I know what it feels like to struggle to get the education that you need.

I notice that young men go to the universities in order to become doctors or philosophers or anything, so long as it is a title, and that many go in for those professions who are utterly unfit for them, while others who would be very competent are prevented by business or their daily cares, which keep them away from letters.

Let reverence for the laws be breathed by every American mother to the lisping babe that prattles on her lap – let it be taught in schools, in seminaries, and in colleges; let it be written in primers, spelling books, and in almanacs; let it be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed in legislative halls, and enforced in courts of justice.

You may write me down in history with your bitter, twisted lines. You may trod me in the very dirt, but still, like dust, I’ll rise.

The marvelous richness of human experience would lose something of rewarding joy if there were no limitations to overcome. The hilltop hour would not be half so wonderful if there were no dark valleys to traverse.

We combat obstacles in order to get repose, and when got, the repose is insupportable.

Most of the problems a President has to face have their roots in the past.

College isn’t the place to go for ideas.

Why not whip the teacher when the pupil misbehaves?

I focus on one thing and one thing only – that’s trying to win as many championships as I can.

What old people say you cannot do, you try and find that you can. Old deeds for old people, and new deeds for new.

It’s a piece of cake until you get to the top. You find you can’t stop playing the game the way you’ve always played it.

When I do something, I do it full steam ahead.

I add this, that rational ability without education has oftener raised man to glory and virtue, than education without natural ability.

Sometimes you have to take two steps back to take ten forward.

For my part, I desire to see the time when education – and by its means, morality, sobriety, enterprise and industry – shall become much more general than at present, and should be gratified to have it in my power to contribute something to the advancement of any measure which might have a tendency to accelerate the happy period.

Will power is to the mind like a strong blind man who carries on his shoulders a lame man who can see.

It isn’t sufficient just to want – you’ve got to ask yourself what you are going to do to get the things you want.

I know how to swim through backlash. I can tread water through backlash… If anything, that’s all giving me power.

‚They‘ are the people that don’t believe in you, that say that you won’t succeed. We stay away from ‚They.‘

The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.

I’m not the kind of cat that’s going to cut off an ear if I can’t do something.

Sure it’s a big job; but I don’t know anyone who can do it better than I can.

To survive it is often necessary to fight and to fight you have to dirty yourself.

The Creator has not thought proper to mark those in the forehead who are of stuff to make good generals. We are first, therefore, to seek them blindfold, and then let them learn the trade at the expense of great losses.

Most of us aren’t defeated in one decisive battle. We are defeated one tiny, seemingly insignificant surrender at a time that chips away at who we should really be.

It is the fight alone that pleases us, not the victory.

Imagine your family finally making it from nothing to something, and finally getting things going, and finally buying a beautiful house and taking care of your children – and the next day, it’s completely all gone. Zero. Boom. Flat broke. So that’s when I had to man up.

I plan on taking athletics as far as I can.

Knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind.

By indignities men come to dignities.

Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.

Life isn’t meant to be easy. It’s hard to take being on the top – or on the bottom. I guess I’m something of a fatalist. You have to have a sense of history, I think, to survive some of these things… Life is one crisis after another.

Better to have beasts that let themselves be killed than men who run away.

I’ve got two daughters. 9 years old and 6 years old. I am going to teach them first of all about values and morals. But if they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby.

My dad has kind of been the standard for me, he played 16 years in the league, and since I’ve been in the league, every year that I go through and deal with the scratches, the bumps and bruises, just the grind that it is to go through one NBA season.

The educated differ from the uneducated as much as the living from the dead.

We are born weak, we need strength; helpless, we need aid; foolish, we need reason. All that we lack at birth, all that we need when we come to man’s estate, is the gift of education.

I won at every level – all the way since I started playing the game of basketball at nine. I’ve won at every level, won championships at every level. And, you know, it won’t be fulfilled until I win at the highest level.

The young think that failure is the Siberian end of the line, banishment from all the living, and tend to do what I then did – which was to hide.

There are two kinds of teachers: the kind that fill you with so much quail shot that you can’t move, and the kind that just gives you a little prod behind and you jump to the skies.

Failure after long perseverance is much grander than never to have a striving good enough to be called a failure.

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

I go to school the youth to learn the future.

Until we’re educating every kid in a fantastic way, until every inner city is cleaned up, there is no shortage of things to do.

Courage is being scared to death… and saddling up anyway.

You’ve got to go out on a limb sometimes because that’s where the fruit is.

If something’s important enough, you should try. Even if – the probable outcome is failure.

We are often raised as dependents then given over to teachers. It’s experience and exploration that can transform us and lead to mastery.

Nothing in education is so astonishing as the amount of ignorance it accumulates in the form of inert facts.

We do not learn; and what we call learning is only a process of recollection.

Neither a wise man nor a brave man lies down on the tracks of history to wait for the train of the future to run over him.

Many parents and teachers have become irritated to the point of distraction at the way the weed-style growth of ‚like‘ has spread through the idiom of the young. And it’s true that in some cases the term has become simultaneously a crutch and a tic, driving out the rest of the vocabulary as candy expels vegetables.

It’s hard to tell with these Internet startups if they’re really interested in building companies or if they’re just interested in the money. I can tell you, though: If they don’t really want to build a company, they won’t luck into it. That’s because it’s so hard that if you don’t have a passion, you’ll give up.

Well, I wouldn’t say that I was in the great class, but I had a great time while I was trying to be great.

Speaking English is like tongue-twist for me. I can speak each word perfect, but then you have to string them together like, ‚Blah, blah, blah.‘ That’s when I get crazy.

Kites rise highest against the wind – not with it.

No man can succeed in a line of endeavor which he does not like.

Your success and happiness lies in you. Resolve to keep happy, and your joy and you shall form an invincible host against difficulties.

Keep your eyes on the stars, and your feet on the ground.

I didn’t go to university. Didn’t even finish A-levels. But I have sympathy for those who did.