It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it.

I love having my hands in the dirt. It is never a science and always an art. There are no rules. And if it comes down to me versus that weed I’m trying to pull out of the ground that doesn’t want to come out? I know I’ll win.

Take the diplomacy out of war and the thing would fall flat in a week.

After many years of great mercy, after tasting of the powers of the world to come, we still are so weak, so foolish; but, oh! when we get away from self to God, there all is truth and purity and holiness, and our heart finds peace, wisdom, completeness, delight, joy, victory.

The line between failure and success is so fine that we scarcely know when we pass it: so fine that we are often on the line and do not know it.

This desk of mine is one at which a man may die, but from which he cannot resign.

Never, never, never give up.

With audacity one can undertake anything, but not do everything.

With Malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds.

Whenever you’re in conflict with someone, there is one factor that can make the difference between damaging your relationship and deepening it. That factor is attitude.

Real firmness is good for anything; strut is good for nothing.

A lot has happened over the years. And while this nation has been tested by war, and it’s been tested by recession and all manner of challenges – I stand before you again tonight, after almost two terms as your president, to tell you I am more optimistic about the future of America than ever before.

I felt unhappy and trapped. If I left baseball, where could I go, what could I do to earn enough money to help my mother and to marry Rachel? The solution to my problem was only days away in the hands of a tough, shrewd, courageous man called Branch Rickey, the president of the Brooklyn Dodgers.

I just want to do God’s will. And he’s allowed me to go to the mountain. And I’ve looked over, and I’ve seen the promised land! I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the promised land.

With patient and firm determination, I am going to press on for jobs. I’m going to press on for equality. I’m going to press on for the sake of our children. I’m going to press on for the sake of all those families who are struggling right now. I don’t have time to feel sorry for myself. I don’t have time to complain. I am going to press on.

Drink is the only opponent I have been unable to beat.

I can tell you this: If I’m ever in a position to call the shots, I’m not going to rush to send somebody else’s kids into a war.

A disagreement or incident involving someone who’s not that important to you, like a guy who cut you off in traffic or a rude cashier, is something that should roll off your shoulders. Save the effort for resolving conflicts with the people you cherish.

The man who is intent on making the most of his opportunities is too busy to bother about luck.

I always try to do as much as I can do. I’m never a person that does not enough, because I’d regret not doing enough and think I probably could have done more. I probably go too far and have to reel myself back in, which works in some things, and other things it doesn’t work.

I got a greater purpose. God put something in my heart to get across, and that’s what I’m going to focus on, using my voice as an instrument and doing what needs to be done.

If there be no enemy there’s no fight. If no fight, no victory and if no victory there is no crown.

When you are asked if you can do a job, tell ‚em, ‚Certainly I can!‘ Then get busy and find out how to do it.

I’m not the kind of cat that’s going to cut off an ear if I can’t do something.

I never could have done what I have done without the habits of punctuality, order, and diligence, without the determination to concentrate myself on one subject at a time.

I never thought of losing, but now that it‘ s happened, the only thing is to do it right. That’s my obligation to all the people who believe in me. We all have to take defeats in life.

When we make progress quickly, it feeds our emotions. Then, when there’s a period of waiting or we hit a plateau, we find out how committed we really are and whether we’re going to see things through to the finish or quit.

Success comes to those who have an entire mountain of gold that they continually mine, not those who find one nugget and try to live on it for fifty years.

War is war. The only good human being is a dead one.

The best preparation for tomorrow is doing your best today.

Yesterday’s home runs don’t win today’s games.

You can’t try to do things; you simply must do them.

I’m a big perfectionist! I’m trying to channel super-confident women like Alicia Keys, Mariah Carey and Beyonce, because I realized that if you want something, you really have to go for it, just like they do.

Neither a wise man nor a brave man lies down on the tracks of history to wait for the train of the future to run over him.

Someone said to me, ‚If fifty percent of the experts in Hollywood said you had no talent and should give up, what would you do?‘ My answer was then and still is, ‚If a hundred percent told me that, all one hundred percent would be wrong.‘

There are no pleasures in a fight but some of my fights have been a pleasure to win.

Great achievement is usually born of great sacrifice, and is never the result of selfishness.

Gains achieved at great cost against our enemy in Afghanistan are reversible.

War is mainly a catalogue of blunders.

No man ever achieved worth-while success who did not, at one time or other, find himself with at least one foot hanging well over the brink of failure.

It’s a lose-lose situation to get in a confrontation on the street. If you can break contact and get away, break contact and get away. That’s what you should learn self-defense for.

If you don’t like what someone has to say, argue with them.

More than an end to war, we want an end to the beginning of all wars – yes, an end to this brutal, inhuman and thoroughly impractical method of settling the differences between governments.

I had a rough childhood coming up, and I just took all that negative energy and made it very positive for myself to drive me. I’m a very driven person. I have passion that almost scares people, just to be successful and make it no matter what.

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.

The first step on the way to victory is to recognize the enemy.

Human beings must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it.

In war there is no prize for runner-up.

Never hold discussions with the monkey when the organ grinder is in the room.

I don’t believe in pessimism. If something doesn’t come up the way you want, forge ahead. If you think it’s going to rain, it will.

Don’t swap horses in crossing a stream.

We cannot be both the world’s leading champion of peace and the world’s leading supplier of the weapons of war.

Pull the string, and it will follow wherever you wish. Push it, and it will go nowhere at all.

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

It is the set of the sails, not the direction of the wind that determines which way we will go.

Example is leadership.

I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has had to overcome while trying to succeed.

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

As a professional athlete a lot is going to be said about you – but I just try to move forward and try to achieve my goals.

Unless you are breaking stuff, you are not moving fast enough.

How you respond to the challenge in the second half will determine what you become after the game, whether you are a winner or a loser.