Move fast and break things. Unless you are breaking stuff, you are not moving fast enough.

Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.

With a tree, all the growth takes place at the growing tips. Humanity is exactly the same. All the growth takes place in the growing tip: among that one percent of the population. It’s made up of pioneers, the beginners. That’s where the action is.

If you’re walking down the right path and you’re willing to keep walking, eventually you’ll make progress.

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

It is too difficult to think nobly when one thinks only of earning a living.

Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example.

I don’t spend my time pontificating about high-concept things; I spend my time solving engineering and manufacturing problems.

It isn’t sufficient just to want – you’ve got to ask yourself what you are going to do to get the things you want.

Apply yourself both now and in the next life. Without effort, you cannot be prosperous. Though the land be good, You cannot have an abundant crop without cultivation.

The march of the human mind is slow.

Learn to say ‚no‘ to the good so you can say ‚yes‘ to the best.

Fun is one of the most important – and underrated – ingredients in any successful venture. If you’re not having fun, then it’s probably time to call it quits and try something else.

The best leaders understand the motivations of their team members and know their people – their lives and their families. But a leader must never grow so close to subordinates that one member of the team becomes more important than another, or more important than the mission itself.

Having unlimited choices can paralyze you creatively.

You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it.

Business is never so healthy as when, like a chicken, it must do a certain amount of scratching around for what it gets.

People tend to think that life really does progress for everyone eventually, that people progress, but actually only some people progress. The rest of the people don’t.

It is only imperfection that complains of what is imperfect. The more perfect we are the more gentle and quiet we become towards the defects of others.

A lot of times, people have something that they’re afraid of. They’ve got a client that’s mad at them. They’ve got a project that’s due. And they let that stress hang over their head. I don’t let that happen.

Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail.

The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places.

If I’m going to get you to do stuff, I need to lead you. I can’t just order you to do it.

You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.

Feelings are more dangerous than ideas, because they aren’t susceptible to rational evaluation. They grow quietly, spreading underground, and erupt suddenly, all over the place.

Affirmation without discipline is the beginning of delusion.

I believe enlightenment or revelation comes in daily life. I look for joy, the peace of action. You need action. I’d have stopped writing years ago if it were for the money.

Don’t be afraid to give your best to what seemingly are small jobs. Every time you conquer one it makes you that much stronger. If you do the little jobs well, the big ones will tend to take care of themselves.

I like to use the hard times in the past to motivate me today.

I am never satisfied with myself and that is what keeps me going – I have no post-satisfaction.

Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.

The progress of evolution from President Washington to President Grant was alone evidence to upset Darwin.

Fresh activity is the only means of overcoming adversity.

I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.

To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.

It is for us to pray not for tasks equal to our powers, but for powers equal to our tasks, to go forward with a great desire forever beating at the door of our hearts as we travel toward our distant goal.

If you want a thing done well, do it yourself.

My success isn’t a result of arrogance – it’s a result of belief.

Whatever America hopes to bring to pass in the world must first come to pass in the heart of America.

What one has to do usually can be done.

You can be passionate about anything.

Without work, all life goes rotten. But when work is soulless, life stifles and dies.

I’m bloody awful at multi-tasking.

Faith is not something to grasp, it is a state to grow into.

The revolution is not an apple that falls when it is ripe. You have to make it fall.

Never leave that till tomorrow which you can do today.

90 percent of my time is spent on 10 percent of the world.

People like Frank Zappa and Bryan Ferry knew we could pick and choose from the history of music, stick things together looking for friction and energy. They were more like playwrights; they invented characters and wrote a life around them.

America thrived in the 20th century because we made high school free. We sent a generation to college. We cultivated the most educated workforce in the world.

I don’t focus on the critics. Everyone who is making any difference in any field has critics. As long as I feel like I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing, then I don’t worry about it.

Tell me I have to be somewhere, and I’ll be there 20 minutes early and stay there longer than anybody else. You hold up a lot of people if you’re not on time.

If a subject excites us, if it stirs our deepest curiosity, or if we have to learn because the stakes are high, we pay much more attention. What we absorb sinks in.

My interest in creating anything is that it be useful.

The end of labor is to gain leisure.

With ideas it is like with dizzy heights you climb: At first they cause you discomfort and you are anxious to get down, distrustful of your own powers; but soon the remoteness of the turmoil of life and the inspiring influence of the altitude calm your blood; your step gets firm and sure and you begin to look – for dizzier heights.

A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject.

Never complain and never explain.

The risk for me would be in not taking one – that’s the only thing that’s really risky for me.

Learned helplessness is the giving-up reaction, the quitting response that follows from the belief that whatever you do doesn’t matter.

People work better when they know what the goal is and why. It is important that people look forward to coming to work in the morning and enjoy working.

Intellectual property has the shelf life of a banana.