If you want to achieve something, you build the basis for it.

Purity of personal life is the one indispensable condition for building up a sound education.

Never succumb to the temptation of bitterness.

Winners embrace hard work. They love the discipline of it, the trade-off they’re making to win. Losers, on the other hand, see it as punishment. And that’s the difference.

Stop setting goals. Goals are pure fantasy unless you have a specific plan to achieve them.

The first quality that is needed is audacity.

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

People have this capacity within them to set the world straight.

I have two Golden Boot awards at home. It would be nice to win another, but I wouldn’t mind it if I didn’t.

Never, and I mean never, allow anyone else’s ideas of who you can or can’t become sully your dream or pollute your imagination. This is your territory, and a ‚Keep Out‘ sign is a great thing to erect at all entrances to your imagination.

We must think and act like a nation of a billion people and not like that of a million people. Dream, dream, dream!

I’m never gonna step away from stand-up. I can’t. That’s what got me where I am, and that’s also my muse. That’s how I stay level-headed. That’s what keeps me going.

Business is never so healthy as when, like a chicken, it must do a certain amount of scratching around for what it gets.

Carry the battle to them. Don’t let them bring it to you. Put them on the defensive and don’t ever apologize for anything.

He who laughs best today, will also laughs last.

Education can become a self-fulfilling activity, liberating in and of itself.

Put it this way: If I asked, ‚How’s business?‘ and you say, ‚Boomin‘ or ‚Amazing,‘ I already know the answer.

Some people see things that are and ask, Why? Some people dream of things that never were and ask, Why not? Some people have to go to work and don’t have time for all that.

Do not let circumstances control you. You change your circumstances.

Unless and until you inspire the people, you will not get results. Imposition will never give you the results. Inspiration will always give you the results.

When new turns of behavior cease to appear in the life of the individual, its behavior ceases to be intelligent.

I am proud of having done what I’ve done. Very proud.

And winning is a huge thing for me.

My enthusiasm seems to cause my world to endlessly offer me cooperative, co-creating experiences. I’m willing and I’m eager, and not just about my writing – I feel the same way about staying in shape, enjoying my family, giving a lecture, or whatever it may be.

Do the thing you fear to do and keep on doing it… that is the quickest and surest way ever yet discovered to conquer fear.

We are never defeated unless we give up on God.

Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail.

People want you to fail.

If you’re living in your time, you cannot help but to write about the things that are important.

Ever since I was a little kid, I wanted to be in combat.

Success is getting what you want. Happiness is liking what you get.

A great secret of success is to go through life as a man who never gets used up.

Natural ability without education has more often attained to glory and virtue than education without natural ability.

We must build dikes of courage to hold back the flood of fear.

I was always told as a child by my mother that you always have to be impeccable, even when you go to bed.

For unflagging interest and enjoyment, a household of children, if things go reasonably well, certainly all other forms of success and achievement lose their importance by comparison.

‚Happiness‘ is a pointless goal.

I like to use the hard times in the past to motivate me today.

The compensation of a very early success is a conviction that life is a romantic matter. In the best sense one stays young.

We’re constantly striving for success, fame and comfort when all we really need to be happy is someone or some thing to be enthusiastic about.

I believe that if you show people the problems and you show them the solutions they will be moved to act.

I was lucky – I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents‘ garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years, Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees.

You know, not to sound corny or nuthin‘, but I felt like a fighter comin‘ up, man. I felt like, you know, I’m being attacked for this reason or that reason, and I gotta fight my way through this.

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

The unassuming youth seeking instruction with humility gains good fortune.

Number of people have said to me, after hearing your thinking, their mind becomes much more happier.

There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision.

Small aim is a crime.

If we’re going to bring out the best in people, we, too, need to sow seeds of encouragement.

No crime is so great as daring to excel.

It is for us to pray not for tasks equal to our powers, but for powers equal to our tasks, to go forward with a great desire forever beating at the door of our hearts as we travel toward our distant goal.

Choose people who lift you up.

When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.

I got a signed document from Bullock’s saying that they had such-and-such drawings on consignment. Of course, nobody bought any of them, but otherwise, I was a big success: I had my drawings on sale at Bullock’s!

I bought a company in the mid-’90s called Dexter Shoe and paid $400 million for it. And it went to zero. And I gave about $400 million worth of Berkshire stock, which is probably now worth $400 billion. But I’ve made lots of dumb decisions. That’s part of the game.

I only want my work to make people happy.

Never say anything about yourself you do not want to come true.

Don’t wait. The time will never be just right.

I get up every morning and say, ‚Father, give me strength today, not strength so I can lift 500 pounds, but give me strength, Lord, so when I speak, my words might motivate, might inspire somebody, Lord, when they see me, let them see you. When they hear me, Lord, let them hear you. In your holy name I pray.‘

Wood burns because it has the proper stuff in it; and a man becomes famous because he has the proper stuff in him.

You know, there is always times where you feel discouraged and things coming against you, but I don’t know if I ever wanted to throw in the towel.