Many men owe the grandeur of their lives to their tremendous difficulties.

Our deeds still travel with us from afar, and what we have been makes us what we are.

You don’t go to Notre Dame to learn something; you go to Notre Dame to be somebody.

Nothing stops the man who desires to achieve. Every obstacle is simply a course to develop his achievement muscle. It’s a strengthening of his powers of accomplishment.

Your decision to be, have and do something out of ordinary entails facing difficulties that are out of the ordinary as well. Sometimes your greatest asset is simply your ability to stay with it longer than anyone else.

Let us endeavor so to live so that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.

I would fain grow old learning many things.

Let everything you do be done as if it makes a difference.

Edison failed 10,000 times before he made the electric light. Do not be discouraged if you fail a few times.

If you want to see the true measure of a man, watch how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.

Pessimism never won any battle.

The way you see people is the way you treat them, and the way you treat them is what they become.

I don’t look to jump over 7-foot bars: I look around for 1-foot bars that I can step over.

You are never too young to learn, never too old to change.

You stay teachable most by reading books. By reading what other people went through.

Do the right thing. It will gratify some people and astonish the rest.

You don’t have to fear defeat if you believe it may reveal powers that you didn’t know you possessed.

Glory lies in the attempt to reach one’s goal and not in reaching it.

Every man I meet is in some way my superior.

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

We don’t mature momentarily, but over the long-term.

Start with what is right rather than what is acceptable.

Good habits formed at youth make all the difference.

I wrote my first song at 12 and remember someone asking, ‚What were you going through at 12 that you could write about?‘ I get what you’re saying, but 11, 12, 13 were the hardest years of my life. You learn everything. You learn how horrible things feel.

There’s people that tried to celebrate when I lost that got nothing to do with it. That’s not the sign of a champion.

I like today and perhaps a little future still, but the past is really something I’m not interested in. So, as far as I’m concerned, I like only the past of things and people I don’t know. When I know, I don’t care because I knew how it was.

As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands, one for helping yourself, the other for helping others.

If everything was perfect, you would never learn and you would never grow.

It will never rain roses: when we want to have more roses we must plant more trees.

Defeat doesn’t finish a man, quit does. A man is not finished when he’s defeated. He’s finished when he quits.

Do right. Do your best. Treat others as you want to be treated.