My dad was like a stage mother he always pushed me to do what I wanted.

We clearly see in God’s Word that anything He tells us to do, He will give us the ability to do it. But do we really believe it? Do we want to believe it? It’s easier to come up with excuses for why we can’t do things that are hard or that we really don’t want to do.

When we make progress quickly, it feeds our emotions. Then, when there’s a period of waiting or we hit a plateau, we find out how committed we really are and whether we’re going to see things through to the finish or quit.

When you’re in prison, you want to know that you were thought about.

Know what you want to do, hold the thought firmly, and do every day what should be done, and every sunset will see you that much nearer to your goal.

God wants to use you to make other people happy! And the happier you make others, the happier you will be because you reap what you sow.

Fighting for one’s freedom, struggling towards being free, is like struggling to be a poet or a good Christian or a good Jew or a good Muslim or good Zen Buddhist. You work all day long and achieve some kind of level of success by nightfall, go to sleep and wake up the next morning with the job still to be done. So you start all over again.

I must uphold my ideals, for perhaps the time will come when I shall be able to carry them out.

To lead people walk behind them.

I really thought I was on the way out. My husband Blake saved my life. Often I don’t know what I do, then the next day the memory returns. And then I am engulfed in shame.

I believe that one person can make a difference.

There’s nothing better than having a baby. I’ve always loved children. I used to work summers at the YMCA and be in charge of, like, 30 preschool kids. I knew that when I had a child, I’d be overwhelmed, and it’s true… I can’t tell you how much my attitude has changed since we’ve got Frances. Holding my baby is the best drug in the world.

Just as food eaten without appetite is a tedious nourishment, so does study without zeal damage the memory by not assimilating what it absorbs.

It’s not necessary to fear the prospect of failure but to be determined not to fail.

Sure I am of this, that you have only to endure to conquer.

Let parents bequeath to their children not riches, but the spirit of reverence.

It’s certainly not wrong to want to be a better person. God gave us that desire.

Years ago I met Richard Burton in Port Talbot, my home town, and afterwards he passed in his car with his wife, and I thought, ‚I want to get out and become like him‘. Not because of Wales, because I love Wales, but because I was so limited as a child at school and so bereft and lonely, and I thought becoming an actor would do that.

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

I believe it is universally understood and acknowledged that all men will ever act correctly, unless they have a motive to do otherwise.

I’m pretty calculating. I take stuff that I know appeals to people’s bad sides and match it up with stuff that appeals to their good sides.

Life doesn’t require that we be the best, only that we try our best.

Being a housewife and a mother is the biggest job in the world, but if it doesn’t interest you, don’t do it – I would have made a terrible mother.

The human body has two ends on it: one to create with and one to sit on. Sometimes people get their ends reversed. When this happens they need a kick in the seat of the pants.

We should not give up and we should not allow the problem to defeat us.

The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.

The man who goes alone can start today; but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready.

Never despair, but if you do, work on in despair.

The greatest mistake you can make in life is continually fearing that you’ll make one.

The secret of getting ahead is getting started.

It’s not worth doing something unless you were doing something that someone, somewere, would much rather you weren’t doing.

Every setback means you’re one step closer to seeing the dream come to pass.

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.‘

The great thing about having a bunch of kids is they just remind you that you’re the person who takes them to go poop!

All the songs I write are about human dynamics, whether it’s with girlfriends, boyfriends, or family.

We must all suffer one of two things: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret or disappointment.

You are 27 or 28 right? It is very tough to live at that age. When nothing is sure. I have sympathy with you.

Lil Wayne, that’s my brother. Birdman, that’s family.

I wouldn’t ever say if you’re having tough times then there must be something wrong with you or your attitude. Life’s a fight. It’s a good fight of faith. I encourage people to stay up, stay hopeful, stay faith-filled.

There’s a bond among a kitchen staff, I think. You spend more time with your chef in the kitchen than you do with your own family.

Once you start a working on something, don’t be afraid of failure and don’t abandon it. People who work sincerely are the happiest.

Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.

It was clear to me that if I could get through Princeton at the top of my class, I could do anything in the world.

I would rather entertain and hope that people learned something than educate people and hope they were entertained.

It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.

What we face may look insurmountable. But I learned something from all those years of training and competing. I learned something from all those sets and reps when I didn’t think I could lift another ounce of weight. What I learned is that we are always stronger than we know.

Let us touch the dying, the poor, the lonely and the unwanted according to the graces we have received and let us not be ashamed or slow to do the humble work.

There are people who want to make men’s lives more difficult for no other reason than the chance it provides them afterwards to offer their prescription for alleviating life; their Christianity, for instance.

Don’t wish it were easier, wish you were better.

Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.

If you try to fight the course, it will beat you.

I have short goals – to get better every day, to help my teammates every day – but my only ultimate goal is to win an NBA championship. It’s all that matters. I dream about it. I dream about it all the time, how it would look, how it would feel. It would be so amazing.

If you hear a voice within you say ‚you cannot paint,‘ then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.

Sisters are brittle things. God was penurious with me, which makes me shrewd with Him. One is a dainty sum! One bird, one cage, one flight; one song in those far woods, as yet suspected by faith only!

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.

He that raises a large family does, indeed, while he lives to observe them, stand a broader mark for sorrow; but then he stands a broader mark for pleasure too.

The best way out is always through.

All the learnin‘ my father paid for was a bit o‘ birch at one end and an alphabet at the other.

Nobody likes to fail. I want to succeed in everything I do, which isn’t much. But the things that I’m really passionate about, if I fail at those, if I’m not successful, what do I have?

I like to talk about my obsession with french fries because I don’t want people to think that ‚Let’s Move‘ is about complete, utter deprivation. It’s about moderation and real-life changes and ideas that really work for families.

I’m inspired by people who keep on rolling, no matter their age.