seem too much use being anything else.

I am extraordinarily patient, provided I get my own way in the end.

I do not know anyone who has got to the top without hard work. That is the recipe. It will not always get you to the top, but should get you pretty near.

Above everything else I’ve done, I’ve always said I’ve had more guts than I’ve got talent.

My songs are the door to every dream I’ve ever had and every success I’ve ever achieved.

You always want your people to be proud of what you have accomplished.

Instead of being concerned that you have no office, be concerned to think how you may fit yourself for office. Instead of being concerned that you are not known, seek to be worthy of being known.