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

In order for the light to shine so brightly, the darkness must be present.

Do not quench your inspiration and your imagination; do not become the slave of your model.

If you want to be enthusiastic, act enthusiastic.

The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles, but to irrigate deserts.

When nature has work to be done, she creates a genius to do it.

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.

If you wish to be a success in the world, promise everything, deliver nothing.

To be sensual, I think, is to respect and rejoice in the force of life, of life itself, and to be present in all that one does, from the effort of loving to the making of bread.

Never put off till tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow.

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

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

The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.

Ability is nothing without opportunity.

One thing that I find very unmotivating is the kind of Plan B argument: when Earth gets destroyed, you want to be somewhere else. That doesn’t work for me. We have sent robotic probes now to every place in the solar system, and this is the best one.

I think, because I started Virgin when I was a teenager, it has become a part of me, like my family, and I am motivated by ambition for it, almost as if it were a child.

You are going to let the fear of poverty govern you life and your reward will be that you will eat, but you will not live.

I go to assume a task more difficult than that which devolved upon Washington. Unless the great God, who assisted him, shall be with me and aid me, I must fail; but if the same omniscient mind and almighty arm that directed and protected him shall guide and support me, I shall not fail – I shall succeed.

If you want to shine like a sun, first burn like a sun.

Our plans miscarry because they have no aim. When a man does not know what harbor he is making for, no wind is the right wind.

Never regret what you don’t write.

There is always the danger that we may just do the work for the sake of the work. This is where the respect and the love and the devotion come in – that we do it to God, to Christ, and that’s why we try to do it as beautifully as possible.

I think Himalayan climbers tend to mature fairly late. I think most of the successful Himalayan climbers have ranged from 28 to just over 40, really.

Follow your honest convictions and be strong.

Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get.

Inspiration is hard to come by. You have to take it where you find it.

At first, I was called a quack, a charlatan, and worse, year after year, in Australia, England and the United States, by men who simply refused to believe that a nurse from ‚the bush‘ could devise a treatment which succeeded where they had failed.

Remember your dreams and fight for them. You must know what you want from life. There is just one thing that makes your dream become impossible: the fear of failure.

The man who has no imagination has no wings.

I’ve made my share of mistakes along the way, but if I have changed even one life for the better, I haven’t lived in vain.

Loving others always costs us something and requires effort. And you have to decide to do it on purpose. You can’t wait for a feeling to motivate you.

If one dream dies, dream another dream. If you get knocked down, get back up and go again.

I like to talk to myself ahead of time so when temptation comes, I’ve already made up my mind that I have the victory.

We aim above the mark to hit the mark.

How many a man has thrown up his hands at a time when a little more effort, a little more patience would have achieved success.

I have only one understanding of development and of making success, and that’s by going step by step.

The beginning is the most important part of the work.

Good leadership consists of showing average people how to do the work of superior people.

I do not think there is any thrill that can go through the human heart like that felt by the inventor as he sees some creation of the brain unfolding to success… such emotions make a man forget food, sleep, friends, love, everything.

We moved into the back, made it into a little 50s sitting room and started to sell the records. We had an immediate success. For one thing, these Teddy Boys were thrilled to buy the records.

Why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me.

In the United States, I am a great success, but I am not a celebrity.

It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or by demons, heaven or hell.

You will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the greatest quality of the mind next to honor.

Let the future tell the truth, and evaluate each one according to his work and accomplishments. The present is theirs; the future, for which I have really worked, is mine.

A leader is a dealer in hope.

One must not cheat anyone, not even the world of its victory.

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

I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has had to overcome while trying to succeed.

My success isn’t a result of arrogance – it’s a result of belief.

I just feel like, with rappers, there’s so much complacency. It’s like, ‚Oh, I’m a rapper. I’m successful. I make money. That’s all that matters.‘ But there’s a lot of stuff going on in the world. Whether or not you’re aware of it, it’s happening.

Whenever you do something, people try to re-do it and do a better version, especially if they’re in another country.

I can live for two months on a good compliment.

When I was nine years old, living on the south side of Chicago, my father was a minister and my mother used to scrub floors. I had seven brothers and four sisters. I told my mama, ‚One of these days I’m going to be big and strong and buy you a beautiful house.‘ That’s all I’ve ever wanted to do with my life, is to take care of my mother.

People rarely succeed unless they have fun in what they are doing.

Winning – that’s the most important to me. It’s as simple as that.

If a victory is told in detail, one can no longer distinguish it from a defeat.

My first win feels better than a draw!

If your inner life is not producing what you would like on the outside, don’t be discouraged… just be willing to change.

Those who believe that they are exclusively in the right are generally those who achieve something.

It is only through labor and painful effort, by grim energy and resolute courage, that we move on to better things.