I like to use the hard times in the past to motivate me today.

My friends, no matter how rough the road may be, we can and we will, never, never surrender to what is right.

A #2 pencil and a dream can take you anywhere.

I hope my story inspires everyone out there to keep hustling and chasing their dreams.

The shortest answer is doing the thing.

What I want for my fans and for the world, for anyone who feels pain, is to lean into that pain and embrace it as much as they can and begin the healing process.

Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.

I have brought myself, by long meditation, to the conviction that a human being with a settled purpose must accomplish it, and that nothing can resist a will which will stake even existence upon its fulfillment.

Aim for the highest.

I always was that person who was hard on myself and challenged myself no matter what I was doing, whether it was passing third grade or playing basketball.

I’m sure like everyone else I’m not always the happiest if I don’t do a good job in quali or the race or whatever, so I think beating myself up sometimes makes me work harder.

Adversity is sometimes hard upon a man; but for one man who can stand prosperity, there are a hundred that will stand adversity.

The best workers, like the happiest livers, look upon their work as a kind of game: the harder they play the more enjoyable it becomes.

The one excellent thing that can be learned from a lion is that whatever a man intends doing should be done by him with a whole-hearted and strenuous effort.

I am not afraid of saying something and going and pursuing it. That’s it. I see it in my mind. I say it out loud. I go and do it.

Everyone goes through adversity in life, but what matters is how you learn from it.

When I was nine years old, living on the south side of Chicago, my father was a minister and my mother used to scrub floors. I had seven brothers and four sisters. I told my mama, ‚One of these days I’m going to be big and strong and buy you a beautiful house.‘ That’s all I’ve ever wanted to do with my life, is to take care of my mother.

Successful people will always tell you you can do something. It’s the people who have never accomplished anything who will always discourage you from trying to achieve excellent things.

There are a lot of ‚chicken Christians.‘ Chickens are generally afraid of life, and they seldom fly or reach their potential in life. And when a storm comes, all they seem to do is flap around the chicken yard, stirring up dirt and running to the chicken house.

I just kind of wake up with a new idea and new dreams every day, and I follow that dream, as they say.

Chaotic action is preferable to orderly inaction.

Nothing will work unless you do.

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.

Of course, I do everything for money.

The important thing is that your teammates have to know you’re pulling for them and you really want them to be successful.

Any of us can be happy and have a good attitude when everything is going our way. But I believe it’s the real test of your character and of your faith to say, ‚Things are not going our way, but I’m still being good to people; I’m still attending church; I still have a good attitude.‘

I’m on record that it didn’t really traumatize me to do away with some people.

Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your position falls, your ego goes with it.

Maybe other people will try to limit me but I don’t limit myself.

I was always trying – I never wanted to let my fans down; I always wanted them to see me in my art form.

If you keep proving stuff that others have done, getting confidence, increasing the complexities of your solutions – for the fun of it – then one day you’ll turn around and discover that nobody actually did that one!

I believe enlightenment or revelation comes in daily life. I look for joy, the peace of action. You need action. I’d have stopped writing years ago if it were for the money.

Great thoughts speak only to the thoughtful mind, but great actions speak to all mankind.

I think that at the start of a game, you’re always playing to win, and then maybe if you’re ahead late in the game, you start playing not to lose. The true competitors, though, are the ones who always play to win.

In my career as a director, there’s always been some point where you get halfway through it, or three-quarters, and you go: ‚What is this thing all about, and why am I telling the story? Does anybody really care about seeing this?‘ At that time you have to say: ‚OK, forget that and just go ahead.‘

Victory belongs to the most persevering.

All of my favorite people – people I really trust – none of them were cool in their younger years.

It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.

Chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken.

The moment the alarm goes off is the first test; it sets the tone for the rest of the day. The test is not a complex one: when the alarm goes off, do you get up out of bed, or do you lie there in comfort and fall back to sleep? If you have the discipline to get out of bed, you win – you pass the test.

I know that I always wanted things. I was always proud of my people, proud of my home, but I always wanted more. I think most people do.

Be above it! Make the world serve your purpose, but do not serve it.

The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure, the process is its own reward.

There is only one way… to get anybody to do anything. And that is by making the other person want to do it.

All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost; the old that is strong does not wither, deep roots are not reached by the frost.

Don’t despair, not even over the fact that you don’t despair.

Look within. Within is the fountain of good, and it will ever bubble up, if thou wilt ever dig.

Discontent, blaming, complaining, self-pity cannot serve as a foundation for a good future, no matter how much effort you make.

He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.

The empires of the future are the empires of the mind.

Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.

If a man does his best, what else is there?

I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it.

Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.

What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight – it’s the size of the fight in the dog.

That some achieve great success, is proof to all that others can achieve it as well.

I’m not gonna be bad at anything, and I want to actually be the best at anything I’m doing. So if I’m playing basketball, if I’m taking the SATs, like, there’s a competitive spirit behind it. With production, it’s the same thing.

Everybody has a purpose.

In the realm of ideas everything depends on enthusiasm… in the real world all rests on perseverance.

As fire when thrown into water is cooled down and put out, so also a false accusation when brought against a man of the purest and holiest character, boils over and is at once dissipated, and vanishes and threats of heaven and sea, himself standing unmoved.

Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for love of it.