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

If you think in terms of a year, plant a seed; if in terms of ten years, plant trees; if in terms of 100 years, teach the people.

It is the set of the sails, not the direction of the wind that determines which way we will go.

You can become an even more excellent person by constantly setting higher and higher standards for yourself and then by doing everything possible to live up to those standards.

I have not worked out my poems with a careful will, falling rather on haphazard and blind formulation of wordage, a more flowing concept, in a hope for a more new and lively path. I do personalize at times, but this only for the grace and elan of the dance.

If you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work.

I believe everyone should have a good death. You know, with your grandchildren around you, a bit of sobbing. Because after all, tears are appropriate on a death bed. And you say goodbye to your loved ones, making certain that one of them has been left behind to look after the shop.

God hangs the greatest weights upon the smallest wires.

I gather from motivation around me – from a lot of personalities who have done well in their respective fields.

In the case of the environment, there’s no one to bail it out.

To the person with a firm purpose all men and things are servants.

I don’t look to jump over 7-foot bars: I look around for 1-foot bars that I can step over.

Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you.

We must get rid of fossil fuels by developing injection systems for automobiles, which can run on bio-fuel.

It does not take much strength to do things, but it requires great strength to decide on what to do.

It’s easier to resist at the beginning than at the end.

It is necessary for me to establish a winner image. Therefore, I have to beat somebody.

The reward of one duty is the power to fulfill another.

Basketball is booming, and it’s not just an Under Armour standpoint: it’s about the game itself. Kids going out and playing and being inspired by what we do on the court.

I don’t write the books. God writes the books and delivers the speeches.

Sometimes, getting up in the morning and brushing your teeth is the hardest part of the day – it all just hurts.

Getting out of bed is like the foundation of the discipline, and I think it carries over into everything else.

I think beating myself up sometimes and knowing I am not happy when I do it makes me work harder to do a good job.

Though ambition in itself is a vice, it often is also the parent of virtue.

A little more persistence, a little more effort, and what seemed hopeless failure may turn to glorious success.

We write for the same reason that we walk, talk, climb mountains or swim the oceans – because we can. We have some impulse within us that makes us want to explain ourselves to other human beings. That’s why we paint, that’s why we dare to love someone – because we have the impulse to explain who we are.

Effort only fully releases its reward after a person refuses to quit.

This world is but a canvas to our imagination.

Somebody once asked me what my theory of life was, and I said, ‚Don’t try.‘ That fits the writing, too. I don’t try; I just type.

Yes, and I can sit down on a white piece of paper and work because I don’t believe too much into inspiration, only I’m waiting for inspiration, work and then inspiration may come. It’s a little too easy to say that.

Every artist preserves deep within him a single source from which, throughout his lifetime, he draws what he is, and what he says. When the source dries up, the work withers and crumbles.

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

The most interesting biofuel efforts avoid using land that’s expensive and has high opportunity costs. They do this by getting onto other types of land, or taking advantage of byproducts that aren’t used in the food chain today, or by intercropping.

I believe that one person can make a difference.

To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee, One clover, and a bee, And revery. The revery alone will do, If bees are few.

I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious.

People buy into the leader before they buy into the vision.

To explain all nature is too difficult a task for any one man or even for any one age. ‚Tis much better to do a little with certainty & leave the rest for others that come after you.

I’m not a prophet or a stone aged man, just a mortal with potential of a superman. I’m living on.

When you are enthusiastic about what you do, you feel this positive energy. It’s very simple.

Success is blocked by concentrating on it and planning for it… Success is shy – it won’t come out while you’re watching.

The situation the Earth is in today has been created by unmindful production and unmindful consumption. We consume to forget our worries and our anxieties. Tranquilising ourselves with over-consumption is not the way.

Difficulties should act as a tonic. They should spur us to greater exertion.

Don’t be a writer; it’s a terrible way to live your life. There’s nothing to be gained from it but poverty and obscurity and solitude. So if you have a taste for all those things, which means that you really are burning to do it, then go ahead and do it. But don’t expect anything from anybody.

Providence has its appointed hour for everything. We cannot command results, we can only strive.

If you don’t live your life, then who will?

I think there are a number of things that you can do to encourage your kids‘ dreams, but I do believe in speaking by experience of having a lot of help along the way, stumbling in the past. We’ve all stumbled, and we certainly all deserve to get up and walk again.

The most pathetic person in the world is someone who has sight, but has no vision.

People don’t care about what someone says about you in a movie – or even what you say, right? They care about what you build. And if you can make something that makes people’s life better, then that’s something that’s really good.

In the realm of ideas everything depends on enthusiasm… in the real world all rests on perseverance.

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

Every secret of a writer’s soul, every experience of his life, every quality of his mind is written large in his works.

Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life.

I try to prepare for everything beyond the extent of preparation.

There is no passion to be found playing small – in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.

Love is the flower you’ve got to let grow.

I’m always asked, ‚What’s the secret to success?‘ But there are no secrets. Be humble. Be hungry. And always be the hardest worker in the room.

You can get help from teachers, but you are going to have to learn a lot by yourself, sitting alone in a room.

Science fiction writers foresee the inevitable, and although problems and catastrophes may be inevitable, solutions are not.

Failure after long perseverance is much grander than never to have a striving good enough to be called a failure.

The most valuable of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it has to be done, whether you like it or not.