So many people have this idea: I want to achieve something great or be somebody great. And they neglect the step that leads to greatness. They don’t honor this step at this moment because they have this idea of some future moment where they are going to be great.

The great epochs of our life are the occasions when we gain the courage to rebaptize our evil qualities as our best qualities.

I’m all about evolution. I’m the first person to judge myself.

I say luck is when an opportunity comes along and you’re prepared for it.

In all my work, in the movies I write, the lyrics, the poetry, the prose, the essays, I am saying that we may encounter many defeats – maybe it’s imperative that we encounter the defeats – but we are much stronger than we appear to be and maybe much better than we allow ourselves to be. Human beings are more alike than unalike.

That feeling is so intoxicating, walking off the court holding the Larry O’Brien trophy. So I just want to do that again.

You learn a lot in life but there are a lot of tools and resources in school that help you grow professionally and personally for whatever goal you may want to achieve.

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

Well begun is half done.

One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar.

If you go to work on your goals, your goals will go to work on you. If you go to work on your plan, your plan will go to work on you. Whatever good things we build end up building us.

Don’t talk about what you have done or what you are going to do.

I think that at the start of a game, you’re always playing to win, and then maybe if you’re ahead late in the game, you start playing not to lose. The true competitors, though, are the ones who always play to win.

It’s a rule to give all, and it can make the difference if you work more. If you don’t have to give all, and you still win, what’s this?

As pessimistic as I am about the nature of human beings and our capacity for atrocity and malevolence and betrayal and laziness and inertia, and all those things, I think we can transcend all that and set things straight.

I’m not gonna be bad at anything, and I want to actually be the best at anything I’m doing. So if I’m playing basketball, if I’m taking the SATs, like, there’s a competitive spirit behind it. With production, it’s the same thing.

My public is growing up just as I am. After all, I’m not 19 anymore and if I stick with the sex bit, who will be paying to see me when I’m 50?

Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit. We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.

Reading is a basic tool in the living of a good life.

Learning never exhausts the mind.

Fear is real, but so is love.

The minute you got the Nobel Peace Prize, things that I said yesterday, with nobody paying too much attention, I say the same things after I got it – oh! It was quite crucial for people, and it helped our morale because apartheid did look invincible.

Great men, unknown to their generation, have their fame among the great who have preceded them, and all true worldly fame subsides from their high estimate beyond the stars.

Anything you put your mind to and add your imagination into can make your life a lot better and a lot more fun.

Nothing will work unless you do.

I am an example of what is possible when girls from the very beginning of their lives are loved and nurtured by people around them. I was surrounded by extraordinary women in my life who taught me about quiet strength and dignity.

Success is like reaching an important birthday and finding you’re exactly the same.

I read all the time, and I’m often struck by something I’m reading.

It is a fine thing to have ability, but the ability to discover ability in others is the true test.

You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe deserve your love and affection.

The true artist is not proud: he unfortunately sees that art has no limits; he feels darkly how far he is from the goal, and though he may be admired by others, he is sad not to have reached that point to which his better genius only appears as a distant, guiding sun.

If thou art a man, admire those who attempt great things, even though they fail.

Shun no toil to make yourself remarkable by some talent or other; yet do not devote yourself to one branch exclusively. Strive to get clear notions about all. Give up no science entirely; for science is but one.

Does anybody really think that they didn’t get what they had because they didn’t have the talent or the strength or the endurance or the commitment?

Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.

Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens.

I have to keep improving myself and challenging myself.

We all gonna die eventually from something or other, but don’t be a wimp. Put up a good fight.

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

Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.

Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.

If I inspire you, pay for it, period.

To err is human; to forgive, divine.

You must capture and keep the heart of the original and supremely able man before his brain can do its best.

Knowledge cultivates your seeds and does not sow in your seeds.

I claim to be a simple individual liable to err like any other fellow mortal. I own, however, that I have humility enough in me to confess my errors and to retrace my steps.

Is life not a thousand times too short for us to bore ourselves?

The higher we are placed, the more humbly we should walk.

The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.

Everybody has talent, it’s just a matter of moving around until you’ve discovered what it is.

If you wish to succeed in life, make perseverance your bosom friend, experience your wise counselor, caution your elder brother, and hope your guardian genius.

I keep working because I learn something new all the time.

If you’re bored with life – you don’t get up every morning with a burning desire to do things – you don’t have enough goals.

I’ve got a great ambition to die of exhaustion rather than boredom.

Don’t be a spectator, don’t let life pass you by.

Since I was old enough to understand what a songwriter/producer is, I’ve had a curiosity about how Max Martin creates what he creates. I wanted to see that happen. I wanted to be there. I wanted to learn from him.

I worked with someone who told me they’d never like me. But for some reason, I just felt like I needed her approval. So I started changing myself to please her. It made me stop being social and friendly. I was so unhappy.

Self-centered leaders manipulate when they move people for personal benefit. Mature leaders motivate by moving people for mutual benefit.

We should no longer measure our wealth and success in the graph that shows economic growth, but in the curve that shows the emissions of greenhouse gases.

What old people say you cannot do, you try and find that you can. Old deeds for old people, and new deeds for new.

A word after a word after a word is power.