If a subject excites us, if it stirs our deepest curiosity, or if we have to learn because the stakes are high, we pay much more attention. What we absorb sinks in.

The only shame is to have none.

I’ve always written songs the same way. You learn different tricks – you learn craft, you learn structure, all that – as you go.

Too often we act – ask our schools to be truant officers, our teachers to be truant officers, because we’re giving them children who have, you know, they’re not ready to learn. And if they’re not ready to learn by the third grade, they know they’re behind.

I’m sure that at no point in my life could I ever have shown the kind of focus and discipline and commitment necessary to work a station at elBulli or Le Bernardin. No. That ain’t me.

Kids will remind you that, even though you’ve gone down a road 100 times, it’s brand new for them – and that’s healthy.

It’s not ‚can‘; it’s ‚will.‘ You have to will things into fruition.

Most people work just hard enough not to get fired and get paid just enough money not to quit.

Anyone can be a Superman, but nobody can be Jackie Chan.

I’m an expert typist. I learned in high school. I would close my eyes and just type without worrying about mistakes. I tried to penetrate my heart, and as I let my thoughts drift, things bubbled up to the surface.

Sometimes people make it seem like you have to have certain prerequisites or a crazy life story in order to be successful in this world. But the truth is you really don’t.

Patience is a virtue, and I’m learning patience. It’s a tough lesson.

I was trying to daydream, but my mind kept wandering.

We are all geniuses up to the age of ten.

There are two ways of exerting one’s strength: one is pushing down, the other is pulling up.

I’m sure like everyone else I’m not always the happiest if I don’t do a good job in quali or the race or whatever, so I think beating myself up sometimes makes me work harder.

Only if you have been in the deepest valley, can you ever know how magnificent it is to be on the highest mountain.

Don’t just read the easy stuff. You may be entertained by it, but you will never grow from it.

It is a profound and necessary truth that the deep things in science are not found because they are useful; they were found because it was possible to find them.

I always believe that there should come a time when your energy, speed, stamina should combine well with your brains.

Applause is the spur of noble minds, the end and aim of weak ones.

I’d have stopped writing years ago if it were for the money.

I went through every emotion with tryna pursue what I’m doing, you know what I mean? And I think what’s gon‘ separate whoever’s gon go for something, that you ain’t gon‘ quit.

If you look at anyone who has achieved great success and wealth, people like Warren Buffett, Oprah Winfrey, or Lance Armstrong, they have all focused intensely in order to win.

It is necessary for me to establish a winner image. Therefore, I have to beat somebody.

Have you not learned that strength comes to an ordinary soul when given an extraordinary calling?

The mixed martial arts way of life will give you focus.

Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.

Entrepreneurs are natural problem-solvers, which means that we always have ideas for new businesses popping into our heads. Having a lot of options is great, but sometimes it can be hard to focus on one when you are keen to move onto the next.

We will explore the mysteries of science and harness the power of technology and innovation. We will realise the opportunities of the digital world. Our youth will learn more from – and with – each other.

Faced with what is right, to leave it undone shows a lack of courage.

Racing, competing, it’s in my blood. It’s part of me, it’s part of my life; I have been doing it all my life and it stands out above everything else.

Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.

Don’t find fault, find a remedy.

I know a lot of people say they always believed they could get into F1, but I didn’t quite believe that, certainly not when I was 7 and maybe not until I was 14. It was always so far away.

When your desires are strong enough you will appear to possess superhuman powers to achieve.

To me, business isn’t about wearing suits or pleasing stockholders. It’s about being true to yourself, your ideas and focusing on the essentials.

Never succumb to the temptation of bitterness.

Giving up cannot be an option.

I’m a can-do girl.

Alas! You complain that your soul is out of tune. Then ask the Master to tune the heart-strings.

Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance.

Working with a guy like Ice Cube on ‚Ride Along,‘ you learn so much. He’s a guy who produces, writes, and directs, so you watch and learn and ask questions. As you go, you learn and figure out what you should and shouldn’t do. I do nothing but soak up information.

Patriotism, when it wants to make itself felt in the domain of learning, is a dirty fellow who should be thrown out of doors.

It was clear to me that if I could get through Princeton at the top of my class, I could do anything in the world.

Why don’t they pass a constitutional amendment prohibiting anybody from learning anything? If it works as well as prohibition did, in five years Americans would be the smartest race of people on Earth.

The average person puts only 25% of his energy and ability into his work. The world takes off its hat to those who put in more than 50% of their capacity, and stands on its head for those few and far between souls who devote 100%.

I actually don’t read most of the coverage about Facebook. I try to learn from getting input from people who use our services directly more than from pundits.

Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.

I don’t believe we are supposed to go through life defeated and not having enough money to pay our bills or send our kids to college.

It is hard to interest those who have everything in those who have nothing.

I take inspiration from everyone and everything. I’m inspired by current champions, former champions, true competitors, people dedicated to their dream, hard workers, dreamers, believers, achievers.

I find the whole business of religion profoundly interesting. But it does mystify me that otherwise intelligent people take it seriously.

This is a world of action, and not for moping and droning in.

We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop.

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

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.

The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.

I am like a man so busy in letting rooms in one end of his house, that he can’t stop to put out the fire that is burning the other.

You don’t learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing, and by falling over.

I want to represent… to the kids to draw strength from me. So they can see that everybody goes through something, but you can rise up and do your best. Just try.