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

The person we believe ourselves to be will always act in a manner consistent with our self-image.

Ethics is in origin the art of recommending to others the sacrifices required for cooperation with oneself.

Truth cannot be brought down; rather, the individual must make the effort to ascend to it. You cannot bring the mountaintop to the valley. If you would attain to the mountaintop, you must pass through the valley, climb the steeps, unafraid of the dangerous precipices.

Control your own destiny! Control your own destiny!

Don’t let your ego get too close to your position, so that if your position gets shot down, your ego doesn’t go with it.

I have wasted my hours.

It’s important that we invest in America – literally. The terrorists wanted to destroy our economy, and we can’t let our system fall apart. We also have to invest in one another.

I always kind of see how I want things to be better, and I’m generally not happy with how things are or the level of service that we’re providing for people or the quality of the teams that we built. But if you look at this objectively, we’re doing so well on so many of these things. I think it’s important to have gratitude for that.

Stand a little less between me and the sun.

I had given up some youth for knowledge, but my gain was more valuable than the loss.

Nay, be a Columbus to whole new continents and worlds within you, opening new channels, not of trade, but of thought.

Thought once awakened does not again slumber; unfolds itself into a System of Thought; grows, in man after man, generation after generation, – till its full stature is reached, and such System of Thought can grow no farther, but must give place to another.

People who pity themselves think, ‚Why would I try to do anything? I’ll just fail.‘

In our obscurity – in all this vastness – there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us.

The more man meditates upon good thoughts, the better will be his world and the world at large.

Education doesn’t change life much. It just lifts trouble to a higher plane of regard.

One of the things I’ve told men over and over and over and over is if you’re being rejected by all the women that you approach, it’s not the women!

I knew I wasn’t going to be a rocket scientist – let’s not be fools – but I wasn’t going to be a bum.

You cannot change your destination overnight, but you can change your direction overnight.

I have trouble with letting go. That’s my problem.

I realize I don’t do a very good job in keeping up to date, but I try to.

Who you are speaks so loudly I can’t hear what you’re saying.

You have a more interesting life if you wear impressive clothes.

Let everyone try and find that as a result of daily prayer he adds something new to his life, something with which nothing can be compared.

The major reason for setting a goal is for what it makes of you to accomplish it. What it makes of you will always be the far greater value than what you get.

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

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.

With any recovery from morbidity there must go a certain healthy humiliation.

People don’t care about what someone says about you in a movie – or even what you say, right? They care about what you build. And if you can make something that makes people’s life better, then that’s something that’s really good.

The most important thing is to read as much as you can, like I did. It will give you an understanding of what makes good writing and it will enlarge your vocabulary.

You cannot push any one up a ladder unless he be willing to climb a little himself.

I enjoy competition. I enjoy challenges. If a challenge is in front of me and it appeals to me, I will go ahead and conquer it.

There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that’s your own self.

Life can be boring unless you put some effort into it.

People have this capacity within them to set the world straight.

It’s really hard to guarantee things in life. I guarantee if you get up in the morning and you work out, and you work hard, you will have a better day – 100% guaranteed.

Men do change, and change comes like a little wind that ruffles the curtains at dawn, and it comes like the stealthy perfume of wildflowers hidden in the grass.

If you try to protect yourself from pain, it becomes a stone in your heart. But the more you learn to face things, the more likely that stone can become a pearl.

Children sweeten labours, but they make misfortunes more bitter.

They know enough who know how to learn.

It seems, in fact, as though the second half of a man’s life is made up of nothing, but the habits he has accumulated during the first half.

Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers.

A lot of people are afraid to tell the truth, to say no. That’s where toughness comes into play. Toughness is not being a bully. It’s having backbone.

Vanity is great motivation, to be fair.

Mastery passes often for egotism.

I’m such a good lover because I practice a lot on my own.

The older I get the more wisdom I find in the ancient rule of taking first things first. A process which often reduces the most complex human problem to a manageable proportion.

The point in history at which we stand is full of promise and danger. The world will either move forward toward unity and widely shared prosperity – or it will move apart.

He who speaks without modesty will find it difficult to make his words good.

Purity of personal life is the one indispensable condition for building up a sound education.

Here is the rule to remember in the future, When anything tempts you to be bitter: not, ‚This is a misfortune‘ but ‚To bear this worthily is good fortune.‘

I’m always disappointed when people don’t live up to their potential. I know that a number of people look down on themselves and consequently on everybody who looks like them. But that, too, can change.

Subdue your appetites, my dears, and you’ve conquered human nature.

I don’t have any oratory skills. But I would not use them if I had.

Men acquire a particular quality by constantly acting in a particular way.

I don’t think there’s anyone who would say they don’t want or need more of God’s power in their life.

It creeps me out sometimes to think of the person I was. I was a terrible person. I was mean to people.

While you’re saving your face, you’re losing your ass.

‚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.

I approach love differently now that I know it’s hard for it to work out.