I wasn’t sure of the exact mindset you should have when you go into a Test match. So I probably became too defensive when I played my first Test match. Short balls in one-day cricket, I have never thought of just defending.

We can feel joy even while having a bad day, a bad week, or even a bad year!

The joy of doing well as a batsman for your country is much more than that little joy of going for a party and enjoying music. It is a completely different high, and I get high by performances. That’s what I enjoy now.

The greatest gift is the ability to forget – to forget the bad things and focus on the good.

A man’s as miserable as he thinks he is.

The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want and if they can’t find them, make them.

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

If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were precisely those who thought most of the next. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this.

I have always thought I was the best ever player.

Choosing to be positive and having a grateful attitude is going to determine how you’re going to live your life.

Everything you are against weakens you. Everything you are for empowers you.

When I started Virgin from a basement in west London, there was no great plan or strategy. I didn’t set out to build a business empire… For me, building a business is all about doing something to be proud of, bringing talented people together and creating something that’s going to make a real difference to other people’s lives.

I think there is a lot made out of age, and what age you feel.

Life consists in what a man is thinking of all day.

I’m extremely willful to win, and I respond to challenges. Scoring titles and stuff like that… it sounds, well, I don’t care how it sounds – to me, scoring comes easy. It’s not a challenge to me to win the scoring title, because I know I can.

Baseball has the great advantage over cricket of being sooner ended.

Just as your car runs more smoothly and requires less energy to go faster and farther when the wheels are in perfect alignment, you perform better when your thoughts, feelings, emotions, goals, and values are in balance.

Life must be lived as play.

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

He that is giddy thinks the world turns round.

Some of the generals are saying, ‚We’re making progress. We are clearing an area.‘ But you really don’t defeat the Taliban by clearing an area. They move.

We should be too big to take offense and too noble to give it.

A lot of people think international relations is like a game of chess. But it’s not a game of chess, where people sit quietly, thinking out their strategy, taking their time between moves. It’s more like a game of billiards, with a bunch of balls clustered together.

No enterprise is more likely to succeed than one concealed from the enemy until it is ripe for execution.

Education forms the common mind. Just as the twig is bent, the tree’s inclined.

We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.

You might not always get what you want, but you always get what you expect.

The happiness of this life depends less on what befalls you than the way in which you take it.

The female loves to play man against man. And if she is in a position to do it, there is not one who will resist.

Let others lead small lives, but not you. Let others argue over small things, but not you. Let others cry over small hurts, but not you. Let others leave their future in someone else’s hands, but not you.

I think that we have opportunities all around us – sometimes we just don’t recognize them.

What this power is I cannot say; all I know is that it exists and it becomes available only when a man is in that state of mind in which he knows exactly what he wants and is fully determined not to quit until he finds it.

To make headway, improve your head.

The emotion to handle the pressure is one of the biggest challenges in football – it’s the top challenge.

You can’t be happy by doing something groovy.

Daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward; they may be beaten, but they may start a winning game.

I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about dying, but I like to think that I’ve – if it did occur – that I would die peacefully and not make too much of a fuss about it.

I thought one should have the attitude of ‚What do you care what other people think!‘

The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it.

I get nervous when I don’t get nervous. If I’m nervous I know I’m going to have a good show.

War is a game that is played with a smile. If you can’t smile, grin. If you can’t grin, keep out of the way till you can.

Fear is real, but so is love.

You have to feel confident. If you don’t, then you’re going to be hesitant and defensive, and there’ll be a lot of things working against you.

The bottom line is that everyone thinks differently.

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

One might say that our words are a movie screen that reveals what we have been thinking and the attitudes we have.

I didn’t get trained by the school system like other kids, and when I did concentrate on learning, my mind was cluttered and locked by the programming of the system.

The secret to success is to offend the greatest number of people.

On a given day, a given circumstance, you think you have a limit.

It is a fine game to play – the game of politics – and it is well worth waiting for a good hand before really plunging.

If one is lucky, a solitary fantasy can totally transform one million realities.

My philosophy is: It’s none of my business what people say of me and think of me.

The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.

The wise are instructed by reason, average minds by experience, the stupid by necessity and the brute by instinct.

My focus had always been the on-side. My coach wanted me to work on the offside strokes since he was convinced of my ability and timing on the leg side. I worked hard and firmed up my defensive technique. I am happy getting runs all around the wicket now, and getting a lot of boundaries. No one calls me a ‚leggie batsman‘ anymore.

If you are going to achieve excellence in big things, you develop the habit in little matters. Excellence is not an exception, it is a prevailing attitude.

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

Men are disturbed not by things, but by the view which they take of them.

You can sometimes play some really good football and not score.

If someone you know makes a bad decision or uses bad judgment, it doesn’t mean you have to allow that to alter your attitude. Why should you allow anyone else’s bad decisions to send you into a tailspin of misery?

Quitting doesn’t enter my mind.