I say luck is when an opportunity comes along and you’re prepared for it.

A man is what he thinks about all day long.

I’ll die a crazy old man!

Everything’s fine today, that is our illusion.

Basically, when you get to my age, you’ll really measure your success in life by how many of the people you want to have love you actually do love you.

Those who believe that they are exclusively in the right are generally those who achieve something.

On one of my last days at school, the headmaster said I would either end up in prison or become a millionaire. That was quite a startling prediction, but in some respects, he was right on both counts!

How people treat you is their karma; how you react is yours.

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

A brand for a company is like a reputation for a person. You earn reputation by trying to do hard things well.

Ability hits the mark where presumption overshoots and diffidence falls short.

I’m not a regrets-type person.

Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.

Remember, the storm is a good opportunity for the pine and the cypress to show their strength and their stability.

The first time I stepped on an NBA court I became a businessman.

Apply yourself both now and in the next life. Without effort, you cannot be prosperous. Though the land be good, You cannot have an abundant crop without cultivation.

Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but sometimes, playing a poor hand well.

So long as a man imagines that he cannot do this or that, so long as he is determined not to do it; and consequently so long as it is impossible to him that he should do it.

I’ve been very lucky, and therefore I owe it to try and reduce the inequity in the world. And that’s kind of a religious belief. I mean, it’s at least a moral belief.

The compensation of a very early success is a conviction that life is a romantic matter. In the best sense one stays young.

Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.

History has demonstrated that the most notable winners usually encountered heartbreaking obstacles before they triumphed. They won because they refused to become discouraged by their defeats.

If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.

Money, it turned out, was exactly like sex, you thought of nothing else if you didn’t have it and thought of other things if you did.

Perseverance is also key to success in any endeavor, but without perseverance in combat, there can be no victory.

I’m not the smartest fellow in the world, but I can sure pick smart colleagues.

It always seems impossible until it’s done.

Barack Obama would not be President if he were dark skin. You know what I mean? That’s just the truth. I might not be as successful as I am now if I was dark skin.

When you know what you want, and want it bad enough, you will find a way to get it.

You can choose a future where more Americans have the chance to gain the skills they need to compete, no matter how old they are or how much money they have. Education was the gateway to opportunity for me. It was the gateway for Michelle. And now more than ever, it is the gateway to a middle-class life.

Basically it starts with four months of training, just basic stretching, kicking and punching. Then you come to the choreography and getting ready to put the dance together.

Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither.

Every time you think the problem is ‚out there,‘ that very thought is the problem.

Never complain. Never explain.

Those who dare to fail miserably can achieve greatly.

Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure… than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.

But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.

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

Whatever you want to do, do with full passion and work really hard towards it. Don’t look anywhere else. There will be a few distractions, but if you can be true to yourself, you will be successful for sure.

I work all day, do research, sketch my ideas, prepare for performances.

Surface R&B doesn’t work any more. The whole heartthrob thing, songs about unrealistic love and tearing your shirt off every show – that’s not really where it’s at any more. It’s becoming harder for those guys to sell records, and harder for them to succeed.

The best luck of all is the luck you make for yourself.

Success is not to be pursued; it is to be attracted by the person you become.

Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.

Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.

I suppose your security is your success and your key to success is your fine palate.

Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings.

A flippant, frivolous man may ridicule others, may controvert them, scorn them; but he who has any respect for himself seems to have renounced the right of thinking meanly of others.

Fame itself… doesn’t really afford you anything more than a good seat in a restaurant.

If you work hard and play by the rules, this country is truly open to you. You can achieve anything.

You may think it was a very little thing, and in these days it seems to me like a trifle, but it was a most important incident in my life. I could scarcely credit that I, the poor boy, had earned a dollar in less than a day; that by honest work, I had earned a dollar. I was a more hopeful and thoughtful boy from that time.

Everybody asks if putting is like shooting free throws. It has a very similar kind of mindset. And it’s just you, the ball, and the target.

There is no value in life except what you choose to place upon it and no happiness in any place except what you bring to it yourself.

I’ve been pleased to work with so many wonderful stars through the years. This has been an amazing journey. I hope it continues.

If you’re afraid to fail, then you’re probably going to fail.

I stayed true to my dreams and, eventually, they came true.

I promise you, I will have something on the Internet that is game-changing. I can’t lose.

Great men are like eagles, and build their nest on some lofty solitude.

Diligence is the mother of good fortune.

There is probably a perverse pride in my administration… that we were going to do the right thing, even if short-term it was unpopular. And I think anybody who’s occupied this office has to remember that success is determined by an intersection in policy and politics and that you can’t be neglecting of marketing and P.R. and public opinion.

It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.