I fully expected that, by the end of the century, we would have achieved substantially more than we actually did.

To me the ego is the habitual and compulsive thought processes that go through everybody’s mind continuously. External things like possessions or memories or failures or successes or achievements. Your personal history.

You might not always get what you want, but you always get what you expect.

What’s dangerous is not to evolve.

Well begun is half done.

The world moves, and ideas that were once good are not always good.

It is a pleasant thing to reflect upon, and furnishes a complete answer to those who contend for the gradual degeneration of the human species, that every baby born into the world is a finer one than the last.

If we could do high-speed rail in California just half a notch above what they’ve done on the Shanghai line in China, and if we had a straight path from L.A. to San Francisco, as well as the milk run, at least that would be progress.

If I’d observed all the rules, I’d never have got anywhere.

Develop an attitude of gratitude, and give thanks for everything that happens to you, knowing that every step forward is a step toward achieving something bigger and better than your current situation.

I feel very strongly that SpaceX would not have been able to get started, nor would we have made the progress that we have, without the help of NASA.

A jug fills drop by drop.

Each new generation born is in effect an invasion of civilization by little barbarians, who must be civilized before it is too late.

Even though you are on the right track – you will get run over if you just sit there.

Whatever America hopes to bring to pass in the world must first come to pass in the heart of America.

The amazing fact is that America is founded on a document. It’s a work in progress. It can be tested by each generation.

We have the opportunity to move not only toward the rich society and the powerful society, but upward to the Great Society.

To reform a world, to reform a nation, no wise man will undertake; and all but foolish men know, that the only solid, though a far slower reformation, is what each begins and perfects on himself.

Progress lies not in enhancing what is, but in advancing toward what will be.

Life is about growing and improving and getting better.

The task of the leader is to get his people from where they are to where they have not been.

When you’re a pop star, it’s a little conservative; you always have to stay in a box. You have fans that are five and fans that are 65; there are so many people wanting so many things.

In the history of medicine, it is not always the great scientist or the learned doctor who goes forward to discover new fields, new avenues, new ideas.

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

Every woman is supposed to have the same set of motives, or else to be a monster.

So while an incredible amount of progress has been made, on this fifth anniversary, I wanted to come here and tell the people of this city directly: My administration is going to stand with you – and fight alongside you – until the job is done. Until New Orleans is all the way back, all the way.

The fatal metaphor of progress, which means leaving things behind us, has utterly obscured the real idea of growth, which means leaving things inside us.

Human development thus far has been fueled and guided by the feeling that things could be, and are probably going to be, better.

Even as you make progress, you need the discipline to keep from backtracking and sabotaging the success as it’s happening.

In the material sciences these are and have been, and are most surely likely to continue to be heroic days.

Government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants. People have the right to expect that these wants will be provided for by this wisdom.

If you go back a few hundred years, what we take for granted today would seem like magic – being able to talk to people over long distances, to transmit images, flying, accessing vast amounts of data like an oracle. These are all things that would have been considered magic a few hundred years ago.

Our desires always disappoint us; for though we meet with something that gives us satisfaction, yet it never thoroughly answers our expectation.

The march of science and technology does not imply growing intellectual complexity in the lives of most people. It often means the opposite.

America makes prodigious mistakes, America has colossal faults, but one thing cannot be denied: America is always on the move. She may be going to Hell, of course, but at least she isn’t standing still.

As a father, I always want my son to be perfect. When he was young, I tried to train him in martial arts, but he said, ‚I don’t want to become like Bruce Lee’s son, with everybody telling me how good my father was.‘ I just think my son is too lazy.

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.

Despotism can only exist in darkness, and there are too many lights now in the political firmament to permit it to remain anywhere, as it has heretofore done, almost everywhere.

As scientists, we step on the shoulders of science, building on the work that has come before us – aiming to inspire a new generation of young scientists to continue once we are gone.

Hopefully I won’t be the last big splash at Under Armour.

The progress of rivers to the ocean is not so rapid as that of man to error.

I do not look upon these United States as a finished product. We are still in the making.

There’s a lot of pressure putting an album out all over the world and hoping people everywhere like it.

Thought once awakened does not again slumber; unfolds itself into a System of Thought; grows, in man after man, generation after generation, – till its full stature is reached, and such System of Thought can grow no farther, but must give place to another.

I wasn’t a kid growing up thinking, ‚One day I’ll get an Oscar and make a speech.‘ That wasn’t on my mind.

All progress is precarious, and the solution of one problem brings us face to face with another problem.

The pace of progress on Mars depends upon the pace of progress of SpaceX.

Yes, I’m always – I’m always surprised when you make a film and you live with it a while and you put it out, you never dream that anybody is ever going to want to really see it.

One change always leaves the way open for the establishment of others.

I’ve got a pen and I’ve got a phone – and I can use that pen to sign executive orders and take executive actions and administrative actions that move the ball forward.

Really advanced civilization is based on advances in energy.

Our progress as a nation can be no swifter than our progress in education. The human mind is our fundamental resource.

Man’s real life is happy, chiefly because he is ever expecting that it soon will be so.

When you revolutionize education, you’re taking the very mechanism of how people be smarter and do new things, and you’re priming the pump for so many incredible things.

Not to go back is somewhat to advance, and men must walk, at least, before they dance.

There can be no greater error than to expect, or calculate, upon real favors from nation to nation. It is an illusion which experience must cure, which a just pride ought to discard.

The point in history at which we stand is full of promise and danger. The world will either move forward toward unity and widely shared prosperity – or it will move apart.

The Global Fund is a central player in the progress being achieved on HIV, TB and malaria. It channels resources to help countries fight these diseases. I believe in its impact because I have seen it firsthand.

We have not yet reached the goal but… we shall soon, with the help of God, be in sight of the day when poverty shall be banished from this nation.

The moment people feel they know what to expect from you, your spell on them is broken. More: You have ceded them power.

Even though I had won in other categories, I didn’t have any expectations when I came into F1. Qualifying fifth, finishing sixth? I didn’t expect it.