My message to all the activists is to just keep going, and I know it really may seem impossible and hopeless sometimes – it always does – so you just have to keep going because if you try hard enough and long enough you will make a difference.

My mother had a saying: ‚Kamala, you may be the first to do many things, but make sure you’re not the last.‘

I have to keep improving myself and challenging myself.

The most pathetic person in the world is someone who has sight, but has no vision.

I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.

If you are a small company taking on a big company, you need to have a sense of humor.

Never, never, never give up.

I simply can’t build my hopes on a foundation of confusion, misery and death… I think… peace and tranquillity will return again.

Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try!

You’ve got to have faith in what you’re doing and not take no for an answer.

Every reform movement has a lunatic fringe.

I am a grafter.

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.

My own feeling is that one should refuse to participate in any activity that implements American aggression – thus tax refusal, draft refusal, avoidance of work that can be used by the agencies of militarism and repression, all seem to me essential.

All successful people men and women are big dreamers. They imagine what their future could be, ideal in every respect, and then they work every day toward their distant vision, that goal or purpose.

It is only hope which is real, and reality is a bitterness and a deceit.

At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.

They say miracles are past.

People need motivation to do anything. I don’t think human beings learn anything without desperation.

The people know their rights, and they are never slow to assert and maintain them when they are invaded.

When I used to play sports, I’d be the one cheering the team on, ‚Come on, we can beat these guys!‘ That’s just in me.

People think because I’ve got some success, I’ve made it, but in my eyes it’s like, ‚How long has Jay Z been in the business? How many albums has he got?‘ Not that I’m trying to be Jay Z, but I am trying to be around for a long time.

Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for love of it.

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

Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another, but let him work diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built.

He who seeks rest finds boredom. He who seeks work finds rest.

Speakers who talk about what life has taught them never fail to keep the attention of their listeners.

I never expected any sort of success with ‚Mockingbird’… I sort of hoped someone would like it enough to give me encouragement.

Building a mission and building a business go hand in hand. The primary thing that excites me is the mission. But we have always had a healthy understanding that we need to do both.

Time and the hour run through the roughest day.

It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.

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

I intend to inspire people with my story: motivate young people that grew up like myself, or even not like myself. Just, you know, go through the human experience.

Only if you have been in the deepest valley, can you ever know how magnificent it is to be on the highest mountain.

The vote is the most powerful instrument ever devised by man for breaking down injustice and destroying the terrible walls which imprison men because they are different from other men.

If you wish to succeed in life, make perseverance your bosom friend, experience your wise counselor, caution your elder brother, and hope your guardian genius.

When his life was ruined, his family killed, his farm destroyed, Job knelt down on the ground and yelled up to the heavens, ‚Why god? Why me?‘ and the thundering voice of God answered, ‚There’s just something about you that pisses me off.‘

I strongly believe that missionaries make better products. They care more. For a missionary, it’s not just about the business. There has to be a business, and the business has to make sense, but that’s not why you do it. You do it because you have something meaningful that motivates you.

Bring them on.

Courage – you develop courage by doing small things like just as if you wouldn’t want to pick up a 100-pound weight without preparing yourself.

The problem with writing a book in verse is, to be successful, it has to sound like you knocked it off on a rainy Friday afternoon. It has to sound easy. When you can do it, it helps tremendously because it’s a thing that forces kids to read on. You have this unconsummated feeling if you stop.

Human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge.

Act enthusiastic and you will be enthusiastic.

The healthiest competition occurs when average people win by putting above average effort.

The struggle alone pleases us, not the victory.

America was not built on fear. America was built on courage, on imagination and an unbeatable determination to do the job at hand.

Truth stands, even if there be no public support. It is self-sustained.

In two decades I’ve lost a total of 789 pounds. I should be hanging from a charm bracelet.

Where the willingness is great, the difficulties cannot be great.

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.

I hoped to be able to write a novel which would enable me to live on it while I wrote the next.

I don’t intend to stop making music.

Do what you feel in your heart to be right- for you’ll be criticized anyway. You’ll be damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.

I can’t keep somebody from being a star, and I can’t make somebody a star, and nobody can.

When a person starts to talk about their dreams, it’s as if something bubbles up from within. Their eyes brighten, their face glows, and you can feel the excitement in their words.

When you create circumstances together, when you try everything, then you can lose. But you need to show the importance.

I think if I keep working in the way that I am, from the heart and from passion and with love, well, the fruits of that will keep coming.

I was born in Harlem, raised in the South Bronx, went to public school, got out of public college, went into the Army, and then I just stuck with it.

It behooves every man to remember that the work of the critic is of altogether secondary importance, and that, in the end, progress is accomplished by the man who does things.

He is a man of courage who does not run away, but remains at his post and fights against the enemy.

I got the stern end of the stick. It was kind of that iron fist. I am who I am today because of my mother.