The softest things in the world overcome the hardest things in the world.

I’m always trying. Between every book, I think, ‚Well now, it’s time to get down to the serious stuff.‘

It took me 40 years to write my first book. When I was a child, I was encouraged to go to school. I was not encouraged to follow the career of a writer because my parents thought that I was going to starve to death.

Wherever the enemy wants to fight, we will follow him to the ends of the Earth. We’ll adapt, we’ll train, we’ll advise, we’ll mentor, and we’ll fight, and we’ll fight well.

A woman is like a tea bag – you can’t tell how strong she is until you put her in hot water.

Not to go back is somewhat to advance, and men must walk, at least, before they dance.

It’s a piece of cake until you get to the top. You find you can’t stop playing the game the way you’ve always played it.

If I’d had some set idea of a finish line, don’t you think I would have crossed it years ago?

There are people out there who hate me and who say I’m arrogant, vain, and whatever. That’s all part of my success. I am made to be the best.

I’m so tough and so bad, I can be humble and lift another guy up.

I don’t regard myself as a cracking good climber. I’m just strong in the back. I have a lot of enthusiasm, and I’m good on ice.

I have always believed, and I still believe, that whatever good or bad fortune may come our way we can always give it meaning and transform it into something of value.

Failure is not a single, cataclysmic event. You don’t fail overnight. Instead, failure is a few errors in judgement, repeated every day.

Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.

Fun is one of the most important – and underrated – ingredients in any successful venture. If you’re not having fun, then it’s probably time to call it quits and try something else.

I feel like people can relate to me because we all go through wins and roadblocks and passion and pain, and it’s a vibe.

I never read one hateful thing said about me by some 12 year old. So I got to live an actual life. And I’ve kept that mentality. Just because there’s a hurricane going on around you doesn’t mean you have to open the window and look at it.

By perseverance the snail reached the ark.

If patience is worth anything, it must endure to the end of time. And a living faith will last in the midst of the blackest storm.

Only a man who knows what it is like to be defeated can reach down to the bottom of his soul and come up with the extra ounce of power it takes to win when the match is even.

The longer a man’s fame is likely to last, the longer it will be in coming.

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.

America’s promises do not come with a price tag. We meet our commitments. We bear our burdens. That’s one of the reasons why almost every country on Earth sees America as stronger and more respected today than they did eight years ago when I took office.

Unrestrained liberalism only makes the strong stronger and the weak weaker and excludes the most excluded.

A feeble body weakens the mind.

Let a man who has to make his fortune in life remember this maxim: Attacking is the only secret. Dare and the world yields, or if it beats you sometimes, dare it again and you will succeed.

Whatever you want to do, do with full passion and work really hard towards it. Don’t look anywhere else. There will be a few distractions, but if you can be true to yourself, you will be successful for sure.

In war there is no prize for runner-up.

Only when the tide goes out do you discover who’s been swimming naked.

If you cannot understand that there is something in man which responds to the challenge of this mountain and goes out to meet it, that the struggle is the struggle of life itself upward and forever upward, then you won’t see why we go.

Hope is important because it can make the present moment less difficult to bear. If we believe that tomorrow will be better, we can bear a hardship today.

I will seize fate by the throat; it shall certainly never wholly overcome me.

I’ve had big record label presidents look me in the face and say, ‚Your music sucks, you don’t know who you are, your music is all over the place, and we don’t know how to market this stuff. Pick a lane and come back to us.‘

I am a grafter.

My freshman and sophomore years in high school, I spent a lot of time trying to get back on the right track. I was arrested multiple times by the time I was 16, so I had a little harder time trying to adjust like a lot of us do in high school.

A man’s got to take a lot of punishment to write a really funny book.

I was 18 years old, and it was a dream come true for me to work out and eat great food for free. What else do you want in life? People think that is what it is like to be in a SEAL team, but it is less than a fraction of your career as a real SEAL.

We should learn to accept that change is truly the only thing that’s going on always, and learn to ride with it and enjoy it.

Take things as they are. Punch when you have to punch. Kick when you have to kick.

Tears shed for self are tears of weakness, but tears shed for others are a sign of strength.

We all know we have a finite period of time. I just feel if I’m going to be alive, I want to be challenged – to be as immortal as possible. The path to that isn’t an easy way, but it’s a rewarding way.

Our passions are like convulsion fits, which, though they make us stronger for a time, leave us the weaker ever after.

Unwearied ceaseless effort is the price that must be paid for turning faith into a rich infallible experience.

Silence is a source of great strength.

I’m not going to stop having problems.

You get to a point where it’s like you can’t really do anything right, and people will pick on you for whatever decisions you make, so I just try and take no notice and get on with my music.

The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.

Keep a good attitude and do the right thing even when it’s hard. When you do that you are passing the test. And God promises you your marked moments are on their way.

The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.

Human beings must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it.

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

I have always been pushed by the negative. The apparent failure of a play sends me back to my typewriter that very night, before the reviews are out. I am more compelled to get back to work than if I had a success.

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

The superior man makes the difficulty to be overcome his first interest; success only comes later.

When we make progress quickly, it feeds our emotions. Then, when there’s a period of waiting or we hit a plateau, we find out how committed we really are and whether we’re going to see things through to the finish or quit.

An ass may bray a good while before he shakes the stars down.

Any man can make mistakes, but only an idiot persists in his error.

Business is never so healthy as when, like a chicken, it must do a certain amount of scratching around for what it gets.

Difficulties are things that show a person what they are.

Eradications are special. Zero is a magic number. You either do what it takes to get to zero and you’re glad you did it; or you get close, give up and it goes back to where it was before, in which case you wasted all that credibility, activity, money that could have been applied to other things.

America was not built on fear. America was built on courage, on imagination and an unbeatable determination to do the job at hand.