One that desires to excel should endeavor in those things that are in themselves most excellent.

A lot of artists fail when they try to act, and they flop. So when I get into acting, it’s going to be to do it well, something good, something of quality. I want people to say, ‚Wow, that movie‘ – or that show or whatever – ‚turned out really well.‘

By the time you get dressed, drive out there, play 18 holes and come home, you’ve blown seven hours. There are better things you can do with your time.

Satisfaction lies in the effort, not in the attainment, full effort is full victory.

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.

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

You have learnt something. That always feels at first as if you had lost something.

I was a little worried that young people would think the only game was being political and manipulative when really the bigger game is being so good at what you do that nobody can argue with your results.

Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact.

Everybody is going to have their critics. It’s easy to get discouraged in life.

Elegance is usually confused with superficiality, fashion, lack of depth. This is a serious mistake: human beings need to have elegance in their actions and in their posture because this word is synonymous with good taste, amiability, equilibrium and harmony.

When you are aspiring to the highest place, it is honorable to reach the second or even the third rank.

There is a fine balance between honoring the past and losing yourself in it. For example, you can acknowledge and learn from mistakes you made, and then move on and refocus on the now. It is called forgiving yourself.

I can never be safe; I always try and go against the grain. As soon as I accomplish one thing, I just set a higher goal. That’s how I’ve gotten to where I am.

Nearly all the things I do that are of any merit at all start off just being good fun, and I think I’m sort of building up to doing something else quite soon.

O wretched man, wretched not just because of what you are, but also because you do not know how wretched you are!

One cannot develop taste from what is of average quality but only from the very best.

It is a most delightful reflection that if I come to the throne of God in prayer, I may feel a thousand defects, but yet there is hope. I usually feel more dissatisfied with my prayers than with anything else I do.

Finite to fail, but infinite to venture.

Just do what must be done. This may not be happiness, but it is greatness.

The successful men I admired all built their bodies.

I have a good team. It’s good to have a good team.

Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

In inner-city, low-income communities of color, there’s such a high correlation in terms of educational quality and success.

My mother and my father have been married 50 years, and he’s just started to understand that something’s wrong with the system. He accepted the whole thing, you see. Yet this industrious kind of engagement didn’t bring him the success, according to American terms, that he wanted. I was probably affected by this very much. In fact, I know I was.

Fame can take interesting men and thrust mediocrity upon them.

If you don’t live your life, then who will?

I was lucky – I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents‘ garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years, Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees.

Small aim is a crime; have great aim.

Growing up I didn’t watch movies.

Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.

Choose silence of all virtues, for by it you hear other men’s imperfections, and conceal your own.

Without football, my life is worth nothing.

Self-control means wanting to be effective at some random point in the infinite radiations of my spiritual existence.

Man falls from the pursuit of the ideal of plan living and high thinking the moment he wants to multiply his daily wants. Man’s happiness really lies in contentment.

Seventy percent of success in life is showing up.

Whatever work you do, you think are you doing this for the good of the nation? That’s the basic training. The other basic training is discipline. Your life should be disciplined. The other thing they say is what work you get, do it well.

Impossible is a word to be found only in the dictionary of fools.

It was like I was in a tunnel. Not only the tunnel under the hotel but the whole circuit was a tunnel. I was just going and going, more and more and more and more. I was way over the limit but still able to find even more.

You know, I’m trying to chase rings, and that’s all I’m about. So that’s where the conversation stops for me.

I think it’s very important to have a feedback loop, where you’re constantly thinking about what you’ve done and how you could be doing it better.

I’m one of the world’s most self-conscious people. I really have to struggle.

Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.

I’ve been studying the Bible for a long time. I remember that after the first five years or so of diligently studying the Word, I didn’t feel like I had made any progress. There were a lot of things in my life that were out of order, and I didn’t feel like I was getting anywhere.

If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable.

The first step on the way to victory is to recognize the enemy.

However many holy words you read, however many you speak, what good will they do you if you do not act on upon them?

Never be lucid, never state, if you would be regarded great.

No excellent soul is exempt from a mixture of madness.

Because forgiveness is like this: a room can be dank because you have closed the windows, you’ve closed the curtains. But the sun is shining outside, and the air is fresh outside. In order to get that fresh air, you have to get up and open the window and draw the curtains apart.

Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings.

Khrushchev reminds me of the tiger hunter who has picked a place on the wall to hang the tiger’s skin long before he has caught the tiger. This tiger has other ideas.

No one lives long enough to learn everything they need to learn starting from scratch. To be successful, we absolutely, positively have to find people who have already paid the price to learn the things that we need to learn to achieve our goals.

What really motivates people at Facebook is building something that’s worthwhile, that they’re going to be proud to show to friends and family.

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

Once you say you’re going to settle for second, that’s what happens to you in life.

The opportunities of America opened out to me the public schools. They carried me to the professional training of an American university. I began by working with my own hands for my daily bread.

I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday.

Real firmness is good for anything; strut is good for nothing.

I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartanlike as to put to rout all that was not life.

Egotism is the source and summary of all faults and miseries.