Only those who want everything done for them are bored.

What is once well done is done forever.

It is not God’s will merely that we should be happy, but that we should make ourselves happy.

On every front there are clear answers out there that can make this country stronger, but we’re going to break through the fear and the frustration people are feeling. Our job is to make sure that even as we make progress, that we are also giving people a sense of hope and vision for the future.

Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.

If my businesses or my investments are not profitable, then I don’t eat. And I like to eat.

Positional leaders ignore the fact that every person has hopes, dreams, desires, and goals of his own. And leaders must bring their vision and the aspirations of the people they lead together in a way that benefits everyone.

Energy, like the biblical grain of the mustard-seed, will remove mountains.

With ideas it is like with dizzy heights you climb: At first they cause you discomfort and you are anxious to get down, distrustful of your own powers; but soon the remoteness of the turmoil of life and the inspiring influence of the altitude calm your blood; your step gets firm and sure and you begin to look – for dizzier heights.

My whole thing is to inspire, to better people, to better myself forever in this thing that we call rap, this thing that we call hip hop.

You have to come to your closed doors before you get to your open doors… What if you knew you had to go through 32 closed doors before you got to your open door? Well, then you’d come to closed door number eight and you’d think, ‚Great, I got another one out of the way’… Keep moving forward.

Don’t worry when you are not recognized, but strive to be worthy of recognition.

Someone is sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.

The question is not, ‚Do you have a problem?‘ The question is, ‚Does the problem have you?‘

People have to go through trials and tribulations to get where they at. Do your thing – continue to rock it – because obviously, God wants you here.

The moment the alarm goes off is the first test; it sets the tone for the rest of the day. The test is not a complex one: when the alarm goes off, do you get up out of bed, or do you lie there in comfort and fall back to sleep? If you have the discipline to get out of bed, you win – you pass the test.

The harder I work, the luckier I become.

No one has a right to consume happiness without producing it.

Success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom.

I have always believed, and I still believe, that whatever good or bad fortune may come our way we can always give it meaning and transform it into something of value.

But if I have a lot of imagination, I could tell myself whatever I wanted, you know. I handle myself quite well. I’m kind of fascist with myself, you know. There’s no discussion. There is an order. You follow it.

There is a great discovery still to be made in literature, that of paying literary men by the quantity they do not write.

Power is the measure of the degree of control you have over circumstances in your life and the actions of the people around you. It is a skill that is developed by a deep understanding of human nature, of what truly motivates people, and of the manipulations necessary for advancement and protection.

Let’s be very clear: Strong men – men who are truly role models – don’t need to put down women to make themselves feel powerful. People who are truly strong lift others up. People who are truly powerful bring others together.

Competition gives me energy. It keeps me focused.

Stupidly it should not be. It should be also nice. One must get along with that. Is however not necessary.

If I’m going to get you to do stuff, I need to lead you. I can’t just order you to do it.

It has always been my belief that a man should do his best, regardless of how much he receives for his services, or the number of people he may be serving or the class of people served.

I have goals.

There’s a lack of people in power that are motivated by the idea of helping people.

You have enough people against you… be for yourself.

The mind of a 19-year-old is very different from the mind of a 26-year-old. You grow. You get into better relationships. You experience more, meet more people, better people. But when you’re in a dark hole at an earlier point in your life – you write about the mindset you’re in at that moment.

Most of us have far more courage than we ever dreamed we possessed.

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

A man’s felicity consists not in the outward and visible blessing of fortune, but in the inward and unseen perfections and riches of the mind.

Leisure is the time for doing something useful. This leisure the diligent person will obtain the lazy one never.

I’d rather be optimistic and wrong than pessimistic and right.

Don’t wait. The time will never be just right.

The good part about youngsters is that they are so fearless. You want to be like them.

I’m trying to show everybody that I’m a girl, and I’m five foot four, and you can do anything you want, no matter your gender. It’s your world, too!

It is easy to get everything you want, provided you first learn to do without the things you cannot get.

Leaders must be close enough to relate to others, but far enough ahead to motivate them.

Trust yourself. Create the kind of self that you will be happy to live with all your life. Make the most of yourself by fanning the tiny, inner sparks of possibility into flames of achievement.

Man is the only creature that consumes without producing. He does not give milk, he does not lay eggs, he is too weak to pull the plough, he cannot run fast enough to catch rabbits. Yet he is lord of all the animals.

Listen; there’s a hell of a good universe next door: let’s go.

I use my celebrity status to inspire someone, to give them hope.

We don’t want to wait on someone to hire us and give us a check. We want to create our own opportunities.

Women must pay for everything. They do get more glory than men for comparable feats, but, they also get more notoriety when they crash.

The people who are doing the work are the moving force behind the Macintosh. My job is to create a space for them, to clear out the rest of the organization and keep it at bay.

The fact is that ours is the first generation that can look disease and extreme poverty in the eye, look across the ocean to Africa, and say this, and mean it. We do not have to stand for this. A whole continent written off – we do not have to stand for this.

There is nothing impossible to him who will try.

If you only have a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.

Without discipline, there’s no life at all.

To be honest with you, when I got into this I never thought about reviews. I never thought about what people would say about me. I was just a young guy who was excited to become a comedian and an actor and I just wanted to get to do what I got to do.

Things do not change; we change.

If you choose to do something, attack it. You can hate me, but there’s one thing you can’t say about me – that I didn’t attack it.

Do the duty which lies nearest to you, the second duty will then become clearer.

When I stop working the rest of the day is posthumous. I’m only really alive when I’m writing.

Kind words do not cost much. Yet they accomplish much.

Power is given only to those who dare to lower themselves and pick it up. Only one thing matters, one thing; to be able to dare!

The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure, the process is its own reward.