Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be.

The world would be happier if men had the same capacity to be silent that they have to speak.

I was a kind of hyper-intense person in my twenties and very impatient.

He who gives away shall have real gain. He who subdues himself shall be free; he shall cease to be a slave of passions. The righteous man casts off evil, and by rooting out lust, bitterness, and illusion do we reach Nirvana.

Talent is something that comes from within; it has nothing to do with age.

He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life.

What you put into life is what you get out of it.

Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.

Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.

Once someone has spent enough time cultivating bad habits and biding their time, they are much diminished. Much of what they could have been has dissipated.

To remain a credible leader, I must always work first, hardest, and longest on changing myself. This is neither easy nor natural, but it is essential.

To take a few nouns, and a few pronouns, and adverbs and adjectives, and put them together, ball them up, and throw them against the wall to make them bounce. That’s what Norman Mailer did. That’s what James Baldwin did, and Joan Didion did, and that’s what I do – that’s what I mean to do.

Motivation is simple. You eliminate those who are not motivated.

There’s hope for everyone. That’s what makes the world go round.

It takes as much energy to wish as it does to plan.

By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.

I never had a policy; I have just tried to do my very best each and every day.

Education is what you learn after you leave school.

Never, and I mean never, allow anyone else’s ideas of who you can or can’t become sully your dream or pollute your imagination. This is your territory, and a ‚Keep Out‘ sign is a great thing to erect at all entrances to your imagination.

I respect Drake not only as a creative person but as a business mind as well. I think Drake’s important.

‚Two Voices,‘ from my album with Peter Schwalm, is an intact dream-poem. I awoke one night with an image of a piece of paper and all the words of the poem written on it, so I just blundered down to the kitchen table and ‚copied it out.‘

Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.

Keep a good attitude and do the right thing even when it’s hard. When you do that you are passing the test. And God promises you your marked moments are on their way.

Carry the battle to them. Don’t let them bring it to you. Put them on the defensive and don’t ever apologize for anything.

You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.

I make preparations both to live and to die every day, but with the emphasis on not dying, and on acting as if I was going to carry on living.

I must uphold my ideals, for perhaps the time will come when I shall be able to carry them out.

Competition gives me energy. It keeps me focused.

Mostly, my flying has been solo, but the preparation for it wasn’t. Without my husband’s help and encouragement, I could not have attempted what I have. Ours has been a contented and reasonable partnership, he with his solo jobs and I with mine. But always with work and play together, conducted under a satisfactory system of dual control.

Every bit of me is devoted to love and art. And I aspire to try to be a teacher to my young fans who feel just like I felt when I was younger. I just felt like a freak. I guess what I’m trying to say is I’m trying to liberate them, I want to free them of their fears and make them feel that they can make their own space in the world.

Just as our eyes need light in order to see, our minds need ideas in order to conceive.

My drive is other people’s success.

I know my flaws before other people point them out to me.

Imagination decides everything.

Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.

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

If you want to be a good writer, be the best writer in the world. That’s what I’ve done.

How few there are who have courage enough to own their faults, or resolution enough to mend them.

Life is about growing and improving and getting better.

It’s so easy to settle for less than God’s best for us because we don’t always feel like taking responsibility for our behavior or putting forth some effort to do what we need to do so we can accomplish great things for God and help people. But the cost of settling for less is actually harder than being completely obedient to God’s will.

I like to see a man proud of the place in which he lives. I like to see a man live so that his place will be proud of him.

What a blind person needs is not a teacher but another self.

Pursue one great decisive aim with force and determination.

A lot of people don’t realise I came out of the Smoky Mountains with a load of songs.

Vanity can create a very cruel space for you if you don’t know how to manage it.

If I get stuck, I look at a book that tells me how someone else did it. I turn the pages, and then I say, ‚Oh, I forgot that bit,‘ then close the book and carry on. Finally, after you’ve figured out how to do it, you read how they did it and find out how dumb your solution is and how much more clever and efficient theirs is!

Great works are performed not by strength but by perseverance.

Whenever you do a thing, act as if all the world were watching.

Opportunity dances with those already on the dance floor.

Only those who want everything done for them are bored.

Keep your nose out the sky, keep your heart to god, and keep your face to the raising sun.

There is a single light of science, and to brighten it anywhere is to brighten it everywhere.

The U. S. Constitution doesn’t guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself.

The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.

I don’t lose any sleep at night over the potential for failure. I cannot even spell the word.

Pretension is a poor joke that you play on yourself. Snap out of it. Recognise your strengths, work on your weaknesses. Real achievement is liking what you see in the mirror every morning.

If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid.

Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.

Wherever you are, be there totally. If you find your here and now intolerable and it makes you unhappy, you have three options: remove yourself from the situation, change it, or accept it totally. If you want to take responsibility for your life, you must choose one of those three options, and you must choose now. Then accept the consequences.

Personally I’m always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught.

That he delights in the misery of others no man will confess, and yet what other motive can make a father cruel?