I was born in Harlem, raised in the South Bronx, went to public school, got out of public college, went into the Army, and then I just stuck with it.

The men who learn endurance, are they who call the whole world, brother.

Without failure there is no achievement.

I do not think that there is any other quality so essential to success of any kind as the quality of perseverance. It overcomes almost everything, even nature.

Confidence is always a good thing to have going into the weekend. Especially where it’s quite difficult to put the lap together.

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

I think a big test we all face in life on a regular basis is that discouragement test. Life’s not always fair, but I believe if you keep doing the right thing, God will get you to where you are.

Being president is like being a jackass in a hailstorm. There’s nothing to do but to stand there and take it.

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.

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.

When you are a beginning film maker you are desperate to survive. The most important thing in the end is survival and being able to get to your next picture.

No matter what happens on the field, getting an education makes you a winner.

The most challenging project I’ve ever done, I think, is every single thing I’ve ever tried to do. It’s never easy.

All ballplayers should quit when it starts to feel as if all the baselines run uphill.

He that lives upon hope will die fasting.

Quitting doesn’t enter my mind.

I started writing at the kitchen table after midnight. It took ten months to finish that first book; I sent it to a publisher and I got some kind of prize, so it was like a dream – I was surprised to find it happening.

Patience is not simply the ability to wait – it’s how we behave while we’re waiting.

Time and the hour run through the roughest day.

The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion.

My honour was not yielded, but conquered merely.

Sometimes if you got a problem deep rooted in your life, it takes a little bit of time to overcome it in that area.

There are only two forces in the world, the sword and the spirit. In the long run the sword will always be conquered by the spirit.

While we may lose heart, we never have to lose hope.

People want you to fail.

Great is the power of habit. It teaches us to bear fatigue and to despise wounds and pain.

The path we have chosen for the present is full of hazards, as all paths are. The cost of freedom is always high, but Americans have always paid it. And one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of surrender, or submission.

They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea.

I think music is something that can, and should, be used to get you into different things because eventually what goes up must come down – we’re not going to be the number one group in the world forever – so you have to have something else to fall back on.

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.

I go on working for the same reason that a hen goes on laying eggs.

We must walk consciously only part way toward our goal, and then leap in the dark to our success.

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

A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is brave five minutes longer.

When facing a difficult task, act as though it is impossible to fail. If you are going after Moby Dick, take along the tartar sauce.

What we hope ever to do with ease, we must learn first to do with diligence.

The greater the difficulty, the greater the glory.

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

You aren’t going to find anybody that’s going to be successful without making a sacrifice and without perseverance.

The more I see of deer, the more I admire them as mountaineers. They make their way into the heart of the roughest solitudes with smooth reserve of strength, through dense belts of brush and forest encumbered with fallen trees and boulder piles, across canons, roaring streams, and snow-fields, ever showing forth beauty and courage.

The Lord gets his best soldiers out of the highlands of affliction.

The greatest difficulty always comes right before the birth of a dream.

Failures, repeated failures, are finger posts on the road to achievement. One fails forward toward success.

There has never yet been a man in our history who led a life of ease whose name is worth remembering.

It always seems impossible until it’s done.

I don’t focus on the critics. Everyone who is making any difference in any field has critics. As long as I feel like I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing, then I don’t worry about it.

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

Losing is not an option in Kolkata. It’s not easy, a lot of players even quit.

Do the difficult things while they are easy and do the great things while they are small. A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.

The army is the true nobility of our country.

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.

The same law takes place in a system, consisting of many bodies, as in one single body, with regard to their persevering in their state of motion or of rest. For the progressive motion, whether of one single body or of a whole system of bodies, is always to be estimated from the motion of the center of gravity.

Life is thickly sown with thorns, and I know no other remedy than to pass quickly through them. The longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater is their power to harm us.

Never let your head hang down. Never give up and sit down and grieve. Find another way. And don’t pray when it rains if you don’t pray when the sun shines.

I was asked to act when I couldn’t act. I was asked to sing ‚Funny Face‘ when I couldn’t sing, and dance with Fred Astaire when I couldn’t dance – and do all kinds of things I wasn’t prepared for. Then I tried like mad to cope with it.

It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog.

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.

There is no comparison between that which is lost by not succeeding and that which is lost by not trying.

I plan on taking athletics as far as I can.

If there be no enemy there’s no fight. If no fight, no victory and if no victory there is no crown.

For a true writer, each book should be a new beginning where he tries again for something that is beyond attainment. He should always try for something that has never been done or that others have tried and failed. Then sometimes, with great luck, he will succeed.