In a lot of ways, success is much harder than I thought it would be. I figured that you’d get here and then everything would be happily ever after. But, it’s hard work, almost harder once you’re successful because you’ve got to maintain it.

In any court-like environment of power, you will inevitably find people who are drawn to those who are successful or powerful, not out of admiration, but out of secret envy.

The reason we want to go on and on is because we live in an impoverished present.

Not to go back is somewhat to advance, and men must walk, at least, before they dance.

I had real plans for my next decade and felt I’d worked hard enough to earn it. Will I really not live to see my children married? To watch the World Trade Center rise again? To read – if not indeed write – the obituaries of elderly villains like Henry Kissinger and Joseph Ratzinger?

Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.

I pass my life in preventing the storm from blowing down the tent, and I drive in the pegs as fast as they are pulled up.

There’s a lot of pressure putting an album out all over the world and hoping people everywhere like it.

A man can do only what he can do. But if he does that each day he can sleep at night and do it again the next day.

Never leave a rhinestone unturned.

If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help… Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business – you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.

And Barack and I were raised with so many of the same values, like you work hard for what you want in life. That your word is your bond; that you do what you say you’re going to do. That you treat people with dignity and respect, even if you don’t know them and even if you don’t agree with them.

When I signed up for BFC, then-coach Ashley Westwood wanted me to play on the left as an attacking midfielder. I was not sure initially but I believed in his vision. For the first six-seven games, I didn’t really know what I was doing. I was like a headless chicken. But he kept backing me.

Winning, to me, is easy. Winning more is the challenge.

In this great country, we celebrate success. We don’t want to penalize those who have done well.

Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value.

Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever.

Literature adds to reality, it does not simply describe it. It enriches the necessary competencies that daily life requires and provides; and in this respect, it irrigates the deserts that our lives have already become.

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

History has demonstrated that the most notable winners usually encountered heartbreaking obstacles before they triumphed. They won because they refused to become discouraged by their defeats.

Never let your head hang down. Never give up and sit down and grieve. Find another way. And don’t pray when it rains if you don’t pray when the sun shines.

Many are stubborn in pursuit of the path they have chosen, few in pursuit of the goal.

In this knowledge-worker age, it’s now increasingly tied to doing well in school so you can get into better grad schools so you can get better jobs – so the pressure to do well is really high.

You can’t have it all, all at once. Who – man or woman – has it all, all at once? Over my lifespan, I think I have had it all. But in different periods of time, things were rough. And if you have a caring life partner, you help the other person when that person needs it.

In other words, don’t expect to always be great. Disappointments, failures and setbacks are a normal part of the lifecycle of a unit or a company and what the leader has to do is constantly be up and say ‚we have a problem, let’s go and get it‘.

This is no time for ease and comfort. It is time to dare and endure.

So long as a man imagines that he cannot do this or that, so long as he is determined not to do it; and consequently so long as it is impossible to him that he should do it.

All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.

After all those years in Asia, I don’t have to do promotion anymore. We just release a Jackie Chan movie and – Boom! – people go.

Whatever you want to do, do with full passion and work really hard towards it. Don’t look anywhere else. There will be a few distractions, but if you can be true to yourself, you will be successful for sure.

The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.

I grew up where, when a door closed, a window didn’t open. The only thing I had was cracks. I’d do everything to get through those cracks – scratch, claw, bite, push, bleed. Now the opportunity is here. The door is wide open, and it’s as big as a garage.

One word from the Lord is like a piece of gold to a believer, who is like a jeweler, shaping and hammering out the promise for a number of weeks.

Take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly, and try another. But by all means, try something.

I’m not who people expect me to be. I’m not Henry Kissinger.

Not knowing when the dawn will come I open every door.

Not every difficult and dangerous thing is suitable for training, but only that which is conducive to success in achieving the object of our effort.

Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed there are many rewards, if you disgrace yourself you can always write a book.

Just because you make a good plan, doesn’t mean that’s what’s gonna happen.

What if nothing exists and we’re all in somebody’s dream?

He that can have patience can have what he will.

Now we’re in the midst of not just advocating for change, not just calling for change – we’re doing the grinding, sometimes frustrating work of delivering change – inch by inch, day by day.

By indignities men come to dignities.

Excellence is to do a common thing in an uncommon way.

If my films don’t show a profit, I know I’m doing something right.

At the core, one of my original goals is to redefine what the streets expect.

Truth will ultimately prevail where there is pains to bring it to light.

I’ve never gone into business to make money. Every Virgin product and service has been made into a reality to make a positive difference in people’s lives. And by focusing on the happiness of our customers, we have been able to build a successful group of companies.

Often people become our friend or follower with an undercurrent of resentment in our having more success than they have. They secretly desire the opportunity to take us down a notch; they have a nose for any misstep on our part they can exploit.

Nothing is so discouraging to an actor than to have to work for long hours upon hours in brightly lighted interior sets.

All ballplayers should quit when it starts to feel as if all the baselines run uphill.

Man needs his difficulties because they are necessary to enjoy success.

Great dreams of great dreamers are always transcended.

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

Americans never quit.

My goals are so high that I don’t have time to relax in any way, shape or form.

Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before.

Music will never go away, and I will never stop making music; it’s just what capacity or what arena you decide to do it.

I still have my first paycheck. It was just, I think, a dollar or two that I got when I started as a songwriter with BMI, and I had some songs there that I had through the company, and in the mail I got this big old check for, like, a dollar and a half or something. Somebody had recorded one of my songs.

Genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains.

In order to become prosperous, a person must initially work very hard, so he or she has to sacrifice a lot of leisure time.