Just as we develop our physical muscles through overcoming opposition – such as lifting weights – we develop our character muscles by overcoming challenges and adversity.

Every person above the ordinary has a certain mission that they are called to fulfill.

To remain a credible leader, I must always work first, hardest, and longest on changing myself. This is neither easy nor natural, but it is essential.

Love is the answer, and you know that for sure; Love is a flower, you’ve got to let it grow.

Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It’s perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we’ve learned something from yesterday.

We have to continue to learn. We have to be open. And we have to be ready to release our knowledge in order to come to a higher understanding of reality.

You can become an even more excellent person by constantly setting higher and higher standards for yourself and then by doing everything possible to live up to those standards.

Without deviation progress is not possible.

Until you have formed the habit of looking for the good instead of the bad there is in others, you will be neither successful nor happy.

The earth’s crust has not yet stopped heaving and plunging under our feet. Mountain ranges are still being thrust up on the horizon. Granites are still growing under the continental masses. Nor has the organic world ceased to produce new buds at the tips of its countless branches.

People who are unable to motivate themselves must be content with mediocrity, no matter how impressive their other talents.

I just have always felt that people don’t change, circumstances change.

Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment.

I am often asked if, when I was secretary, I had problems with foreign men. That is not who I had problems with, because I arrived in a very large plane that said United States of America. I had more problems with the men in our own government.

Science never solves a problem without creating ten more.

When people are very damaged, they can often meet the world with a kind of defiance.

These are the soul’s changes. I don’t believe in ageing. I believe in forever altering one’s aspect to the sun. Hence my optimism.

You must capture and keep the heart of the original and supremely able man before his brain can do its best.

It is easier to be critical than correct.

Seeing much, suffering much, and studying much, are the three pillars of learning.

If you’re put on a pedestal, you’re supposed to behave yourself like a pedestal type of person. Pedestals actually have a limited circumference. Not much room to move around.

If you keep proving stuff that others have done, getting confidence, increasing the complexities of your solutions – for the fun of it – then one day you’ll turn around and discover that nobody actually did that one!

Power is competence.

We are in a wrong state of mind if we are not in a thankful state of mind.

Character is higher than intellect. A great soul will be strong to live as well as think.

No crime is so great as daring to excel.

You need to overcome the tug of people against you as you reach for high goals.

Especially for those of us who lived in single cells, you had the time to sit down and think, and we discovered that sitting down just to think is one of the best ways of keeping yourself fresh and able, to be able to address the problems facing you, and you had the opportunity, also, of examining your past.

Growth is the great separator between those who succeed and those who do not. When I see a person beginning to separate themselves from the pack, it’s almost always due to personal growth.

While musical experts of the world focus on what choir members can do, I would like to focus on what choir members can be.

Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.

We need to recognize that the situation in Ferguson speaks to broader challenges that we still face as a nation. The fact is, in too many parts of this country, a deep distrust exists between law enforcement and communities of color. Some of this is the result of the legacy of racial discrimination in this country.

I don’t look at my old work. I mean, they made nice books; the books were made without me, the one from last year and the one from this year. I – personally, I’m not interested in my own past. I’m only interested in today – perhaps tomorrow.

‚Suffering should not make us bitter people,‘ my mother once said, ‚it should make us better comforters.‘ Young people need to hear this from those who have walked before them, because someday they’ll be walking those same steps, but there may not be anyone following behind.

Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.

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

If you must hold yourself up to your children as an object lesson, hold yourself up as a warning and not as an example.

I’m always trying. Between every book, I think, ‚Well now, it’s time to get down to the serious stuff.‘

When I wake up, I expect things to be good. If they’re not, then I try to set about trying to make them as good as I can ‚cause I know I’m gonna have to live that day anyway. So why not try to make the most of it if you can? Some days, they pan out a little better than others, but you still gotta always just try.

Man seems to be capable of great virtues but not of small virtues; capable of defying his torturer but not of keeping his temper.

I do understand it’s not easy to run an I-league club. I have been part of many and I know the scene.

Modesty is the color of virtue.

Character is power.

Little things console us because little things afflict us.

The U. S. Constitution doesn’t guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself.

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.

One mustn’t close one’s eyes to difficulty and to shortcomings; the more one recognizes them, the less they upset one.

My powers are ordinary. Only my application brings me success.

When a man is wrapped up in himself, he makes a pretty small package.

Brave men rejoice in adversity, just as brave soldiers triumph in war.

Because, you know, resilience – if you think of it in terms of the Gold Rush, then you’d be pretty depressed right now because the last nugget of gold would be gone. But the good thing is, with innovation, there isn’t a last nugget. Every new thing creates two new questions and two new opportunities.

The ideas gained by men before they are twenty-five are practically the only ideas they shall have in their lives.

New roads; new ruts.

He who is not everyday conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life.

If you wish to achieve worthwhile things in your personal and career life, you must become a worthwhile person in your own self-development.

There are no great limits to growth because there are no limits of human intelligence, imagination, and wonder.

Everybody wants to be me. What can I say?

Children always turn to the light.

If I were to try to read, much less answer, all the attacks made on me, this shop might as well be closed for any other business.

I hate what I look like on TV, and I want to look better, and nothing makes the mothers more jealous.

If your heart is a volcano, how shall you expect flowers to bloom?