I have bad reflexes. I was once run over by a car being pushed by two guys.

When you’re in hell, you forget how great you really are because you’re suffering and you forget the great things you’ve done.

Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.

I was born in London in England in 1934. I went through, as a child, the horrors of World War II, through a time when food was rationed and we learned to be very careful, and we never had more to eat than what we needed to eat. There was no waste. Everything was used.

You have people come into your life shockingly and surprisingly. You have losses that you never thought you’d experience. You have rejection and you have learn how to deal with that and how to get up the next day and go on with it.

Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.

When we tackle obstacles, we find hidden reserves of courage and resilience we did not know we had. And it is only when we are faced with failure do we realise that these resources were always there within us. We only need to find them and move on with our lives.

My freshman and sophomore years in high school, I spent a lot of time trying to get back on the right track. I was arrested multiple times by the time I was 16, so I had a little harder time trying to adjust like a lot of us do in high school.

You drown not by falling into a river, but by staying submerged in it.

What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?

The superior man makes the difficulty to be overcome his first interest; success only comes later.

I was raised in a family where vulnerability was barely tolerated: no training wheels on our bicycles, no goggles in the pool, just get it done. And so I grew up not only with discomfort about my own vulnerability, I didn’t care for it in other people either.

Against the assault of laughter, nothing can stand.

Black people in America, people from the struggle, immigrants, it’s no generational wealth that we are attached to, so we are tasked to create – in one generation – closing the gap. That’s why we so Doomsday about getting to the check: ‚cause it’s life or death for real.

I was brought up as an only child, and we were very close. But when I was 14, we got evicted. We came home to a padlock, and I looked up at my mom and she was crying, and there was nothing to do.

War is a poor chisel to carve out tomorrow.

That’s when you know you’re the greatest: when you’re the greatest, and people still put odds against you.

Show me someone who has done something worthwhile, and I’ll show you someone who has overcome adversity.

We will all fail in life, but nobody has to be a failure. Failing at a thing doesn’t make you a failure. You are only a failure when you quit trying.

What kind of people do they think we are? Is it possible they do not realize that we shall never cease to persevere against them until they have been taught a lesson which they and the world will never forget?

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.

I used to have a real problem with self-pity. Every time the devil would throw a pity party, I would attend.

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

Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat.

We have the tendency to run away from suffering and to look for happiness. But, in fact, if you have not suffered, you have no chance to experience real happiness.

Creation is a sustained period of bliss, even though the subject can still be very sad. Because there’s the triumph of coming through and understanding that you have, and that you did it the way only you could do it. You didn’t do it the way somebody told you to do it.

But for me to have the opportunity to stand in front of a bunch of executives and present myself, I had to hustle in my own way. I can’t tell you how frustrating it was that they didn’t get that. No joke – I’d leave meetings crying all the time.

I’m not the sort of person who gives up on things. The first time we crossed the Atlantic in the balloon, it crashed, and we went on and did the Pacific. First time we crossed the Atlantic in a boat, it sank, and we went on and got the record. So, generally speaking, we will pick ourselves up, brush ourselves down, and carry on.

Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail.

Intelligent people should learn from their experiences. With people on the street, the bad experience has beaten them.

Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths. When you go through hardships and decide not to surrender, that is strength.

The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is.

Maturity is the ability to reap without apology and not complain when things don’t go well.

Remember that life’s big changes rarely give advance warning.

The problems of victory are more agreeable than those of defeat, but they are no less difficult.

When things are going bad, there’s going to be some good that’s going to come from it.

Everyone has his day and some days last longer than others.

Respond intelligently even to unintelligent treatment.

Permanence, perseverance and persistence in spite of all obstacles, discouragements, and impossibilities: It is this, that in all things distinguishes the strong soul from the weak.

I feel like people can relate to me because we all go through wins and roadblocks and passion and pain, and it’s a vibe.

In my entire life, any time I’ve ever lost something, I’ve gotten something even better going around the next corner. It’s like one door closes and another door opens. As long as I can walk through the produce section in every grocery store in this country and eat the grapes that they’re going to throw away, I know I can be fine.

I break orbital bones.

I can take it. The tougher it gets, the cooler I get.

During bad circumstances, which is the human inheritance, you must decide not to be reduced. You have your humanity, and you must not allow anything to reduce that. We are obliged to know we are global citizens. Disasters remind us we are world citizens, whether we like it or not.

When we look back on all the perils through which we have passed and at the mighty foes that we have laid low and all the dark and deadly designs that we have frustrated, why should we fear for our future? We have come safely through the worst.

I was a very shy character, always feeling uncomfortable because everybody was stronger than I, and always afraid I would look like a sissy. Everybody else played baseball; everybody else did all kinds of athletic things.

Only if you have been in the deepest valley, can you ever know how magnificent it is to be on the highest mountain.

A lost battle is a battle one thinks one has lost.

Let the people on both sides keep their self-possession, and just as other clouds have cleared away in due time, so will this, and this great nation shall continue to prosper as before.

One of the wonderful things about Oprah: She teaches you to keep on stepping.

Most of my young years were spent under the boots of the military.

My mom cleaned toilets for a long time, and she’d seen a lot of terrible things, but she was still the strength of our family. And there are women like that all across the country – all around the world – who show that type of fortitude.

How poor are they that have not patience! What wound did ever heal but by degrees?

If one dream dies, dream another dream. If you get knocked down, get back up and go again.

Early on in my life, I had a broken soul. I was abused by my father, abandoned by my mother and ended up in a destructive first marriage. By the time I was 23, I was broken in my soul. I didn’t know how to think right. I felt wrong about everything. But God stepped into my life, and I came out on the other side and didn’t even smell like smoke.

Always fall in with what you’re asked to accept. Take what is given, and make it over your way. My aim in life has always been to hold my own with whatever’s going. Not against: with.

You have to be able to accept failure to get better.

The secret is not to give up hope. It’s very hard not to because if you’re really doing something worthwhile I think you will be pushed to the brink of hopelessness before you come through the other side.

The first decade of the twentieth century was not a great time to be born black and poor and female in St. Louis, Missouri, but Vivian Baxter was born black and poor, to black and poor parents. Later she would grow up and be called beautiful. As a grown woman she would be known as the butter-colored lady with the blowback hair.

Must is a hard nut to crack, but it has a sweet kernel.

There was a point where I really felt I had ‚penniless divorcee lone parent‘ tattooed on my head.