I would rather earn 1% off a 100 people’s efforts than 100% of my own efforts.

Collegiality is crucial to the success of our mission. We could not do the job the Constitution assigns to us if we didn’t – to use one of Justice Antonin Scalia’s favorite expressions – ‚Get over it!‘

I enjoy competition. I enjoy challenges. If a challenge is in front of me and it appeals to me, I will go ahead and conquer it.

Why go through life if you’re not going to challenge yourself?

He only employs his passion who can make no use of his reason.

Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk with love and reverence.

To go beyond is as wrong as to fall short.

The limits of the possible can only be defined by going beyond them into the impossible.

Better to fight for something than live for nothing.

Moral authority is never retained by any attempt to hold on to it. It comes without seeking and is retained without effort.

Cruel leaders are replaced only to have new leaders turn cruel.

I’d like to do a completely off-the-wall collaboration. I would like one of my songs to be the hook to a rap song. That would be so much fun!

I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious.

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 is a tide in the affairs of men, Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat. And we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures.

Ability is nothing without opportunity.

The mob is the mother of tyrants.

I often say of George Washington that he was one of the few in the whole history of the world who was not carried away by power.

Just because I managed to do a little something, I don’t want anyone back home to think I got the big head.

I can’t ever remember sitting around and saying, ‚gosh let’s hurry up and get these debates going, that’ll win it for me.‘ Nope.

People have to go through trials and tribulations to get where they at. Do your thing – continue to rock it – because obviously, God wants you here.

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

Effort only fully releases its reward after a person refuses to quit.

When you have box-office results, Hollywood treats you different. Hollywood stands up. Once you get to the point where Hollywood sees that you create results, then the demand for you becomes higher.

Our best thoughts come from others.

To become ‚unique,‘ the challenge is to fight the hardest battle which anyone can imagine until you reach your destination.

Bring them on.

How very little can be done under the spirit of fear.

I love to see a young girl go out and grab the world by the lapels.

When you are in any contest, you should work as if there were – to the very last minute – a chance to lose it. This is battle, this is politics, this is anything.

Old age is like everything else. To make a success of it, you’ve got to start young.

If you plan on being anything less than you are capable of being, you will probably be unhappy all the days of your life.

There wasn’t much as a kid that inspired me in what I did as an adult, but I was always very interested in what motivates people, and in telling stories and building things.

When the best leader’s work is done the people say, ‚We did it ourselves.‘

Though I do not believe that a plant will spring up where no seed has been, I have great faith in a seed… Convince me that you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders.

Even if you have nothing to write, write and say so.

It has been my observation that most people get ahead during the time that others waste.

This industry has been really good to me. It’s been a great life. I’m not through yet. I’m ready when you are, Mr. DeMille.

A wise man is cured of ambition by ambition itself; his aim is so exalted that riches, office, fortune and favour cannot satisfy him.

The thing I always say to people is this: ‚If you avoid failure, you also avoid success.‘

Sometimes it is better to light a flamethrower than curse the darkness.

My celebrity status allows me an opportunity, allows me a pulpit to preach and reach out to the people. Not even always preaching but just leading, motivating them by being a leader.

Learned helplessness is the giving-up reaction, the quitting response that follows from the belief that whatever you do doesn’t matter.

Actions are the seed of fate deeds grow into destiny.

If you get an opportunity to work with David Simon, anybody with good taste would.

There is always the danger that we may just do the work for the sake of the work. This is where the respect and the love and the devotion come in – that we do it to God, to Christ, and that’s why we try to do it as beautifully as possible.

The beginning is the most important part of the work.

Good leaders must communicate vision clearly, creatively, and continually. However, the vision doesn’t come alive until the leader models it.

The rich are those who play to win. The middle class plays not to lose.

I know of no single formula for success. But over the years I have observed that some attributes of leadership are universal and are often about finding ways of encouraging people to combine their efforts, their talents, their insights, their enthusiasm and their inspiration to work together.

We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten. Don’t let yourself be lulled into inaction.

Execute every act of thy life as though it were thy last.

Fortune befriends the bold.

My mother and my father have been married 50 years, and he’s just started to understand that something’s wrong with the system. He accepted the whole thing, you see. Yet this industrious kind of engagement didn’t bring him the success, according to American terms, that he wanted. I was probably affected by this very much. In fact, I know I was.

My job is to play quarterback, and I’m going to do that the best way I know how, because I owe that to my teammates regardless of who is out there on the field with me.

It’s rule number one, really – beating your teammate.

Natural ability without education has more often raised a man to glory and virtue than education without natural ability.

I remember talking with Arcade Fire after their first record, when they were getting all kinds of offers from major labels, and I don’t think I gave them any advice. They survived that whole onslaught pretty well anyway without me.

The most successful detectives owe their success to noticing small signs. Scouts are natural detectives and never let the smallest detail escape them. These small things are called by Scouts ‚Sign.‘

With realization of one’s own potential and self-confidence in one’s ability, one can build a better world.

There is a great deal of difference between an eager man who wants to read a book and the tired man who wants a book to read.