Running taught me valuable lessons. In cross-country competition, training counted more than intrinsic ability, and I could compensate for a lack of natural aptitude with diligence and discipline. I applied this in everything I did.

I am absolutely my own biggest critic.

Speak the truth, do not yield to anger; give, if thou art asked for little; by these three steps thou wilt go near the gods.

The idea of going to school and getting a job is the most destructive one in your brain.

Since we cannot know all that there is to be known about anything, we ought to know a little about everything.

Better is the enemy of good.

I’m not saying that love always takes you to heaven. Your life can become a nightmare. But that said, it is worth taking the risk.

When we are thinking about stuff like embeds, we are not thinking about how we are competing with YouTube. We are thinking about how are we going to make it more useful for people to share stuff on Facebook.

If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.

One of the huge imbalances in life is the disparity between your daily existence, with its routines and habits, and the dream you have within yourself of some extraordinarily satisfying way of living.

Bring your desires down to your present means. Increase them only when your increased means permit.

We are often raised as dependents then given over to teachers. It’s experience and exploration that can transform us and lead to mastery.

I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor.

Alas! You complain that your soul is out of tune. Then ask the Master to tune the heart-strings.

Let not your mind run on what you lack as much as on what you have already.

Are we a nation that educates the world’s best and brightest in our universities, only to send them home to create businesses in countries that compete against us? Or are we a nation that encourages them to stay and create jobs, businesses, and industries right here in America?

I have to keep improving myself and challenging myself.

When the negative thoughts come – and they will; they come to all of us – it’s not enough to just not dwell on it… You’ve got to replace it with a positive thought.

Some people think literature is high culture and that it should only have a small readership. I don’t think so… I have to compete with popular culture, including TV, magazines, movies and video games.

Let others lead small lives, but not you. Let others argue over small things, but not you. Let others cry over small hurts, but not you. Let others leave their future in someone else’s hands, but not you.

The mind is the limit. As long as the mind can envision the fact that you can do something, you can do it, as long as you really believe 100 percent.

Men take only their needs into consideration – never their abilities.

Many a man’s strength is in opposition, and when he faileth, he grows out of use.

If you are first you are first. If you are second you are nothing.

Those who lack the courage will always find a philosophy to justify it.

I always had a repulsive need to be something more than human.

There are three methods to gaining wisdom. The first is reflection, which is the highest. The second is limitation, which is the easiest. The third is experience, which is the bitterest.

Observe all men, thyself most.

Watch out for the joy-stealers: gossip, criticism, complaining, faultfinding, and a negative, judgmental attitude.

There is nothing, Sir, too little for so little a creature as man. It is by studying little things that we attain the great art of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible.

Believing in progress does not mean believing that any progress has yet been made.

Perfectionism is not the same thing as striving to be our best. Perfectionism is not about healthy achievement and growth; it’s a shield.

It is not living that matters, but living rightly.

‚Victory Lap,‘ even the title. It’s the accumulation of trial and error; that’s what I represent; trial and error.

Basically it starts with four months of training, just basic stretching, kicking and punching. Then you come to the choreography and getting ready to put the dance together.

The giving of love is an education in itself.

I want to thank God, obviously for the health, for the talent He’s given me, for my family who supports me, for the things that basketball’s taught me on and off the court. For the people that I’ve been able to meet through the game of basketball.

Things do not always happen the way I would like them to happen, and I had better get used to that.

Mistakes are always forgivable, if one has the courage to admit them.

Youth is wasted on the young.

If you don’t set the tone for the day, the devil will set it for you.

To learn something but not to do is really not to learn. To know something but not to do is really not to know.

If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.

What is Champions League level? I saw a lot of rubbish games at Champions League level.

Work harder on yourself than you do on your job.

Each success only buys an admission ticket to a more difficult problem.

A mother takes twenty years to make a man of her boy, and another woman makes a fool of him in twenty minutes.

Being humble matters.

To be good is noble; but to show others how to be good is nobler and no trouble.

Those who today always look for disciplinarian solutions, those who long for an exaggerated doctrinal ‚security,‘ those who stubbornly try to recover a past that no longer exists – they have a static and inward-directed view of things. In this way, faith becomes an ideology among other ideologies.

Disciplining yourself to do what you know is right and important, although difficult, is the highroad to pride, self-esteem, and personal satisfaction.

One’s only rival is one’s own potentialities. One’s only failure is failing to live up to one’s own possibilities. In this sense, every man can be a king, and must therefore be treated like a king.

Without sounding biased, 70 days of football is not enough. Even if Messi plays 70 days he cannot be in the national team. You need to play around the year to be in contention for the national team.

No matter what your mission is, have some notion in your head. Forget the model, whether it’s government or nonprofit or profit. Ask yourself the more important question: Is my mission improving the world? Are you sure about it? Seek to disconfirm that all the time. And if you can, change your mission.

Suppose that we are wise enough to learn and know – and yet not wise enough to control our learning and knowledge, so that we use it to destroy ourselves? Even if that is so, knowledge remains better than ignorance.

The need for change bulldozed a road down the center of my mind.

Autobiographies are only useful as the lives you read about and analyze may suggest to you something that you may find useful in your own journey through life.

I feel like this: Whatever is in your path and in your heart, you need to do.

Should you find yourself in a chronically leaking boat, energy devoted to changing vessels is likely to be more productive than energy devoted to patching leaks.

I feel confident imposing change on myself. It’s a lot more fun progressing than looking back. That’s why I need to throw curve balls.

If you’ve got a talent, protect it.