My dad has kind of been the standard for me, he played 16 years in the league, and since I’ve been in the league, every year that I go through and deal with the scratches, the bumps and bruises, just the grind that it is to go through one NBA season.

The only thing wrong with the NBA – or any other professional sport, for that matter – is a wild epidemic of Dumbness and overweening Greed. There is no Mystery about it, and no need to change any rules.

If you want to shine like a sun, first burn like a sun.

There may sometimes be ungenerous attempts to keep a young man down; and they will succeed, too, if he allows his mind to be diverted from its true channel to brood over the attempted injury.

A reputation as a hard worker is a good reputation to have.

Serious illness doesn’t bother me for long because I am too inhospitable a host.

A fly, Sir, may sting a stately horse and make him wince; but, one is but an insect, and the other is a horse still.

When I get up and work out, I’m working out just as much for my girls as I am for me, because I want them to see a mother who loves them dearly, who invests in them, but who also invests in herself. It’s just as much about letting them know as young women that it is okay to put yourself a little higher on your priority list.

Black people in America, people from the struggle, immigrants, it’s no generational wealth that we are attached to, so we are tasked to create – in one generation – closing the gap. That’s why we so Doomsday about getting to the check: ‚cause it’s life or death for real.

An ass may bray a good while before he shakes the stars down.

No man can succeed in a line of endeavor which he does not like.

He that lives upon hope will die fasting.

Wherever the enemy wants to fight, we will follow him to the ends of the Earth. We’ll adapt, we’ll train, we’ll advise, we’ll mentor, and we’ll fight, and we’ll fight well.

If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.

Life is a gamble. You can get hurt, but people die in plane crashes, lose their arms and legs in car accidents; people die every day. Same with fighters: some die, some get hurt, some go on. You just don’t let yourself believe it will happen to you.

It took a lot of blood, sweat and tears to get to where we are today, but we have just begun. Today we begin in earnest the work of making sure that the world we leave our children is just a little bit better than the one we inhabit today.

I think my biggest musical hero growing up was probably Ian MacKaye. He set a great example for all of us local musicians. Still, to this day, I see him as the best example of a right-on musician.

On the mountains of truth you can never climb in vain: either you will reach a point higher up today, or you will be training your powers so that you will be able to climb higher tomorrow.

It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or by demons, heaven or hell.

Difficulties should act as a tonic. They should spur us to greater exertion.

When I grow up, I want to be like Balvin.

I did 20 years in the Navy. I joined the Navy right out of high school and went through Navy boot camp, went to SEAL training, got done with that, and then showed up at a SEAL team, where I did 20 years. That was pretty much my whole adult life.

The longer a man’s fame is likely to last, the longer it will be in coming.

We did it Disneyland, in the knowledge that most of the people I talked to thought it would be a financial disaster – closed and forgotten within the first year.

Courage is grace under pressure.

Although the circumstances of our lives may seem very disengaged, with me standing here as the First Lady of the United States of America and you just getting through school, I want you to know we have very much in common. For nothing in my life ever would have predicted that I would be standing here as the first African-American First Lady.

Yesterday’s home runs don’t win today’s games.

A well adjusted person is one who makes the same mistake twice without getting nervous.

You might win some, you might lose some. But you go in, you challenge yourself, you become a better man, a better individual, a better fighter.

Imagine your family finally making it from nothing to something, and finally getting things going, and finally buying a beautiful house and taking care of your children – and the next day, it’s completely all gone. Zero. Boom. Flat broke. So that’s when I had to man up.

We can take a ‚It was hard to get there.‘ But we ain’t taking no loss. We’re going to win.

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.

Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.

I just kept touring and touring until it became second nature to go onstage, perform, and sing.

Even the knowledge of my own fallibility cannot keep me from making mistakes. Only when I fall do I get up again.

There will be days when I walk in an arena and people will cheer and then there might be days when I walk in an arena and people might boo, but it all sounds the same to me because it’s all just noise that lets me know that I’m relevant.

If you’re going to spend two years of your life on something, it has to matter to you; you have to be passionate about it.

Nobody can hurt me without my permission.

Happy is he who still loves something he loved in the nursery: He has not been broken in two by time; he is not two men, but one, and he has saved not only his soul but his life.

In a lot of ways, success is much harder than I thought it would be. I figured that you’d get here and then everything would be happily ever after. But, it’s hard work, almost harder once you’re successful because you’ve got to maintain it.

Seventy percent of success in life is showing up.

The size of your success is measured by the strength of your desire; the size of your dream; and how you handle disappointment along the way.

Everyone wants to know and hopes I retire so they can get the jobs. But my contracts with Fendi and Chanel are lifelong.

I stayed focused, and I never surrendered, and now I’ve been blessed. now I take care of my mother, my father, and my entire whole family.

I’m no longer just a candidate. I’m the President. I know what it means to send young Americans into battle, for I have held in my arms the mothers and fathers of those who didn’t return. I’ve shared the pain of families who’ve lost their homes, and the frustration of workers who’ve lost their jobs.

Take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly, and try another. But by all means, try something.

If a man does his best, what else is there?

This lady is not for turning.

Great grief does not of itself put an end to itself.

I’m not a good storm-outer… because I forget stuff.

When I was writing ‚Kitchen Confidential,‘ I was in my 40s, I had never paid rent on time, I was 10 years behind on my taxes, I had never owned my own furniture or a car.

The farmer has to be an optimist or he wouldn’t still be a farmer.

The willow which bends to the tempest, often escapes better than the oak which resists it; and so in great calamities, it sometimes happens that light and frivolous spirits recover their elasticity and presence of mind sooner than those of a loftier character.

It take many a year, mon, and maybe some bloodshed must be, but righteousness someday prevail.

In fact, my courage and my bravery at a young age was the thing I was bullied for, a kind of ‚Who do you think you are?‘

Someone said to me, ‚If fifty percent of the experts in Hollywood said you had no talent and should give up, what would you do?‘ My answer was then and still is, ‚If a hundred percent told me that, all one hundred percent would be wrong.‘

As a father, I always want my son to be perfect. When he was young, I tried to train him in martial arts, but he said, ‚I don’t want to become like Bruce Lee’s son, with everybody telling me how good my father was.‘ I just think my son is too lazy.

Just because something didn’t work out your way, or somebody disappointed you, that does not change who you are.

I used to have a real problem with self-pity. Every time the devil would throw a pity party, I would attend.

Why did I become Jackie Chan? Mostly because I work very hard. When people were sleeping, I was still training.

Hope is important because it can make the present moment less difficult to bear. If we believe that tomorrow will be better, we can bear a hardship today.