I keep a hotel room in my town, although I have a large house. And I go there at about 5:30 in the morning, and I start working. And I don’t allow anybody to come in that room. I work on yellow pads and with ballpoint pens. I keep a Bible, a thesaurus, a dictionary, and a bottle of sherry. I stay there until midday.

Time is the friend of the wonderful company, the enemy of the mediocre.

People with clear, written goals, accomplish far more in a shorter period of time than people without them could ever imagine.

If you believe in what you are doing, then let nothing hold you up in your work. Much of the best work of the world has been done against seeming impossibilities. The thing is to get the work done.

If it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do it first thing in the morning. And If it’s your job to eat two frogs, it’s best to eat the biggest one first.

Productivity is being able to do things that you were never able to do before.

If I forget to pray, I can’t get through the day without snapping at people.

One of the best mental disciplines for people to implement is simply putting together a schedule or a task list and actually executing it. Write the list or the schedule the night before, and then do what you said you would do. Life becomes much better when you do that.

Why do you want to get a good workout early in the morning? Well, because it sends more oxygen to your brain; it releases endorphins. It puts you in a state of mind where you can crush things, which is where you want to be.

Don’t think in the morning. That’s a big mistake that people make. They wake up in the morning and they start thinking. Don’t think. Just execute the plan. The plan is the alarm clock goes off, you get up, you go work out. Get some.

Men of lofty genius when they are doing the least work are most active.

If what you did yesterday seems big, you haven’t done anything today.

Good executives never put off until tomorrow what they can get someone else to do today.

Before anything else, preparation is the key to success.

There’s a great deal to say in the Bible about the signs we’re to watch for, and when these signs all converge at one place we can be sure that we’re close to the end of the age.

When you begin to worry, go find something to do. Get busy being a blessing to someone; do something fruitful. Talking about your problem or sitting alone, thinking about it, does no good; it serves only to make you miserable. Above all else, remember that worrying is totally useless. Worrying will not solve your problem.

The Bible is a sanctum; the world, sputum.

I get up at 7:30 and work four hours a day. Nine to twelve in the morning, five to six in the evening. Businessmen would achieve better results if they studied human metabolism. No one works well eight hours a day. No one ought to work more than four hours.

Fires can’t be made with dead embers, nor can enthusiasm be stirred by spiritless men. Enthusiasm in our daily work lightens effort and turns even labor into pleasant tasks.

90 percent of my time is spent on 10 percent of the world.

Plans are nothing; planning is everything.

While we are postponing, life speeds by.

Prayer is simply talking to God like a friend and should be the easiest thing we do each day.

Did you know there’s a difference between being busy and being fruitful? Did you ever stop to think that just being busy – running around in circles all day but not accomplishing anything – is the same as wasting your time? It’s frustrating to expend so much energy and time and not have any fruit from your effort!

If you cannot concentrate, you are not so happy.

I never drink coffee at lunch. I find it keeps me awake for the afternoon.

A bachelor’s life is a fine breakfast, a flat lunch, and a miserable dinner.

Either you run the day or the day runs you.

I have a fundamental belief in the Bible as the Word of God, written by those who were inspired. I study the Bible daily.

I don’t have time to stand around and listen to an 11-minute song.

So much of what we do every single day is the result of habits that we have formed over time.

Trouble springs from idleness, and grievous toil from needless ease.

Talk that does not end in any kind of action is better suppressed altogether.

Oh, give us the man who sings at his work.

Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.

There can be economy only where there is efficiency.

You can’t think; you just gotta do things.

Anticipate the difficult by managing the easy.

Every time I have to look up a word in the dictionary, I’m delighted.

Friends are thieves of time.

We always have time enough, if we will but use it aright.

When I wake up, I expect things to be good. If they’re not, then I try to set about trying to make them as good as I can ‚cause I know I’m gonna have to live that day anyway. So why not try to make the most of it if you can? Some days, they pan out a little better than others, but you still gotta always just try.

When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive – to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.

I like working. That’s when I’m feeling my best. And the people around me know that. My wife knows that.

Most people dream a dream when they are asleep. But to be a writer, you have to dream while you are awake, intentionally. So I get up early in the morning, 4 o’clock, and I sit at my desk and what I do is just dream. After three or four hours, that’s enough. In the afternoon, I run. The next day, the dream will continue.

Outlook 2003 did create the idea of search folders and the whole Longhorn philosophy. You can see it at work in search folders, where instead of having to drop things into individual folders, and things exist only in one folder, you create these search folders and you have the criteria for the search folder.

Idleness is the beginning of all vice, the crown of all virtues.

I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.

In one way, I suppose, I have been ‚in denial‘ for some time, knowingly burning the candle at both ends and finding that it often gives a lovely light.

If you love something – and there are things that I love – you do want more and more and more of it, but that’s not the way to produce good work.

I’m not a health freak. I just work out every day.

Every day we should hear at least one little song, read one good poem, see one exquisite picture, and, if possible, speak a few sensible words.

I never see what has been done; I only see what remains to be done.

An ant on the move does more than a dozing ox.

It is the working man who is the happy man. It is the idle man who is the miserable man.

I don’t spend my time pontificating about high-concept things; I spend my time solving engineering and manufacturing problems.

Nearly everything you do is of no importance, but it is important that you do it.

If we go on your iPhone and go to the dictionary and look up ‚humble,‘ 80 per cent of the definition is negative. It’s a controlling word. It’s a way to control the masses and to control the sheep.

There is a great discovery still to be made in literature, that of paying literary men by the quantity they do not write.

Laziness may appear attractive, but work gives satisfaction.

Energy begets energy.