My goals are so high that I don’t have time to relax in any way, shape or form.

Ambition can creep as well as soar.

I don’t believe in pessimism. If something doesn’t come up the way you want, forge ahead. If you think it’s going to rain, it will.

There is no failure except in no longer trying.

My mother had bought a sewing machine for me. When I went away to college, she gave me a sewing machine, a typewriter and a suitcase, and my mother made $17 a week working as a maid 12 hours a day, and she did that for me.

I want to go and go, and then drop dead in the middle of something I’m loving to do. And if that doesn’t happen, if I wind up sitting in a wheelchair, at least I’ll have my high heels on.

However great may be the work for which we are responsible, we will always do well if we pause to spend time in sacred praise.

I know what it feels like to struggle to get the education that you need.

I can take it. The tougher it gets, the cooler I get.

My interest in creating anything is that it be useful.

The ninety and nine are with dreams, content but the hope of the world made new, is the hundredth man who is grimly bent on making those dreams come true.

I remember the last three days that I was president, I never went to bed at all. I never went to bed until we had negotiated the final release of the hostages.

You have to stay faithful to what you’re working on.

There can be economy only where there is efficiency.

Not knowing when the dawn will come I open every door.

I want to be the greatest actor that ever lived, frankly. I’d love that. But I don’t need to be. I just want to be here. That’s it.

I will keep America moving forward, always forward, for a better America, for an endless enduring dream and a thousand Points of Light. This is my mission, and I will complete it.

The truth is, anyone can start projects. The world is full of just-started projects that looked great at the time but were never completed.

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

I have a deep, deep belief that if I tell you I’m going to crack you with a clean shot to the chin inside one minute of the first round and you will be unconscious, well, then that’s what will happen.

Every man, and for stronger reasons, every artist, wants to be recognized. So do I.

I want to believe that I am improving. This is something that I take really seriously.

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.

Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on offices, a rottenness begins in his conduct.

If it doesn’t work out there will never be any doubt that the pleasure was worth all the pain.

I focus on my own job.

It’s really annoying for me. That’s not what I’m playing for, to be the face of the NBA or to be this or that or to take LeBron’s throne or whatever.

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.

‚Perfection‘ to me is, I walk away from a situation and say, ‚I did everything I could do right there. There was nothing more that I could do.‘ I was a hundred percent, like the meter was at the top. There was nothing else I could have done. You know? Like, I worked as hard as I possibly could have. That’s perfection.

If you believe in what you are doing, then let nothing hold you up in your work. Much of the best work of the world has been done against seeming impossibilities. The thing is to get the work done.

You can’t knock on opportunity’s door and not be ready.

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

I do not think that there is any other quality so essential to success of any kind as the quality of perseverance. It overcomes almost everything, even nature.

When it is obvious that the goals cannot be reached, don’t adjust the goals, adjust the action steps.

One cannot become a saint when one works sixteen hours a day.

I never see what has been done; I only see what remains to be done.

How many a man has thrown up his hands at a time when a little more effort, a little more patience would have achieved success.

There must be a reason why some people can afford to live well. They must have worked for it. I only feel angry when I see waste. When I see people throwing away things that we could use.

And I love that even in the toughest moments, when we’re all sweating it – when we’re worried that the bill won’t pass, and it seems like all is lost – Barack never lets himself get distracted by the chatter and the noise. Just like his grandmother, he just keeps getting up and moving forward… with patience and wisdom, and courage and grace.

You can’t try to do things; you simply must do them.

What starts the process, really, are laughs and slights and snubs when you are a kid. If your anger is deep enough and strong enough, you learn that you can change those attitudes by excellence, personal gut performance.

It’s not fun to get out of bed early in the morning. When the alarm goes off, it doesn’t sing you a song: it hits you in the head with a baseball bat. So how do you respond to that? Do you crawl underneath your covers and hide? Or do you get up, get aggressive, and attack the day?

This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.

I should be a postage stamp, because that’s the only way I’ll ever get licked. I’m beautiful. I’m fast. I’m so mean I make medicine sick. I can’t possibly be beat.

He who waits to do a great deal of good at once will never do anything.

I came to New York to be a fine artist – that was my ambition.

The end of labor is to gain leisure.

Do whatever you will, but first be such as are able to will.

It is very difficult to get people to focus on the most important things when you’re in boom times.

Reform is not pleasant, but grievous; no person can reform themselves without suffering and hard work, how much less a nation.

The boy who is going to make a great man must not make up his mind merely to overcome a thousand obstacles, but to win in spite of a thousand repulses and defeats.

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

When I was young, I observed that nine out of ten things I did were failures. So I did ten times more work.

I still wanna rap better than everybody else, and I wanna say important things.

On a given day, a given circumstance, you think you have a limit.

There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.

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

Big jobs usually go to the men who prove their ability to outgrow small ones.

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 can die a happy man never having been president of the United States of America. But it doesn’t mean I won’t run.

It was a personal decision for me to stand and say that cricket is all I have in life, there’s nothing I need to do other than cricket. If I want to achieve whatever I thought as a kid, I need to work hard and not let it go to waste.