If you get knocked down – setbacks in life, like applying for a job if they don’t hire you – keep trying, keep getting up, keep doing it.

The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew.

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.

Nothing can resist the person who smiles at life – I don’t mean the ironic and disillusioned smile of my grandfather, but the triumphant smile of the person who knows that he will survive, or that at least he will be saved by what seems to be destroying him.

Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.

As we advance in life it becomes more and more difficult, but in fighting the difficulties the inmost strength of the heart is developed.

We work to become, not to acquire.

Some of us think holding on makes us strong; but sometimes it is letting go.

I am prepared to resort to anything, to submit to anything, for the sake of the commonwealth.

I want kids to know: Don’t wait for somebody to come along and tell you you’re special. Because that may never happen.

It always remains true that if we had been greater, circumstance would have been less strong against us.

Let him that would move the world first move himself.

We are America, second to none, and we own the finish line. Don’t forget it.

That’s when you know you’re the greatest: when you’re the greatest, and people still put odds against you.

The very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream.

I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.

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.

He who waits to do a great deal of good at once will never do anything.

It is a no-fail, incontrovertible reality: If you get, give. If you learn, teach. You can’t do anything with that except do it.

I’d be so bored if I wasn’t going out there, knowing that I could still do it. So, I’m going to work hard to be ready to go, and I still plan on playing for a long time.

It is always your next move.

Those who dare to fail miserably can achieve greatly.

People who are unable to motivate themselves must be content with mediocrity, no matter how impressive their other talents.

Rule number one is: Beat your team-mate.

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

There are many ways of going forward, but only one way of standing still.

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.

If a man knows not what harbor he seeks, any wind is the right wind.

I am looking for a lot of men who have an infinite capacity to not know what can’t be done.

If you are the kind of person who is waiting for the ‚right‘ thing to happen, you might wait for a long time. It’s like waiting for all the traffic lights to be green for five miles before starting the trip.

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

Of course, there are those critics – New York critics as a rule – who say, ‚Well, Maya Angelou has a new book out and of course it’s good but then she’s a natural writer.‘ Those are the ones I want to grab by the throat and wrestle to the floor because it takes me forever to get it to sing. I work at the language.

People need hard times and oppression to develop psychic muscles.

You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose. You’re on your own, and you know what you know. And you are the guy who’ll decide where to go.

I know how to swim through backlash. I can tread water through backlash… If anything, that’s all giving me power.

We should not moor a ship with one anchor, or our life with one hope.

I tell everybody, I get so much because I give so much. I give freely, I give all my time, give all my money, give all of my soul. I try to motivate people. I try to inspire them.

As for accomplishments, I just did what I had to do as things came along.

Getting out of bed is like the foundation of the discipline, and I think it carries over into everything else.

Whether you think that you can, or that you can’t, you are usually right.

I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life.

It is easy to get everything you want, provided you first learn to do without the things you cannot get.

There’s a lack of people in power that are motivated by the idea of helping people.

What is not started today is never finished tomorrow.

You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‚I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.‘

It is reasonable to have perfection in our eye that we may always advance toward it, though we know it can never be reached.

I’ve had some dark nights of the soul, of course, but giving in to depression would be a sellout, a defeat.

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.

The thornbush is the old obstacle in the road. It must catch fire if you want to go further.

Life is a series of experiences, each one of which makes us bigger, even though sometimes it is hard to realize this. For the world was built to develop character, and we must learn that the setbacks and grieves which we endure help us in our marching onward.

Ambition is a dream with a V8 engine.

Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.

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.

Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.

Not brute force but only persuasion and faith are the kings of this world.

I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do.

Courage is fear holding on a minute longer.

Disciplining yourself to do what you know is right and important, although difficult, is the highroad to pride, self-esteem, and personal satisfaction.

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

Better to have beasts that let themselves be killed than men who run away.

I’m a fighter, I’m a winner, and I’m not interested in just battling my team-mate for the back of the grid.