I think we’re going to the moon because it’s in the nature of the human being to face challenges. It’s by the nature of his deep inner soul… we’re required to do these things just as salmon swim upstream.

Start wide, expand further, and never look back.

I worked out early on to give up things I couldn’t do well at all.

Music is not math. It’s science. You keep mixing the stuff up until it blows up on you, or it becomes this incredible potion.

I was raised on, ‚You go get a nine-to-five job, earn your pay and work your way up.‘

Trials teach us what we are; they dig up the soil, and let us see what we are made of.

He who loves practice without theory is like the sailor who boards ship without a rudder and compass and never knows where he may cast.

Genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains.

The absurd depends as much on man as on the world. For the moment, it is all that links them together.

It’s the philosophies of being an athlete that carry me today.

You can’t die with an unfinished book.

If the tongue had not been framed for articulation, man would still be a beast in the forest.

I’ve heard there are troubles of more than one kind; some come from ahead, and some come from behind. But I’ve brought a big bat. I’m all ready, you see; now my troubles are going to have troubles with me!

There are horrible people who, instead of solving a problem, tangle it up and make it harder to solve for anyone who wants to deal with it. Whoever does not know how to hit the nail on the head should be asked not to hit it at all.

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!

It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare, it is because we do not dare that they are difficult.

I will prepare and some day my chance will come.

It’s not just human nature to associate in tribes. It’s deeper than that.

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

I’ve had all six of my books reach the New York Times bestseller list, which is especially rewarding seeing as I flunked out of high school twice because I couldn’t write. It just goes to show you that we learn from our mistakes.

Once I’ve decided to do something, I do usually try to carry it through to fruition.

Men weren’t always happy for me. It was very challenging to watch a woman be so successful.

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

It’s human nature to blame someone else for your shortcomings or upsets.

Lot’s wife, of course, was told not to look back where all those people and their homes had been. But she did look back, and I love her for that, because it was so human.

If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly.

Experience demands that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the general prey of the rich on the poor.

I always try to do as much as I can do. I’m never a person that does not enough, because I’d regret not doing enough and think I probably could have done more. I probably go too far and have to reel myself back in, which works in some things, and other things it doesn’t work.

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.

Home life is no more natural to us than a cage is natural to a cockatoo.

We cannot direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails.

In college, a loss is pretty devastating. That feeling kind of goes away in an 82-game season. You hate to lose, but you also have a lot more games to make up for it.

I’m never gonna step away from stand-up. I can’t. That’s what got me where I am, and that’s also my muse. That’s how I stay level-headed. That’s what keeps me going.

To keep the business going, you gotta keep it boomin‘.

Seventy percent of success in life is showing up.

Talking is a hydrant in the yard and writing is a faucet upstairs in the house. Opening the first takes the pressure off the second.

We humans are self-absorbed by nature, and spend most of our time focusing inwardly on our emotions, on our wounds, on our fantasies.

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.

Men are by nature merely indifferent to one another; but women are by nature enemies.

So long as men worship the Caesars and Napoleons, Caesars and Napoleons will duly arise and make them miserable.

The principle that human nature, in its psychological aspects, is nothing more than a product of history and given social relations removes all barriers to coercion and manipulation by the powerful.

The music we do is for people to enjoy, dance and sing to it. Dreamers – keep on dreaming and keep working hard to achieve your goals. There are many difficulties, but what matters is to stay focused and have perseverance.

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

No man is ever whipped until he quits in his own mind.

I’ve got a woman’s ability to stick to a job and get on with it when everyone else walks off and leaves it.

I tell people, and it’s the truth, I could sit in my garage for a week and it won’t make me a car. And you can sit in church till your bottom is flat and that won’t make you a servant of Christ.

Really I don’t like human nature unless all candied over with art.

It’s life isn’t it? You plow ahead and make a hit. And you plow on and someone passes you. Then someone passes them. Time levels.

I have discovered that all human evil comes from this, man’s being unable to sit still in a room.

We should not moor a ship with one anchor, or our life with one hope.

I’m convinced that no one can amount to a damn in the arts if he becomes sweetly reasonable, seeing all sides of a picture, forgiving all sins.

A professor must have a theory as a dog must have fleas.

The truest wisdom is a resolute determination.

If thou art a man, admire those who attempt great things, even though they fail.

Get up tomorrow early in the morning, and earlier than you did today, and do the best that you can. Always stay near me, for tomorrow I will have much to do and more than I ever had, and tomorrow blood will leave my body above the breast.

Though men determine, the gods doo dispose: and oft times many things fall out betweene the cup and the lip.

My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it.

A man can do only what he can do. But if he does that each day he can sleep at night and do it again the next day.

Any man may easily do harm, but not every man can do good to another.

Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.

People want you to fail.