If you ask people what they’ve always wanted to do, most people haven’t done it. That breaks my heart.

Get action. Seize the moment. Man was never intended to become an oyster.

Few enterprises of great labor or hazard would be undertaken if we had not the power of magnifying the advantages we expect from them.

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

If you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work.

Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm.

Most of us aren’t defeated in one decisive battle. We are defeated one tiny, seemingly insignificant surrender at a time that chips away at who we should really be.

Live the life you’ve dreamed.

Motivation is the art of getting people to do what you want them to do because they want to do it.

There is a single light of science, and to brighten it anywhere is to brighten it everywhere.

The idea that to make a man work you’ve got to hold gold in front of his eyes is a growth, not an axiom. We’ve done that for so long that we’ve forgotten there’s any other way.

The good things of prosperity are to be wished; but the good things that belong to adversity are to be admired.

Work is the meat of life, pleasure the dessert.

If you tell me there’s something I can’t do, I’ll want to do it even more. Especially when it comes to entertaining.

Chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken.

If you want to shine like a sun, first burn like a sun.

I don’t want no handouts. I want to get it out the mud.

The secret is not to give up hope. It’s very hard not to because if you’re really doing something worthwhile I think you will be pushed to the brink of hopelessness before you come through the other side.

Do what you love. Know your own bone; gnaw at it, bury it, unearth it, and gnaw it still.

I can understand wanting to have millions of dollars; there’s a certain freedom, meaningful freedom, that comes with that.

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

Every season is a new challenge to me, and I always set out to improve in terms of games, goals, assists.

Never despair, but if you do, work on in despair.

Whatever you want to do, if you want to be great at it, you have to love it and be able to make sacrifices for it.

That service is the noblest which is rendered for its own sake.

I thought I couldn’t make a difference because I was too small.

The best preparation for good work tomorrow is to do good work today.

Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome.

When I was nine years old, living on the south side of Chicago, my father was a minister and my mother used to scrub floors. I had seven brothers and four sisters. I told my mama, ‚One of these days I’m going to be big and strong and buy you a beautiful house.‘ That’s all I’ve ever wanted to do with my life, is to take care of my mother.

You have to be smart. The easy days are over.

Take a chance! All life is a chance. The man who goes farthest is generally the one who is willing to do and dare.

Life is to be lived. If you have to support yourself, you had bloody well better find some way that is going to be interesting. And you don’t do that by sitting around.

We must not sit still and look for miracles; up and doing, and the Lord will be with thee. Prayer and pains, through faith in Christ Jesus, will do anything.

We are twice armed if we fight with faith.

I’ve experienced great things, I’ve experienced great tragedies. I’ve done almost everything I could possibly ever imagine doing, but I just know that there’s more.

When you are organizing a group of people, the first thing that we do is we talk about the history of what other people have been able to accomplish – people that look like them, workers like them, ordinary people, working people – and we give them the list: these are people like yourself; this is what they were able to do in their community.

Never bend your head. Always hold it high. Look the world straight in the eye.

Quitting is the easiest thing to do.

Satisfaction lies in the effort, not in the attainment, full effort is full victory.

Nothing is impossible, the word itself says ‚I’m possible‘!

If you’re not going to be rewarded for your virtues, and instead you’re going to be punished for them, then what’s your motivation to continue?

Everyone needs a coach. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a basketball player, a tennis player, a gymnast or a bridge player.

Once you begin to fall off the track and believe you breathe different air to everyone else, you’re doomed; you’re finished.

He shines in the second rank, who is eclipsed in the first.

Self-belief and hard work will always earn you success.

When we do the best that we can, we never know what miracle is wrought in our life, or in the life of another.

Nearly everything you do is of no importance, but it is important that you do it.

Love. Fall in love and stay in love. Write only what you love, and love what you write. The key word is love. You have to get up in the morning and write something you love, something to live for.

When it is obvious that the goals cannot be reached, don’t adjust the goals, adjust the action steps.

God wants you to be a winner, not a whiner.

I know so many people who feel hopeless, and they ask me, ‚What should I do?‘ And I say: ‚Act. Do something.‘ Because that is the best medicine against sadness and depression.

My old drama coach used to say, ‚Don’t just do something, stand there.‘ Gary Cooper wasn’t afraid to do nothing.

Those who create are rare; those who cannot are numerous. Therefore, the latter are stronger.

You see things; and you say ‚Why?‘ But I dream things that never were; and I say ‚Why not?‘

Never lose a holy curiosity.

The most important thing is to try and inspire people so that they can be great in whatever they want to do.

It is no use saying, ‚We are doing our best.‘ You have got to succeed in doing what is necessary.

Americans never quit.

Flaming enthusiasm, backed up by horse sense and persistence, is the quality that most frequently makes for success.

If you don’t drive your business, you will be driven out of business.

I don’t look to jump over 7-foot bars: I look around for 1-foot bars that I can step over.