Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome.

There’s no real excuse for being successful enough as an actor to do what you want and then selling out. You do it pure. You don’t try to adapt it, make it commercial.

The day-to-day making of policy is arguing all the time. You’re trying to get the right approach and the right answer, and there are moments that aren’t very pleasant. But in the end, you look at the overall product.

I’m happy being myself, which I’ve never been before. I always hid in other people, or tried to find myself through the characters, or live out their lives, but I didn’t have those things in mine.

I liked his ability to deal with a lot of the negativity that surrounded him. Even though he was in a world that he didn’t want to be in, he still saw the bigger picture.

Every movie I make teaches me something. That’s why I keep making them.

You’ve got to have faith in what you’re doing and not take no for an answer.

I’m only as good as my last word, my last hook, my last bridge.

Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.

Each player must accept the cards life deals him or her: but once they are in hand, he or she alone must decide how to play the cards in order to win the game.

I have dreams, and I want to see them come to fruition.

The important achievement of Apollo was demonstrating that humanity is not forever chained to this planet and our visions go rather further than that and our opportunities are unlimited.

The dreams and passions stored within hearts are powerful keys which can unlock a wealth of potential.

The one thing about the business of entertainment is that you have to learn patience.

I always tried to turn every disaster into an opportunity.

The men who learn endurance, are they who call the whole world, brother.

Whatever good things we build end up building us.

Having these colossal accolades and titles, they get in the way.

If I wouldn’t have found Courtney, I probably would have carried on with a bisexual lifestyle.

Courage that grows from constitution often forsakes a man when he has occasion for it; courage which arises from a sense of duty acts; in a uniform manner.

To this day, some of my closest friends say, ‚Gaga, you know, everything’s great. You’re a singer; your dreams have come true.‘ But, still, when certain things are said to you over and over again as you’re growing up, it stays with you and you wonder if they’re true.

You can bear your own faults, and why not a fault in your wife?

When I look back on my life as a whole, it is impossible for me not to feel blessed.

Life isn’t meant to be easy. It’s hard to take being on the top – or on the bottom. I guess I’m something of a fatalist. You have to have a sense of history, I think, to survive some of these things… Life is one crisis after another.

We are never deceived; we deceive ourselves.

When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions.

An employer of mine back in the ’80s was kind enough to take me on after a rough patch, and it made a big difference in my life that I knew I was the sort of person who showed up on time. It’s a basic tell of character.

I had writer’s block for almost a year.

One thing I want to make clear, as far as my own rebirth is concerned, the final authority is myself and no one else, and obviously not China’s Communists.

What I’m asking for is hard. It’s easier to be cynical; to accept that change isn’t possible, and politics is hopeless, and to believe that our voices and actions don’t matter. But if we give up now, then we forsake a better future.

The way of the Creative works through change and transformation, so that each thing receives its true nature and destiny and comes into permanent accord with the Great Harmony: this is what furthers and what perseveres.

I’m inconsistent, even to myself.

Ambition should be made of sterner stuff.

Yesterday’s home runs don’t win today’s games.

If you start by promising what you don’t even have yet, you’ll lose your desire to work towards getting it.

One must marry one’s feelings to one’s beliefs and ideas. That is probably the only way to achieve a measure of harmony in one’s life.

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.

I never did anything worth doing by accident, nor did any of my inventions come by accident; they came by work.

The secret of success is to be ready when your opportunity comes.

Bob Houghton is a great coach and I am confident that the national team will do well under him.

Experience is not what happens to you; it’s what you do with what happens to you.

I think it is the height of ignorance to believe that the sexual act is an independent function necessary like sleeping or eating. Seeing, therefore, that I did not desire more children, I began to strive after self-control. There was endless difficulty in the task.

I’m inspired by people who keep on rolling, no matter their age.

I don’t want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it through not dying.

Virtue is a state of war, and to live in it we have always to combat with ourselves.

All progress is precarious, and the solution of one problem brings us face to face with another problem.

I have to write 100 songs before you write the first good one.

I was inspired to spend an entire year – my 65th year – reading, researching, and meditating on Lao-tzu’s messages, practicing them and ultimately writing down these insights as I felt Lao-tzu wanted us to know them.

I have an expression I use as I’ve gone around the world through my career: ‚You never tell another man or woman what’s in their interest. They know their interest better than you know their interest.‘

People will try to bring you down, but you gotta go up.

Every man’s memory is his private literature.

Riches have never fascinated me, unless combined with the greatest charm or distinction.

To have a comeback, you have to have a setback.

I have a personal ambition to live my life honestly and honor the true love that I’ve had and also the people I’ve had around me.

I think most of the important stuff on the Internet has been built. There will be continued innovation, for sure, but the great problems of the Internet have essentially been solved.

The successful men I admired all built their bodies.

I fear that too many have sadly surrendered their agency to the adversary and are saying by their conduct, ‚I care more about satisfying my own desires than I do about bearing the Savior’s power to bless others.‘

When you start to realise how much of what you’ve constructed of yourself is based on deception and lies, that is a horrifying realisation.

It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not deserve them.

Joanne‘ is a progression for me. It was about going into the studio and forgetting that I was famous.

Develop an attitude of gratitude, and give thanks for everything that happens to you, knowing that every step forward is a step toward achieving something bigger and better than your current situation.