I’m never any good in the morning. It is only after four in the afternoon that I get going.

Trouble springs from idleness, and grievous toil from needless ease.

Progressively saved by the machine from the anxieties that bound his hands and mind to material toil, relieved of a large part of his work and compelled to an ever-increasing speed of action by the devices which his intelligence cannot help ceaselessly creating and perfecting, man is about to find himself abruptly plunged into idleness.

Yes, sir, no, sir, clock in, clock out. Why were you late? Why are you not in today? That’s not how humans are supposed to live.

The expectations of life depend upon diligence; the mechanic that would perfect his work must first sharpen his tools.

Do what nobody else can do for you. Omit to do anything else.

Time is money.

There is one thing that gets you out of bed in the morning, and that is discipline. Because your dreams and your goals are not there waking up for you in the morning.

Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid.

In my father’s generation, the product was 80 percent of what you were putting into the world, and your personal life was 20 percent. It now seems that 80 percent of the product I put out is silly, made-up stories and what I’m wearing.

Every man is a consumer, and ought to be a producer. He is by constitution expensive, and needs to be rich.

The least productive people are usually the ones who are most in favor of holding meetings.

Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.

The brain is a wonderful organ; it starts working the moment you get up in the morning and does not stop until you get into the office.

Good management consists in showing average people how to do the work of superior people.

The sum of wisdom is that time is never lost that is devoted to work.

The best workers, like the happiest livers, look upon their work as a kind of game: the harder they play the more enjoyable it becomes.

It’s not fun to get out of bed early in the morning. When the alarm goes off, it doesn’t sing you a song: it hits you in the head with a baseball bat. So how do you respond to that? Do you crawl underneath your covers and hide? Or do you get up, get aggressive, and attack the day?

Time is the friend of the wonderful company, the enemy of the mediocre.

For me, training is my meditation, my yoga, hiking, biking all rolled into one. Wake up early in the morning, generally around 4 o’clock, and I’ll do my cardio on an empty stomach. Stretch, have a big breakfast, and then I’ll go train.

A man is not paid for having a head and hands, but for using them.

It may be the cock that crows, but it is the hen that lays the eggs.

There can be economy only where there is efficiency.

I would venture to guess that the biggest reason creative types don’t produce isn’t because they don’t have vision… or talent… in most cases, it’s a lack of discipline.

Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs.

I’ve always liked being busy. If I have nothing to do for a week, it just makes me mad.

As long as your intentions are solid and about growth and progression and being productive and not being idle, then you’re doing good in my book.

Work is the meat of life, pleasure the dessert.

When there’s so much left to do, why spend your time focusing on things you’ve already done, counting trophies or telling stories about the good old days?

It usually helps me write by reading – somehow the reading gear in your head turns the writing gear.

He does not seem to me to be a free man who does not sometimes do nothing.

Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.

When asked, ‚How do you write?‘ I invariably answer, ‚one word at a time.‘

Writing and cafes are strongly linked in my brain.

We must use time as a tool, not as a couch.

I don’t know about other people, but I love to work.

It is the working man who is the happy man. It is the idle man who is the miserable man.

One cannot become a saint when one works sixteen hours a day.

Men do less than they ought, unless they do all that they can.

Always do whatever’s next.

Three o’clock is always too late or too early for anything you want to do.

The bottom line is, when people are crystal clear about the most important priorities of the organization and team they work with and prioritized their work around those top priorities, not only are they many times more productive, they discover they have the time they need to have a whole life.

If you believe in what you are doing, then let nothing hold you up in your work. Much of the best work of the world has been done against seeming impossibilities. The thing is to get the work done.

A little knowledge that acts is worth infinitely more than much knowledge that is idle.

About half my time is spent on business operation type stuff.

Why do people sit up so late, or, more rarely, get up so early? Not because the day is not long enough, but because they have no time in the day to themselves.

No matter what time it is, wake me, even if it’s in the middle of a Cabinet meeting.

If you’re not producing as much as you consume, or perhaps a little more, then clearly we cannot use the big organization of our society for the purpose of keeping you alive, because your life does not benefit us, and it can’t be of very much use to yourself.

Each morning when I awake, I experience again a supreme pleasure – that of being Salvador Dali.

I had a period in my life where I decided that I would never be bored again and that, if I had any free time at all, I would make plans, and I would always be doing things. It actually was great for a year or so, but then I lost all of my friends.

I’d have to be superman to do some of the things I’m supposed to have done, I’ve been at six different places at six different times.

I put out one album one week, and I’m already worried about the next one. I feel a lot of emotion throughout the course of a day. But not to the point where you need to be worried about me.

Yes, and I can sit down on a white piece of paper and work because I don’t believe too much into inspiration, only I’m waiting for inspiration, work and then inspiration may come. It’s a little too easy to say that.

Man is the only creature that consumes without producing. He does not give milk, he does not lay eggs, he is too weak to pull the plough, he cannot run fast enough to catch rabbits. Yet he is lord of all the animals.

Each day is a little life: every waking and rising a little birth, every fresh morning a little youth, every going to rest and sleep a little death.

I’m a writer, not a professional runner. It’s fun and it helps me write. I need powerful concentration.

I’m very much into making lists and breaking things apart into categories.

We’re the only animal that wakes up and doesn’t stretch.

I think how you start the day many times determines what kind of day you’re going to have.

People love chopping wood. In this activity one immediately sees results.

Folks, you’re the reason that the automobile industry is back. Whether it was the wage freezes, the plant closures, folks, you sacrificed to keep your companies open. Because of your productivity, the combined auto companies have committed to invest another $23 billion in expansion in America.