I’ve always been surrounded by many great people and professors, but my family, especially my mom who was a teacher, was the person who encouraged me to study and pushed me to continue. When we’re young, we don’t understand why our parents bug us so much with school and doing homework, but it’s a blessing to have that support at home.

Success or failure depends more upon attitude than upon capacity successful men act as though they have accomplished or are enjoying something. Soon it becomes a reality. Act, look, feel successful, conduct yourself accordingly, and you will be amazed at the positive results.

We must rekindle the fire of idealism in our society.

I used to feel unsafe right in the moment of an accomplishment – I felt the ground fall from under my feet because this could be the end. And even now, while everyone is celebrating, I’m on to the next thing. I don’t want to get lost in this big cushion of success.

He shines in the second rank, who is eclipsed in the first.

People respond when you tell them there is a great future in front of you, you can leave your past behind.

At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.

It’s a piece of cake until you get to the top. You find you can’t stop playing the game the way you’ve always played it.

That’s been one of my mantras – focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.

You have to stay in school. You have to. You have to go to college. You have to get your degree. Because that’s the one thing people can’t take away from you is your education. And it is worth the investment.

A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car; but if he has a university education, he may steal the whole railroad.

I long for the time when all human history is taught as one history, because it really is.

To lead people walk behind them.

The starting point of all achievement is desire.

We all have a tendency to avoid our weaknesses. When we do that, we never progress or get any better.

When I was growing up, my parents were almost involved in various volunteer things. My dad was head of Planned Parenthood. And it was very controversial to be involved with that.

It’s kind of fun to do the impossible.

If you can’t read, the only thing you can do is enjoy the pictures, not the whole story. Reading is the key to knowledge. Knowledge is the key to understanding. So read on, young man! Read on, young lady!

Politicians should read science fiction, not westerns and detective stories.

Look within. Within is the fountain of good, and it will ever bubble up, if thou wilt ever dig.

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.

We may stumble and fall but shall rise again; it should be enough if we did not run away from the battle.

You drown not by falling into a river, but by staying submerged in it.

In almost every area of human endeavor, the practice improves over time. That hasn’t been the case for teaching.

I tried acting, liked it, and stuck with it. I saw it as the way I would keep that promise to myself of getting back at those who had made my school life a misery.

You know, when I have a bad game, it continues to humble me and know that, you know, you still have work to do and you still have a lot of people to impress.

If what you did yesterday seems big, you haven’t done anything today.

You always want your people to be proud of what you have accomplished.

I want to appeal to everyone. Because I’m not saying I’m the best, but we the best.

The smarter the journalists are, the better off society is. For to a degree, people read the press to inform themselves – and the better the teacher, the better the student body.

The beginning is the most important part of the work.

If you plan on being anything less than you are capable of being, you will probably be unhappy all the days of your life.

A book should serve as the ax for the frozen sea within us.

Our Creator expects His children everywhere to educate themselves.

We must act out passion before we can feel it.

It’s not worth doing something unless you were doing something that someone, somewere, would much rather you weren’t doing.

You may think it was a very little thing, and in these days it seems to me like a trifle, but it was a most important incident in my life. I could scarcely credit that I, the poor boy, had earned a dollar in less than a day; that by honest work, I had earned a dollar. I was a more hopeful and thoughtful boy from that time.

All men are prepared to accomplish the incredible if their ideals are threatened.

Why should I be studying for a future that soon may not exist?

Man is not made for defeat.

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

Do not go gentle into that good night but rage, rage against the dying of the light.

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.

The most valuable of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it has to be done, whether you like it or not.

Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then, for a second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.

I just think it is important that you realize, that you’re the best in the world. Whether you are a Democrat or Republican or whether you’re libertarian or whatever, you are the best. And we should not ever forget that. And when somebody does not do the job, we got to let them go.

Quitting is the easiest thing to do.

The dreams and passions stored within hearts are powerful keys which can unlock a wealth of potential.

Nature knows no pause in progress and development, and attaches her curse on all inaction.

If you stop struggling, then you stop life.

Working hard is very important. You’re not going to get anywhere without working extremely hard.

There is always the danger that we may just do the work for the sake of the work. This is where the respect and the love and the devotion come in – that we do it to God, to Christ, and that’s why we try to do it as beautifully as possible.

Education is an ornament in prosperity and a refuge in adversity.

In a gentle way, you can shake the world.

You are important enough to ask and you are blessed enough to receive back.

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.

And so you touch this limit, something happens and you suddenly can go a little bit further. With your mind power, your determination, your instinct, and the experience as well, you can fly very high.

Why go through life if you’re not going to challenge yourself?

Know what you want to do, hold the thought firmly, and do every day what should be done, and every sunset will see you that much nearer to your goal.

If you enjoy living, it is not difficult to keep the sense of wonder.

The writer must believe that what he is doing is the most important thing in the world. And he must hold to this illusion even when he knows it is not true.