Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.

It was patriotism, not communism, that inspired me.

There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat. And we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures.

Where the mind goes, the man follows.

If I’m inspired to make a certain kind of song, I’m going to make that kind of song, no matter if it’s what they know me as or think I am.

We should not give up and we should not allow the problem to defeat us.

No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.

Life is one grand, sweet song, so start the music.

I was an overnight sensation.

Part of the issue of achievement is to be able to set realistic goals, but that’s one of the hardest things to do because you don’t always know exactly where you’re going, and you shouldn’t.

The problem with writing a book in verse is, to be successful, it has to sound like you knocked it off on a rainy Friday afternoon. It has to sound easy. When you can do it, it helps tremendously because it’s a thing that forces kids to read on. You have this unconsummated feeling if you stop.

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

Practice yourself, for heaven’s sake in little things, and then proceed to greater.

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

Success in creating AI would be the biggest event in human history. Unfortunately, it might also be the last, unless we learn how to avoid the risks.

Children’s talent to endure stems from their ignorance of alternatives.

My whole life and my whole career, even through my music, I tell people: let’s unify; let’s show more love.

To have faith is to trust yourself to the water. When you swim you don’t grab hold of the water, because if you do you will sink and drown. Instead you relax, and float.

I didn’t want to become a professor or get tenure or teach or anything. All I wanted to do was get a degree because Louis Leakey said I needed one, which was right, and once I succeeded I could get back to the field.

As long as you live, keep learning how to live.

The person who goes farthest is generally the one who is willing to do and dare. The sure-thing boat never gets far from shore.

It is better to be the hammer than the anvil.

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

My first wish is to see this plague of mankind, war, banished from the earth.

Work out your own salvation. Do not depend on others.

People aren’t supposed to look back. I’m certainly not going to do it anymore.

Adversity is sometimes hard upon a man; but for one man who can stand prosperity, there are a hundred that will stand adversity.

With a tree, all the growth takes place at the growing tips. Humanity is exactly the same. All the growth takes place in the growing tip: among that one percent of the population. It’s made up of pioneers, the beginners. That’s where the action is.

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

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.

It’s so clear that you have to cherish everyone. I think that’s what I get from these older black women, that every soul is to be cherished, that every flower Is to bloom.

Beauty without grace is the hook without the bait.

I’ve run the Boston Marathon 6 times before. I think the best aspects of the marathon are the beautiful changes of the scenery along the route and the warmth of the people’s support. I feel happier every time I enter this marathon.

Genius without education is like silver in the mine.

My job is to bring out in people what they wouldn’t dare do themselves.

The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just.

Success comes to those who have an entire mountain of gold that they continually mine, not those who find one nugget and try to live on it for fifty years.

We are all of us stars, and we deserve to twinkle.

Do not let Sunday be taken from you. If your soul has no Sunday, it becomes an orphan.

People think that at the top there isn’t much room. They tend to think of it as an Everest. My message is that there is tons of room at the top.

There have to be reasons that you get up in the morning and you want to live. Why do you want to live? What’s the point? What inspires you? What do you love about the future? If the future does not include being out there among the stars and being a multi-planet species, I find that incredibly depressing.

Critics only make you stronger. You have to look at what they are saying as feedback. Sometimes the feedback helps, and other times, it’s just noise that can be a distraction.

Any artist, the work you do, if it’s a painting or if it’s a performance, you hope it translates to a common denominator with the people that they see something in their own life in there. Or they see something in somebody else’s life. That’s what’s fun about sharing art.

And poets, in my view, and I think the view of most people, do speak God’s language – it’s better, it’s finer, it’s language on a higher plane than ordinary people speak in their daily lives.

You must take the compromise to win, or else nothing. That means: you race or you do not.

If children grew up according to early indications, we should have nothing but geniuses.

What I admire most about Hillary is that she never buckles under pressure. She never takes the easy way out. And Hillary Clinton has never quit on anything in her life. And when I think about the kind of president that I want for my girls and all our children, that’s what I want.

My favorite literary heroine is Jo March. It is hard to overstate what she meant to a small, plain girl called Jo, who had a hot temper and a burning ambition to be a writer.

Van Gogh never made a penny in his entire lifetime. He painted because it was his soul, his excitement. It was what aligned him with his Source of being. It’s the same with me and writing.

Success is always dangerous, and we need to be alert and avoid becoming the victims of our own success. Will we influence the world for Christ, or will the world influence us?

I was never top of the class at school, but my classmates must have seen potential in me, because my nickname was ‚Einstein.‘

Imagination rules the world.

Mission presidents hold keys of responsibility for the welfare, safety, and success of their missionaries.

Listen; there’s a hell of a good universe next door: let’s go.

Music is this divine thing, the closest that we can get to something divine. It’s like this instinct we all own, and some of us have found a way to hear that music and write it down and share it with people.

If I’d observed all the rules, I’d never have got anywhere.

I’ve been lucky. Opportunities don’t often come along. So, when they do, you have to grab them.

There is nothing impossible to him who will try.

The capacity of the female mind for studies of the highest order cannot be doubted, having been sufficiently illustrated by its works of genius, of erudition, and of science.

Young people can create beautiful things.

Stay hungry, stay foolish.