It’s like a muscle – if you stop going to the gym or stop running, you get weak. The military teaches you these great values, but we don’t keep up the discipline on our own, and we lose it. So wherever you go, keep that discipline up.

I didn’t get trained by the school system like other kids, and when I did concentrate on learning, my mind was cluttered and locked by the programming of the system.

I never see what has been done; I only see what remains to be done.

People want you to fail.

We learned about honesty and integrity – that the truth matters… that you don’t take shortcuts or play by your own set of rules… and success doesn’t count unless you earn it fair and square.

A man who has no office to go, to I don’t care who he is, is a trial of which you can have no conception.

Through perseverance many people win success out of what seemed destined to be certain failure.

People must have righteous principals in the first, and then they will not fail to perform virtuous actions.

Ambition is pitiless. Any merit that it cannot use it finds despicable.

Power is given only to those who dare to lower themselves and pick it up. Only one thing matters, one thing; to be able to dare!

Great is the power of habit. It teaches us to bear fatigue and to despise wounds and pain.

The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion.

You fail only if you stop writing.

We are motivated by a keen desire for praise, and the better a man is the more he is inspired by glory. The very philosophers themselves, even in those books which they write in contempt of glory, inscribe their names.

March on. Do not tarry. To go forward is to move toward perfection. March on, and fear not the thorns, or the sharp stones on life’s path.

If thou art a man, admire those who attempt great things, even though they fail.

He too serves a certain purpose who only stands and cheers.

We all sort of do want incentives for creative people to still exist at a certain level. You know, maybe rock stars shouldn’t make as much; who knows? But you want as much creativity to take place in the future as took place in the past.

We are all sculptors and painters, and our material is our own flesh and blood and bones. Any nobleness begins at once to refine a man’s features, any meanness or sensuality to imbrute them.

Make the most of your regrets; never smother your sorrow, but tend and cherish it till it comes to have a separate and integral interest. To regret deeply is to live afresh.

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

Success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom.

There are many things that happen every day that we could murmur about if we let ourselves go there. But they really aren’t worth the effort it takes to get upset and gripe about it.

We must exercise ourselves in the things which bring happiness, since, if that be present, we have everything, and, if that be absent, all our actions are directed toward attaining it.

For good nurture and education implant good constitutions.

It’s a rule to give all, and it can make the difference if you work more. If you don’t have to give all, and you still win, what’s this?

The first quality that is needed is audacity.

To make an embarrassing admission, I like video games. That’s what got me into software engineering when I was a kid. I wanted to make money so I could buy a better computer to play better video games – nothing like saving the world.

I have only one yardstick by which I test every major problem – and that yardstick is: Is it good for America?

I was in a terrible mess in my childhood.

The mind is the limit. As long as the mind can envision the fact that you can do something, you can do it, as long as you really believe 100 percent.

Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try!

My experience has been that work is almost the best way to pull oneself out of the depths.

As a novelist, you could say that I am dreaming while I am awake, and every day I can continue with yesterday’s dream. Because it is a dream, there are so many contradictions and I have to adjust them to make the story work. But, in principle, the original dream does not change.

One that desires to excel should endeavor in those things that are in themselves most excellent.

It has always been my belief that a man should do his best, regardless of how much he receives for his services, or the number of people he may be serving or the class of people served.

I have a memory, and I can just eliminate mistakes when they come up because I’ve already made them.

Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact.

With Kansas, I had a four-year deal. The initial two months were real tough. I had to adjust a lot. Then, things started looking up.

I would rather earn 1% off a 100 people’s efforts than 100% of my own efforts.

There is only one way… to get anybody to do anything. And that is by making the other person want to do it.

I don’t believe in killing whatever the reason!

What by a straight path cannot be reached by crooked ways is never won.

The greatest mistake you can make in life is continually fearing that you’ll make one.

I think beating myself up sometimes and knowing I am not happy when I do it makes me work harder to do a good job.

A man will fight harder for his interests than for his rights.

Energy and persistence conquer all things.

Without a sense of urgency, desire loses its value.

It’s easy to get negative because you get beat down. You go through a few disappointments and it’s easy to stay in that negative frame of mind. Choosing to be positive and having a grateful attitude is a whole cliche, but your attitude is going to determine how you’re going to live your life.

It is an unfortunate human failing that a full pocketbook often groans more loudly than an empty stomach.

We never fail when we try to do our duty, we always fail when we neglect to do it.

I liked to write from the time I was about 12 or 13. I loved to read. And since I only spoke to my brother, I would write down my thoughts. And I think I wrote some of the worst poetry west of the Rockies. But by the time I was in my 20s, I found myself writing little essays and more poetry – writing at writing.

I kept writing not because I felt I was so good, but because I felt they were so bad, including Shakespeare, all those. The stilted formalism, like chewing cardboard.

Becoming an inspiration for kids is great. I want to inspire them to do whatever they want to.

I mean we all need a second chance sometimes.

Ambition is a dream with a V8 engine.

Wisdom stands at the turn in the road and calls upon us publicly, but we consider it false and despise its adherents.

I am not afraid of saying something and going and pursuing it. That’s it. I see it in my mind. I say it out loud. I go and do it.

I have always reckoned the dignity of the republic of first importance and preferable to life.

Since we cannot know all that there is to be known about anything, we ought to know a little about everything.

Your philosophy determines whether you will go for the disciplines or continue the errors.