My father was not a failure. After all, he was the father of a president of the United States.

I’m just a kid that defied the odds. I’m just a kid that ignored the doubt. I’m just a kid from a little place in Dublin, Ireland, that went all the way, and I’m going to continue to go all the way.

My favourite president, and the one I admired most, was Harry Truman.

Becoming famous was never what I wanted to do. There’s a lot of things that come with fame – it’s what people in the limelight have to do.

Everybody wants to be famous, but nobody wants to do the work. I live by that. You grind hard so you can play hard. At the end of the day, you put all the work in, and eventually it’ll pay off. It could be in a year, it could be in 30 years. Eventually, your hard work will pay off.

However my parents – both of whom came from impoverished backgrounds and neither of whom had been to college, took the view that my overactive imagination was an amusing quirk that would never pay a mortgage or secure a pension.

Love matches, so called, have illusion for their father and need for their mother.

People do not decide to become extraordinary. They decide to accomplish extraordinary things.

Without discipline, there’s no life at all.

Remember, always give your best. Never get discouraged. Never be petty. Always remember, others may hate you. But those who hate you don’t win unless you hate them. And then you destroy yourself.

Until you have cultivated the habit of saying some kind word of those whom you do not admire, you will be neither successful nor happy.

The other day the President said, I know you’ve had some rough times, and I want to do something that will show the nation what faith that I have in you, in your maturity and sense of responsibility. He paused, then said, would you like a puppy?

It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.

Pursue one great decisive aim with force and determination.

The individual who can do something that the world wants done will, in the end, make his way regardless of his race.

Self-belief and hard work will always earn you success.

I still have my first paycheck. It was just, I think, a dollar or two that I got when I started as a songwriter with BMI, and I had some songs there that I had through the company, and in the mail I got this big old check for, like, a dollar and a half or something. Somebody had recorded one of my songs.

The key to success is to focus our conscious mind on things we desire not things we fear.

I believe that one key to success is to accept truth, no matter how it’s spoken.

I don’t see how people are comfortable with seeing other people be great. You can be happy for anybody, but what is your excuse to not want to be great? These people are great because they just say, ‚I’ma do that,‘ and they do it. That’s it. There’s no scientifical process.

I’ve been blessed to be somebody that’s been climbing that success mountain top for years of hard work, you know, but now it’s all connecting. And now, the whole world is watching, you know what I’m saying, and it feels good ‚cause it’s good energy. This is all positive vibes, and good vibes and good energy, so it feels incredible.

Fame and power are the objects of all men. Even their partial fruition is gained by very few; and that, too, at the expense of social pleasure, health, conscience, life.

People think that at the top there isn’t much room. They tend to think of it as an Everest. My message is that there is tons of room at the top.

Do I think faith will be an important part of being a good president? Yes, I do.

How fortunate I was to be alive and a lawyer when, for the first time in United States history, it became possible to urge, successfully, before legislatures and courts, the equal-citizenship stature of women and men as a fundamental constitutional principle.

Of course it would be nice for everybody and myself if we could win but we can still have a personal or a team win if we achieve a target that is effectively a win for us.

That some achieve great success, is proof to all that others can achieve it as well.

Don’t wait to be successful at some future point. Have a successful relationship with the present moment and be fully present in whatever you are doing. That is success.

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

Part of the secret of a success in life is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside.

Mothers all want their sons to grow up to be president, but they don’t want them to become politicians in the process.

Undoubtedly, the U.S. harbors leading international terrorists, people described by the F.B.I. and the Justice Department as leading terrorists, like Orlando Bosch, now Posada Carriles, not to speak of those who actually implement state terrorism.

Let’s teach kids, at the kindergarten level, what the contributions of people of color were to building the United States of America.

If you always put limit on everything you do, physical or anything else. It will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them.

In many respects, the United States is a great country. Freedom of speech is protected more than in any other country. It is also a very free society.

I love being in the United States Senate.

I’m not going to get somewhere and say, ‚OK, I’m done.‘ Success is never final; I’ll just keep on going. The same way as failure never being fatal. Just keep going. I’m going to the stars and then past them.

I calculate that I took 20,000 punches, but I earned millions and kept a lot of it. I may talk slow, but my mind is OK.

I guess that’s one of the things about growing up in the fifties – it never occurred to me that you wouldn’t be at least as successful as your parents.

If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself.

One of the finest statesmen of the present time is also a first-class scout, and that is Mr. Roosevelt, the late President of the United States of America.

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

The finest steel has to go through the hottest fire.

There’s not a liberal America and a conservative America – there’s the United States of America.

Of all the men that have run for president in the twentieth century, only George McGovern truly understood what a monument America could be to the human race.

The purposes of the United States should not be doubted. The Security Council resolutions will be enforced – the just demands of peace and security will be met – or action will be unavoidable. And a regime that has lost its legitimacy will also lose its power.

God has already done everything He’s going to do. The ball is now in your court. If you want success, if you want wisdom, if you want to be prosperous and healthy, you’re going to have to do more than meditate and believe; you must boldly declare words of faith and victory over yourself and your family.

Obedience brings success; exact obedience brings miracles.

Old age is like everything else. To make a success of it, you’ve got to start young.

I don’t believe I’ll ever get credit for anything I do in foreign affairs, no matter how successful it is, because I didn’t go to Harvard.

My unpredictability is what separates me. If you move in so many ways, your opponent is not focused on what he’s doing. He’s focusing in on what you’re doing, and it freezes him. When they freeze and you hit, they shatter like glass.

The will to win, the desire to succeed, the urge to reach your full potential… these are the keys that will unlock the door to personal excellence.

My son is becoming me – just a silly, silly prankster guy.

I am the Democratic Party’s candidate for president who happens also to be a Catholic. I do not speak for my church on public matters – and the church does not speak for me.

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.

In the United States, I am a great success, but I am not a celebrity.

A successful lawsuit is the one worn by a policeman.

As long as somebody finances you, can make a film and get it seen any place and in any language; then, hopefully, it’s a success.

Everything rises and falls on leadership.

Personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures.

I’m not the smartest fellow in the world, but I can sure pick smart colleagues.